The Larger Picture: Bay Area Transit Agencies to 18 Years Old?

The Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority (VTA) has been progressing in their projects and game plans as I heard from VTA spokesperson, Brandi Childress. She and other VTA spokespeople have heard about what is going to happen in terms of age youth adjustments. More and more transit agencies around the Bay Area are changing their fare structure in the Youth category. That one is true for one thing. But only in my blog updates what is going on since I first talked about accurate fare information reflected on 511's website in the Bay Area, managed by the Bay Area's Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC).

BART: WHERE ARE THE FARES IN THE BOOKLET? ANY PROOF?

Santa Clara County supervisor Dave Cortese, who now oversees all the transit activities in the nine-county Bay Area region, led the way in finding out why BART has never published accurate fares for the youths, senior, and disabled despite the 62.5% discount and reflected on 511's website, leaving me and other riders to figuring out the actual fares myself. However, the lone holdup is at Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) where I discussed about a problem that I've discovered when I was trying to sample my next trip as part of putting both BART and the MTC under my microscope. BART has still not changed their booklet to include accurate information on reduced fares for qualifying people. Neither the MTC nor BART have put up a game plan of how the accurate fare information for qualifying people riding BART will reflect the information posted on 511's website. Tony Kovaleski's investigative report in 2012, as stated in my previous blog, said that VTA had problems in many areas that caused VTA to lose more than a million dollars each year due to fare evasion, but that report is only a small portion of what is to come in a bigger picture that I'm about to describe about fare structures among all Bay Area transit agencies.

BART has been quiet about the issues of accurate fare information that is conflicting for adults and discounted riders, combining with the inability for riders to go online to BART's website and file a complaint of more than 1000 words. Those two in combination may have been forcing users to either e-mail BART directly or voice their concerns. It is not known how many riders have switched from riding BART to driving as a result. My most recent check of booklets provided by BART still questions me of why fare information for the youths, senior, and disabled were still not in the booklet. The fare information for qualifying people is a critical tool in figuring out the actual fares on many transit agencies including BART, VTA, AC Transit, SamTrans, and Caltrain.

At the opening of the Oakland International Airport line running from the Colosseum station to the airport, I asked a BART representative regarding the fares for the youth, senior, and disabled - particularly the fares between the ages of 13 to 17 years old. I have learned that there has been an ongoing debate on that matter among BART officials behind closed doors at BART headquarters in Oakland. It is unclear to me of whether there has been any results from the meeting on whether to implement the plan to extend the youth fare to 18 years old.

CHANGE OF YOUTH FARES AT TRANSIT AGENCIES

BART is not the only transit agency to attempt aligning youth fare, despite the serious problem with publishing accurate fare information in all categories in their booklets. Ongoing discussions commenced among several transit agencies, so I looked up all transit agencies that uses the Clipper card and those that will have Clipper card capabilities to confirm that the change is happening. The results were not surprising to me when I read the individual transit agencies' website.

Both Golden Gate Transit and Marin Transit has been relatively 5 to 18 years old ever since I first looked up the fare structure online in 2012. San Francisco Bay Ferry has already made the change on November 1, 2014. Fairfield & Suisun Transit (FAST), Valley Intercity Neighborhood Express (VINE) Transit, Solano County Transit (SolTrans), and Vacaville City Coach all have similar youth policies.

At VTA, the Board of Directors took an approach to change the maximum youth age from 17 to 18. That policy was approved and announced on December 12, 2014, and is scheduled to begin doing so in July 2015. Caltrain reacted to VTA's announcement six days later, and started to phase in the adjustments shortly after it's announcement. It is unclear whether SamTrans and AC Transit will have a similar youth fare policy anytime soon. SamTrans and Caltrain are still under my microscope as to why they still never have a mobile website running even after I sent my message to the two agencies.

At Sonoma County Transit's website, it looks like youth fares are treated as the "student" definition, but must possess a valid student ID for a reduced fare. Even with the ID, the fare is only discounted around 10 percent from the full adult fare. It is unclear if Sonoma County Transit does actually have a "Youth" category for riders who are unfamiliar with the system, and whether they have plans to charge youths the same fares as the "student" category as defined in their system.

The four East Bay transit agencies (County Connection, Tri-Delta Transit, WHEELS (Livermore-Almador Valley Transit Authority), WestCAT) has varying definitions of the definition of a youth fare category, but does have a unified fare for youth and adults. However, the fare for the senior and disabled remain at 50 percent from the adult fare. What is confusing is what the maximum youth age is, and whether the four transit agencies has any kind of plan to lower the price of a youth fare to the same level at major transit agencies like VTA and SamTrans.

PROMISES FROM TRANSIT AGENCIES?

The change of the youth age from 17 to 18 years old seems to be more of a welcoming sight for Childress at VTA and Cortese as both the Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors and MTC chairman. However, I have yet to hear from BART's Board of Directors, including BART's general manager Grace Crunican and several other BART spokespersons. 

Even with my last blog in my investigation on why BART never had a fare table for the youth, senior, and disabled in BART's booklet claiming their 62.5 percent discount, it was impossible for me to contact BART with more than 1000 characters on BART's comment page. I particularly want to ask BART on why BART chose to put the actual reduced fares only on BART's "Fare Calculator" section of the website instead of publishing the actual fares in BART's three booklets that I reviewed several times. It remains unclear of why the actual fares at BART on 511's website is still not reflected on the actual fares via BART's website. But still, Cortese promises an investigation, but I have yet to hear from him on the status of the investigation.

Childress, on the other hand, does promise some results from information collected by fare paying customers for the youth when VTA kicks in the change in the youth fare policy so that VTA will know how many of the riders are actually youths. Would Cortese ever agree with that? Time will tell...

Original Work: Kyle Chak
E-mail: chak595301@gmail.com
Twitter: @KyleSChak