Heavy Rail, Commuter Rail, & Intercity Transportation

[swimmer_spe]

Originally Posted by mcj

Hard to believe there isn't an element of trolling arguing about unrealistic fare elimination in the "Heavy Rail, Commuter Rail, & Intercity Transportation" thread.

There is a transit fantasies forum where you can suspend reality and talk about any ideas you want though:

https://skyscraperpage.com/forum/showthread.php?t=146531

It's been rather quiet in there lately as it seems its content has leaked elsewhere, I encourage you to liven the place up a bit!

While the extreme of fare elimination is in fantasy worlds, the idea of reducing it to gain more riders is not. I do not expect that anywhere in Canada will see free transit throughout any network.

Going back to Translink, they could do what some places have done, which is to remove fare zones. That isn't out of reality, but it is a step towards what many cities have done. For example, Toronto did have fare zones. They haven't had fare zones since the 1970s. And that was before they amalgamated from Metro Toronto to the city of Toronto. One could see either Metro Vancouver, or Greater Vancouver all as one fare zone. A first step could be combining all of Zones 1 and 2 into one fare zone.

No fares are a fantasy, but lower fares are not.

[Migrant_Coconut]

Per-distance pricing is also in the works as we speak.

[swimmer_spe]

Originally Posted by Migrant_Coconut

Per-distance pricing is also in the works as we speak.

Not exactly a move forward, but a great way to complicate matters.

[Migrant_Coconut]

Off-peak and shorter trips would cost less, longer trips would cost more - that's simple enough for all practical purposes. You'll find that most transit riders care more about when the next bus/train comes and how long the ride's going to take than they do about saving or losing fifty cents a trip.

[chowhou]

Originally Posted by swimmer_spe

Not exactly a move forward, but a great way to complicate matters.

Zones are actually an evil discriminatory system where living on the wrong side of the tracks (literally) disadvantages you. Distance based fares are good and righteous. They work in Hong Kong, they work in Singapore, they work in Tokyo, they will work here.

[Changing City]

Originally Posted by swimmer_spe

Going back to Translink, they could do what some places have done, which is to remove fare zones. That isn't out of reality, but it is a step towards what many cities have done. For example, Toronto did have fare zones. They haven't had fare zones since the 1970s. And that was before they amalgamated from Metro Toronto to the city of Toronto. One could see either Metro Vancouver, or Greater Vancouver all as one fare zone. A first step could be combining all of Zones 1 and 2 into one fare zone.

No fares are a fantasy, but lower fares are not.

If you travel on bus, it's already only a 1-zone fare everywhere.

If you combined zones 1 and 2, then the price would have to be higher for the fare, to get the same total revenue. That might not add any riders at all. The idea of distance fares is that if you travel a short distance that happens to cross a zone boundary, it's unfairly expensive. Most people travel using passes or pre-loaded Compass cards, so changing to fairer fares won't be any more complicated.

[swimmer_spe]

Originally Posted by chowhou

Zones are actually an evil discriminatory system where living on the wrong side of the tracks (literally) disadvantages you. Distance based fares are good and righteous. They work in Hong Kong, they work in Singapore, they work in Tokyo, they will work here.

Originally Posted by Changing City

If you travel on bus, it's already only a 1-zone fare everywhere.

If you combined zones 1 and 2, then the price would have to be higher for the fare, to get the same total revenue. That might not add any riders at all. The idea of distance fares is that if you travel a short distance that happens to cross a zone boundary, it's unfairly expensive. Most people travel using passes or pre-loaded Compass cards, so changing to fairer fares won't be any more complicated.

Those are both great arguments for the status quo. What also works, and works here is a single zone for a single transit agency. Look around Canada and you will see most, if not all have a single fare regardless of distance.

[Migrant_Coconut]

If the rest of Canada made riders pay for transfers, should we do the same? Of course not.

Per-distance makes the most sense: longer journey, more cost/km to the transit agency, higher fare. Same reason taxis don't charge a flat $20/trip - that would be grossly unfair to both passenger and operator.

[Changing City]

Originally Posted by swimmer_spe

Those are both great arguments for the status quo. What also works, and works here is a single zone for a single transit agency. Look around Canada and you will see most, if not all have a single fare regardless of distance.

Which is a disincentive for people to take transit for shorter journeys, which cuts the overall ridership. Unless it's a very low fare and very heavily subsidized, in which case overall service is less than it could be. Check out how much greater most of those one fare transit systems charge, compared to TransLink. And you're still clogging up this thread with irrelevent comments that aren't about the thread topic,

[GenWhy?]

I think that's a great argument for TransLink to stay our of the Valley and keep fares down.

[FarmerHaight]

Originally Posted by swimmer_spe

This goes back to a simple question: Why are roads free and transit is not?
The answer is: It is political.

The fact that some places can get rid of fares and it not become anarchy and chaos shows that it really is political.

I am in full support of drivers paying more to use roads. Tolls on express lanes and congestion charges downtown are both things I am in favour of as long as the government provides relief to people who drive for work (as opposed to to work). I also think gas taxes, parking permits, insurance and registration, etc. should have externalities factored into their prices.

But there is a difference between private vehicles and public transit: while the government subsidizes the infrastructure for both, drivers fully pay the operational costs of their vehicles while transit operations are often subsidized.

This is why charging a price somewhere between "cheaper than driving" and "free" is beneficial, because every dollar of operational costs recovered by a fare is another dollar of funding that can (theoretically) go into capital projects and other improvements.

[chowhou]

Originally Posted by swimmer_spe

Those are both great arguments for the status quo. What also works, and works here is a single zone for a single transit agency. Look around Canada and you will see most, if not all have a single fare regardless of distance.

It doesn't work. Zone based fares are based around the idea that everyone is commuting and the only trips are from the suburbs to the downtown core. Metro Vancouver is not built around the central downtown model, and it's ridiculous that someone living around Joyce pays out the 🞵🞵🞵 to take a trip to Metrotown but not Downtown, and someone living in Port Moody pays two zones to go to Lougheed, but only one if they transfer to the Expo Line, then transfer again at Columbia and get off at Surrey Central.

It's a fundamentally broken system.

[FarmerHaight]

Originally Posted by chowhou

It doesn't work. Zone based fares are based around the idea that everyone is commuting and the only trips are from the suburbs to the downtown core. Metro Vancouver is not built around the central downtown model, and it's ridiculous that someone living around Joyce pays out the 🞵🞵🞵 to take a trip to Metrotown but not Downtown, and someone living in Port Moody pays two zones to go to Lougheed, but only one if they transfer to the Expo Line, then transfer again at Columbia and get off at Surrey Central.

It's a fundamentally broken system.

I understand how a distance-based fare could work for people using stored value cards or credit cards, but what about cash fares?

I am a fan of this idea as I used to live in Metrotown and would ride the train to Joyce to play basketball at the outdoor court. Since I had a 2-zone monthly pass it didn't cost me anything extra, but it is ridiculous that somebody riding the train for one stop across a zone boundary pays 44% more than if they had ridden the train for one stop in the other direction.

[chowhou]

Originally Posted by FarmerHaight

I understand how a distance-based fare could work for people using stored value cards or credit cards, but what about cash fares?

I am a fan of this idea as I used to live in Metrotown and would ride the train to Joyce to play basketball at the outdoor court. Since I had a 2-zone monthly pass it didn't cost me anything extra, but it is ridiculous that somebody riding the train for one stop across a zone boundary pays 44% more than if they had ridden the train for one stop in the other direction.

In HK and Seoul at least, there are machines just like the Compass Card machines that let you plan a route and print a ticket for you with the cost ahead of time. It has smarts that let you tap in, then there are machines that consume your ticket at your destination to let you out.

[swimmer_spe]

Originally Posted by Migrant_Coconut

If the rest of Canada made riders pay for transfers, should we do the same? Of course not.

Per-distance makes the most sense: longer journey, more cost/km to the transit agency, higher fare. Same reason taxis don't charge a flat $20/trip - that would be grossly unfair to both passenger and operator.

If you want to use that argument, except for commuter systems, name me 5 systems that have fare zones.

Originally Posted by Changing City

Which is a disincentive for people to take transit for shorter journeys, which cuts the overall ridership. Unless it's a very low fare and very heavily subsidized, in which case overall service is less than it could be. Check out how much greater most of those one fare transit systems charge, compared to TransLink. And you're still clogging up this thread with irrelevent comments that aren't about the thread topic,

Notice how others are commenting? You can stop any time.

As far as the fare, It isn't that much cheaper than Translink.

Originally Posted by FarmerHaight

I am in full support of drivers paying more to use roads. Tolls on express lanes and congestion charges downtown are both things I am in favour of as long as the government provides relief to people who drive for work (as opposed to to work). I also think gas taxes, parking permits, insurance and registration, etc. should have externalities factored into their prices.

But there is a difference between private vehicles and public transit: while the government subsidizes the infrastructure for both, drivers fully pay the operational costs of their vehicles while transit operations are often subsidized.

This is why charging a price somewhere between "cheaper than driving" and "free" is beneficial, because every dollar of operational costs recovered by a fare is another dollar of funding that can (theoretically) go into capital projects and other improvements.

Most do not do the math to figure out what is cheaper. They look more at what is more convenient. The thing is, if you want them to take something less convenient, you need to appeal to something. Cost is a big one. During the height of the pandemic, the cities were running transit free. It would be interesting to see how difficult it would have been to keep that.

Originally Posted by chowhou

It doesn't work. Zone based fares are based around the idea that everyone is commuting and the only trips are from the suburbs to the downtown core. Metro Vancouver is not built around the central downtown model, and it's ridiculous that someone living around Joyce pays out the 🞵🞵🞵 to take a trip to Metrotown but not Downtown, and someone living in Port Moody pays two zones to go to Lougheed, but only one if they transfer to the Expo Line, then transfer again at Columbia and get off at Surrey Central.

It's a fundamentally broken system.

One thing that could be done is to have the fare zone only apply if you use any higher order transit. However, that would only clog buses.

[Hotwax]

Originally Posted by chowhou

Someone living in Port Moody pays two zones to go to Lougheed, but only one [zone] if they transfer to the Expo Line, then transfer again at Columbia and get off at Surrey Central.

That's not true; they do charge that as two-zone trip.

[cganuelas1995]

Originally Posted by chowhou

FWIW travel by road is not free.

A Translink fare pays for infrastructure maintenance, rolling stock capital expenditure, rolling stock maintenance, and other running costs. As far as I can tell, infrastructure capital investment generally seems to come out of the provincial and federal government general revenue rather than fares.

Road travel completely offloads the capital cost and maintenance of rolling stock (cars) onto the user, and a good amount of infrastructure maintenance gets paid at the pump (gas tax). Again, infrastructure capital investment seems to come out of the provincial and federal government general revenue.

Probably not as different as you'd like to believe. The big difference is public transit is really good at moving people within cities (great for city life and city economic growth!) but really bad at moving goods and services, while roads are really good at moving goods and services (great for provincial connectivity and provincial economic growth!) but honestly really bad at moving people.

We need both.

Don't license and registration fees also pay for the roads?

[cganuelas1995]

Originally Posted by Migrant_Coconut

If the rest of Canada made riders pay for transfers, should we do the same? Of course not.

Per-distance makes the most sense: longer journey, more cost/km to the transit agency, higher fare. Same reason taxis don't charge a flat $20/trip - that would be grossly unfair to both passenger and operator.

If taxis did $20/trip, then people would take taxis long distance.

[Migrant_Coconut]

Originally Posted by swimmer_spe

If you want to use that argument, except for commuter systems, name me 5 systems that have fare zones.

I'll see your five and raise you eleven: Dubai, Paris, London, Manchester, Berlin, Munich, Hamburg, Denver, Montreal, Auckland, Brisbane. The other half of the planet, including San Fran, Singapore, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Tokyo, Osaka and Sydney, uses zoneless per-distance fares (like taxi metres), which is what I was talking about and what TransLink is considering. It's Toronto, Calgary and their flat fares which are the weirdos.

Originally Posted by swimmer_spe

Most do not do the math to figure out what is cheaper. They look more at what is more convenient. The thing is, if you want them to take something less convenient, you need to appeal to something. Cost is a big one. During the height of the pandemic, the cities were running transit free. It would be interesting to see how difficult it would have been to keep that.

And since riders prefer convenient over cheap, it'd be better to increase convenience instead, which if done right, raises revenue that can be spent on more convenience.

Free pandemic transit was only made possible by large government subsidies and reduced service, both of which were intended to be temporary, just like the CERB and CESB. Outside of a recession, it's something you only do when you have no hope of expanding the network, don't care how much it costs, and just want to fill empty buses and trains; we have the opposite problem.

[Migrant_Coconut]

Originally Posted by cganuelas1995

If taxis did $20/trip, then people would take taxis long distance.

Correct; you'd probably also see less short-distance trips because passengers don't see the cost as worthwhile. In terms of public transit, Metro Vancouver is trying to increase short commutes and decrease long ones, so flat fares are a bad idea.