Many riders skeptical of Sun Tran fare plans

One fare increase plan would take effect in less than two years.

The other two plans would take five years, with one favoring cash-paying, low-income riders and the second favoring riders who pay the base cash fare.

But whatever of the three plans is adopted by the council in early September — if it does adopt one — City Manager Michael Ortega says the purpose of raising Sun Tran fares is straightforward: “Ultimately, the goal is to maximize the amount of revenue, but maintain ridership,” he told the Star. “And there’s a balance there.”

The effort is part of the larger undertaking to bring the city budget into “structural balance,” Ortega said. In recent years, more and more general fund money has been going to support the Sun Tran service, which provided nearly 20 million bus trips to Tucsonans in fiscal year 2015. In FY 2010, $18.7 million came out of the general fund for Sun Tran. In FY 2014, the most recent year for which an actual figure is available, that figure had risen to $28.1 million, according to recent city budgets.

Over the same period, money brought in from riders has declined from $15.7 million in FY 2009 to $12 million in FY 2014.

Fares were last raised in April 2011.

Here the Road Runner would like to apologize in advance for the somewhat tedious — but important! — breakdown of the plans you are about to wade through. There is a poll accompanying this column online, and your humble columnist would like the responses to be as informed as possible (PDFs of the respective plans are also included in the online version of this story, if you want to just compare them for yourself and skip a few paragraphs).

While this fiscal year’s budget was being put together, Ortega put his own proposal forward, now known as Option 1. All of its fare changes come online by July 1, 2017. According to the plan, cash base fares and economy fares would rise to $1.75 per ride and $.75 per ride respectively. For those who use monthly passes, prices would rise $7 to $49 and $22 for regular and economy riders respectively.

Subsequently, Ward 2 Councilman Paul Cunningham and Mayor Jonathan Rothschild put their own plans together, now known as options 2 and 3, respectively.

The big ideas behind Cunningham’s plan is to keep the regular cash base fare at $1.50 in order to not discourage “casual riders” and slowly increase the economy cash fare to $.75 over the next four years to avoid “sticker shock” for low-income riders, who are roughly 70 percent of Sun Tran users.

Rothschild’s plan, in contrast, holds the economy cash fare flat at $.50 and raises the regular base fare to $2.00 over the same period. “ I thought that would be a fair approach and protect our lowest income riders,” according to a written comment provided by Rothschild.

Both plans would be fully implemented by July 1, 2020, three years after Ortega’s.

Roughly half of riders pay a discounted rate, according to statistics provided by Sun Tran.

Where the three plans are broadly similar is in changes to monthly plans, as well as in changes to fares for Sun Van, which provides service to disabled passengers, in parts of the county not required by law. Those fares are slated to rise from $3 to between $9 and $10, and are the steepest increases proposed.

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Through the end of FY 2021, Ortega’s plan is estimated to generate $65.8 million in user fees, Cunningham’s would generate $62.4 million and keeping rates the same would bring in $59.3 million, according to spreadsheet used at a recent Tucson Transit Task Force meeting. The mayor’s plan was not included in the analysis.

“I think all three proposals are equally insulting to the bus-riding public,” said Brian Flagg, a founding member of the Tucson Bus Riders Union, which has been critical of past efforts to raise fares. “They are inappropriate because studies show that whenever there is a fare increase ridership decreases. The key to a strong bus system is increased ridership, and so now is not the time to raise fares.”

He pointed to monthly Sun Tran data that shows that use was down significantly from last year, when a protracted strike curtailed bus service dramatically: April ridership was down by nearly 200,000 compared to April 2015.

Instead of raising fares, Flagg suggested having the University of Arizona chip in to help with Streetcar maintenance costs, which he said cut into the overall transportation budget. He also said he supports some of the cost-saving route and ticketing changes being considered at the Aug. 9 council meeting.

Flagg is not alone in his skepticism. Road runner recently went to an open house on the proposals and spent part of an afternoon at the Ronstadt Transit Center speaking with riders about the plans. Opposition was nearly unanimous.

“Holy (expletive)!” one daily rider exclaimed at the Ronstadt Center after hearing about the changes to the economy monthly pass.

“I want it to stay the same,” said Beatrice Miranda, another daily rider and economy pass user. “It’s hard enough already.”

Angie Plough, who was sharing the bench with Miranda and pays the economy cash rate, chimed in with “me too! It’s hard enough to get 50 cents.”

The only person interviewed who was not opposed was Dominique Lewis, an AmeriCorps volunteer who was at the open house a few weeks back.

But if fares aren’t raised, Ortega, the city manager, said that would mean “reductions somewhere else or increased revenues somewhere else.”

Anyway, you’ve probably read plenty at this point. Please do take a moment to check out the plan PDFs and weigh in on the poll available on the online version of this story at tucson.com . The results will be included in next week’s column.

DOWN THE ROAD

Crews with KE&G construction recently started working double shifts at Speedway Boulevard and Stone Avenue to reconstruct the intersection. They’ll be working Sundays through Fridays around the clock, and Speedway will be reduced to one lane during the night shift to allow for the installation of new water lines and storm drains. Work is expected to be finished by Aug. 22 and is a part of the larger $2.5-million, RTA-funded funded improvement of Stone between Drachman and First streets.