Variable pricing for WMATA

Slide from a presentation, Mississauga City Forum: “A Way Forward” “Be Connected With Transit”, 2006.

Sam Staley, the lead transportation researcher at the Reason Foundation, has taken up the idea of the need to increase local transit fares as an opportunity to push the idea of variable fare pricing. See the op-ed, "All Opinions Are Local : A $40 million crisis Metro can't afford to waste," from today's Post.

Conservatives and libertarians favor variable pricing options in transportation, especially for roads. Even so, the op-ed is not unreasonable.

I do however, think that getting WMATA to focus on variable fare pricing for transit is a waste of time.

The real issue is not diverting some people on the margins to more expensive or less expensive fares depending on their needs--after all, for the most part there is plenty of capacity (if the system had the money and the rolling stock necessary to be able to run 8 car trains whenever demand warranted it)--the real issue is generating enough money to run the system, and proper pricing.

The reality is that heavy rail WMATA service -- "the subway" -- is a premium service, which except during rush hour specifically, is not priced as a premium service.

At non-rush hours, a subway ride is the same cost as a bus ride, even though the quality of the service and the speed of the trip on heavy rail is far superior.

Rather than set up the technology for variable pricing, why not just price better, and reduce the subsidies for choice riders?

(Also, rush hour bus trips could involve a rush hour surcharge as well, as is the case in other transit systems, such as Philadelphia.)

I would think that proper fare pricing is worth figuring out, while the cost of implementing the technology necessary for proper "tolling" and charging of time-variable fares isn't worth the trouble.

Proper fare pricing, not grandstanding, is what I would like to see as the outcome from the budget crisis. That's the opportunity that I hope doesn't get blown.

I'm not hopeful though.
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Sam Staley, even though I have had fruitful and respectful dealings with him in the past, has on occasion, written bad stuff, such as this op-ed in the Post (based on a book) from 2007, "5 Myths About Suburbia and Our Car-Happy Culture."

I don't think he cares so much about what we might call "proper or right- [no pun intended] funding" WMATA as much as the opportunity to further push within transportation planning the variable pricing agenda.

On the other hand, he does have a book out from 2008 that I didn't know about, that probably is somewhat reasonable on the issues. See the website for the book, Mobility First: A New Vision for Transportation in a Globally Competitive Twenty-first Century and this Powerpoint presentation.

Ironically, I make this same point--"Mobility first"--all the time, although I prefer to use the word "optimality." Too often, transportation planners pussyfooting around the reality that automobility dominates the transportation/mobility agenda make the point that by improving the environment for walking, bicycling, and transit that "we improve choice."

It's not about choice.

We want people to choose optimality because it's the best possible use of resources, 5 cent taxes on shopping bags notwithstanding.

Slide from a Mobility First book presentation, Sam Staley.