Morning Metro: Emory Student Arrested, MARTA Fares Going Up, and Two Dogs Dining
Decatur Metro | September 30, 2011 | 9:52 am- Emory Student Arrested in SAT Cheating Sting [Emory Wheel]
- Sh*t People Steal: from Fox Bros BBQ [Eater Atlanta]
- MARTA One-Way Ride Rate Goes up to $2.50 on Sunday [AJC]
- A Tour of Big Bethel AMC Church [Architecture Tourist]
- Tough Love for “Art on the Beltline” [ArtsCriticATL]
- New Renderings of the Mixed Use Formally Known as “Streets of Buckhead [ABC]
- Cobb Thinks Twice About TIA Transit Funding [Fresh Loaf]
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April 23, 2015 MM: City Considering Purchasing Boys & Girls Club Site, Unique Sewage Recycling, and U.S. Migration (22)
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April 21, 2015 MM: Poll Shows Gwinnett Favors MARTA, Bike Registration, and Art Festivals & the Local Arist (4)
The “MARTA is well managed” case gets harder to make every day, doesn’t it? To go 8 years with no fare increases, then start jacking up the fares by double digit percentages amid a major recession, is remarkably poor planning and execution. And the worst of it is not the daily fare increase, but the even larger increase in monthly passes. Those are MARTA’s core customers and the people who, on average, are least likely to be able to swallow large fare increases. And, once again, we get a major hike in fares with absolutely no movement on distance based fares, as the AJC article mentions. At this point it is hard to see the millions spent on Breeze wasn’t a waste of money.
Just think of all the money MARTA left on the table from 2001 to 2009 when its fares were declining in real terms every year. Even token increases over that time would have made a difference. Not to mention that gradual, small increases would not have the dramactic impact that these huge hikes are predicted to have.
MARTA should immediately move to distance based and/or demand based fares. Why not? Why should the daily commuter from Decatur to Five Points downtown or a bus from Oakhurst to Downtown Decatur pay the same fare as the person who takes MARTA only a few times a year to the airport or a game at the Dome from Sandy Springs or Doraville?
When I attended a MARTOC meeting a few months ago, the explanation given was that there was no money for the software changes. They definitely need a distance-based system, at least for the one-time usage fares. The last time I rode BART from S.F. airport to the the Mission district it cost me 8 bucks. It really pisses me off that people outside of the sales tax zone are riding all the way to the airport from terminal stations for two bucks. Makes no sense.
DM did a thread on this a while back, http://www.decaturmetro.com/2011/05/06/marta-fare-increase-sounds-inevitable-variable-based-fares-projected-for-2016. This common-sense reform is coming to a MARTA station near you in . . .2016!
The devil is in the details. An implementation resembling that of peers…
could increase complexity of value comparisons with alternative modes,
could reduce flexibility (pushing the system towards “always meter”),
could misrepresent marginal cost,
could increase service stratification,
could decrease customer satisfaction.
Yeah but how can I express my outrage if I’m spending all of my energy focusing on the details!?
I guess you’ll have to save your anger for traffic jams on the Connector. Fire horn-honk assaults indiscriminately; the car in front of you just might be someone driving to the airport [from Dunwoody] to pick up a friend. 😉
Those aren’t details but hypotheticals. One could just as easily say the exact opposite of every “could” will be the reality. It appears that MARTA recognizes that distance-based is the way to go, they aren’t going to get around to it any time soon.
I’m mostly interested in the “could increase solvency” hypothetical.
With higher rail fares? To what end?
Your confidence in MARTA appears selective. EOT
No, I’m just saying that throwing out a list of speculative worst-case scenarios isn’t much of an argument against the distance-based fares. I think it was pretty obvious that I wasn’t expressing any confidence in MARTA’s management.
That “Two Dogs Dining” video is so cute it makes my tummy ache!