As Marin workers get back to commuting, the Sonoma-Marin Area Rail Transit Agency is hoping they take their trains instead of driving.
To entice them into making that choice, SMART is reducing fares and slowly restoring service.
Recently, SMART brought back two additional weekday morning trips and three more during the afternoon. It also brought back Saturday service.
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, SMART was forced to drastically cut back its service. Those cuts were painful, not only for commuters who had relied on the inter- and intra-county service, but for SMART’s budget.
As we progress from nearly a year of public-health lockdown, SMART is faced with the task of rebuilding its ridership.
Federal pandemic bailout funds kept SMART afloat and rolling. The agency also continued work, extending its rails north to Windsor to stretch SMART’s reach and in keeping with fulfilling the promise of the Cloverdale-to-Larkspur route promised when voters launched the train and bike lane in 2008.
Complicating the restoration is the job of rebuilding its train crews.
Initially, the lower rates will be available via SMART’s eTickets phone application, but its goal is to extend the lower rates through Clipper cards starting Sept. 1. The cost of a train ride from Santa Rosa to Larkspur will be cut from $11.50 to $7.50. On top of that, seniors and low-income riders can file for half-off rates.
That reduction should also help make riding the train more affordable to those for whom the higher rates were a financial obstacle.
SMART last year had launched a program where low-income households could file for lower rates — similar to food stamps for public transit. But that bureaucratic process doesn’t reach everyone it should.
That needs to change. Even the phone app reaches everyone it should.
Electronic access is a huge advantage, but for some it can be an obstacle that leads someone to not take the train.
Affordability is as important as convenience and reliability when building public transit ridership.
After all, everyone — across all income levels — is paying the SMART sales tax and fares to ride the trains should not create economic discrimination.
By lowering rates and boosting its public outreach to promote ridership, SMART should not only be rebuilding its numbers, but increasing them.
Before the pandemic caused a public-health lockdown, SMART’s ridership was an average of about 2,800 passengers on weekdays. In March, after a year of lockdown and drastically reduced service, average daily ridership was about 500.
Reducing fares is projected to reduce farebox revenue by more than a third, but the goal is to build long-term ridership and revenue.
It could also help bring aboard riders for whom riding SMART was too expensive. By trying to make sure that riding SMART trains is reasonably financially accessible to all, SMART is fulfilling the job of public transit.
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June 06, 2021 at 12:37AM
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Editorial: Need to build long-term ridership should guide SMART train changes - Marin Independent Journal
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