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Wednesday, November 4, 2009
Cap Metro board votes to raise fares sooner, and by more
The Capital Metro board today voted to move to January a fare hike that had been scheduled for August next year, and to increase most of those fares by more than had been previously approved.
The fare increase should generate an estimated $2.3 million during the transit agency’s 2009-10 fiscal year. That will allow the agency to spend federal stimulus money on one-time capital costs, officials said, specifically on additional siding tracks for Capital Metro’s commuter rail line and on easing a troublesome curve in the track near downtown. The agency had been intending to spend $2.6 million in stimulus funds on operating costs this year.
The vote on the fare increase was 4-1, with board member Mike Manor dissenting. Board member John Trevino, who has health problems, missed the meeting and a seventh slot is open currently.
The board rejected a staff proposal to begin charging a 25-cent fare for each bus ride to people with disabilities and seniors, defined by the agency as anyone 65 or older. Both classes of riders currently pay nothing to board a Capital Metro bus. The 25-cent fare would have generated an estimated $600,000 this fiscal year.
But board chairwoman Margaret Gomez, a Travis County commissioner facing a challenge in the March Democratic primary, had said last week she did not support that change. Leander Mayor John Cowman spoke for charging seniors and people with disabilities, saying “everyone should pitch in” to help Capital Metro pay for its operations. But Cowman, aware of the prevailing view on the board, did not bring the idea up for a vote.
Today’s action means that what most Capital Metro riders pay will be much higher in January than it would have been in the fare hike approved for August of next year. The monthly 31-day bus pass, for instance, will go from $18 to $28, rather than the previously scheduled $25. The express bus 31-day pass, now $36, will go to $63 rather than $48. And the agency’s MetroRail line from Leander to downtown Austin will see a fare increase before it even opens, going from $36 for a monthly pass to $70.
It had been scheduled to go to $48 in August.
Under a state law passed this year, the Capital Area Metropolitan Planning Organization board has the authority to overturn within two months any increase in the agency’s base fare, currently 75 cents. The CAMPO board, officials have said, has no jurisdiction over any other Capital Metro fares.
That base fare, under a 2008 vote, had been scheduled to go up to $1 in August 2010. Today’s vote maintains the $1 new base fare, but moves it forward in time by seven months, a minimal change that might or might not move CAMPO to consider the matter before the increase occurs January 18.
