Suddenly Revenue Matters to Bill King?
» Chron: Let's roll back Metro fare hikes (Bill King)
Not to be confused with his push to roll fares back to zero in February of 2008, but now erstwhile Mayoral candidate City Council candidate nevermind Bill King says we should just roll them back to some unsuggested amount.
Why?
It is time for us to have a serious conversation about what we expect Metro to accomplish. That conversation must include what resources we are willing to devote to public transportation and what is realistically achievable with those resources.
There's a lot of disingenuity with King's latest take on METRO. For instance, there's some feigned "concern" over the lack of movement on commuter rail. There's also some taunting of METRO's meager improvement in its operating ratio despite the fact that King's prior idea would have put it at absolute zero. There's a vague reference to elasticity models that didn't seem too big of a concern when he wanted fares at zero. So it's hard to take him seriously here when it's plain as day that he's posturing more than he is prescribing.
ADD-ON: It's worth reviewing some of the links from the pushback on King's idea to get a sense of how wrong his idea was then. Perhaps King will skate by since Rad Sallee isn't writing for the Chronicle anymore. We'll see if or how Carolyn Feibel decides to treat it soon enough. But it deserves to be highlighted how much contradictory ground King is seeking to cover here.
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Greg,
The elasticity models predict the change in ridership based on a change in fares. There is obviously an inverse relationship. My suggesion in February 2008 was to reduce fares to increase ridership. The models predict that if Metro had done that it would have added about 20 million new riders annually. Instead, Metro increased fares by nearly 50% and lost 10 million riders annually. There is nothing inconsistent about my suggestion in February 2008 and now. If you want more riders, reduce fares. The more you reduce them, the more riders you will get. It is not a very complicated concept.
In addition to reducing ridership, the fare increase was incredibly regressive, hitting working families the hardest. I not clear on why you would be defending a policy that produced the largest (or at least one of the largest) year over year decreases in transit ridership in Metro's history by raising fares on low-moderate income Houstonians.
Thanks, Bill. I actually understand the concept of price elasticity quite well. I just find it remarkable that suddenly you're worried about it after previously calling for fares to be reduced to zero (which would have brought in revenue of zero).
Don't confuse the lack of applause for your latest views on METRO with a defense of METRO's fare increases. I'd think that would be common sense enough for most. As one who uses METRO on a daily basis and who has registered his complaint about both the explicit fare increase, as well as the implicit fare increases, I don't mistake my views on that with a desire to limit METRO's options for a more genuine role in traffic reduction. Had you been more forthcoming in the options you would prefer, rather than hide them behind a call to "talk about it," I might be more impressed with this. But I don't think anyone should mistake you for simply being an inquiring mind on the topic. If you've got proposals that don't contradict with this op-ed, you'd be wise to spell them out in more detail.
Cards on the table is all I'm looking for. When a player hides cards, it's not an honest game.
You've spelled out that you would like to see rail lines raised, for instance. Do you see the expense for that coming out of planned rail lines, or do you see that as an add-on? And since you've expressed a desire to slash the METRO operating budget by ~13% by eliminating fares, how do you re-balance the budget with the combined effect of that policy decision AND your desire to spend more money retro-fitting rail lines above grade?
Greg,
I think you missed the point to my op/ed. I am not concerned about the loss of revenue, I am concerned about the loss of riders. What I said in February 2008 and last Sunday is that the fares need to be lowered to attract more riders.
As to my ideas about a transit plan generally, I have been laying those out in op/ed, blogs and speeches over several years. It is a little difficult to lay out an entire transit plan in one op/ed especially considering the Chronicle space limitations. But for what it is worth, generally my opinion is that Metro's first mission should be the reduction of traffic congestion. Short term that means attracting more riders to the bus service. The easiest way to do that is to reduce the fare. You will get the most riders by reducing the fare to zero. In the longer term it means improving the bus service, especially the Park & Ride.
I am not in favor of building at-grade rail systems. Metro's traffic studies show that congestion gets worse in every corridor where the currently proposed at-grade system will be constructed.
Metro has sufficient cash flow to reduce or eliminate the fares and to undertake a conservative program of building elevated rail, especially if we did a better job of leveraging our funds with federal grants. Metro has currently spent over $200 million planning the five proposed lines. However, there is still no viable plan to pay for the proposed lines. Had that $200 million been spent elevating the Main Street line through the Medical Center and extending it along the UP ROW to Sugarland, we would have the beginning of a backbone today. This similiar to how DART started in Dallas.
I am sure others will have different ideas and that is why I think we need to have a community-wide discussion about where we are headed. The current course has brought us the lowest transit ridership in years, a proposed rail system the will not reduce congestion and one that probably cannot be financed in any case. How much worse can it get?