A local engineer and regular Orange Line rider is on a mission, trying to convince Metro to offer riders unlimited trips.
Michael Perkins has been waging a campaign to get the transit agency to create new passes to better suit riders’ needs. Though he had the idea in 2004, he’s been ramping up his efforts. He started a website this month, created a Facebook page and began to promote it on Twitter. Behind the scenes, he has been meeting with Metro board members.
Metro offers a $47 weekly pass giving unlimited rail rides of any length, or a $32.35 seven-day pass for short trips. But the paper cards are limited to rail trips and only make sense for some riders. Those who take MARC or Virginia Railway Express commuter trains can buy an added Metro pass on top of their monthly tickets.
Perkins said his plan would offer more flexibility, providing a plastic fare card usable on Metro buses and trains but also other local agencies. It would be good for riders, he said, but also good for Metro. “It stabilizes the riders’ costs. It stabilizes the revenue that Metro gets,” he said.
Riders would buy passes for an entire month, giving Metro the money up front even during snow or vacation days. All told, Perkins estimates it could bring in an additional $1.96 million per year.
The plan would encourage riders to take Metro instead of hopping into a car for extra trips, because they would have already paid. That, in turn, would reduce traffic, he said.
Commuters, meanwhile, would get what feels like free rides for every extra trip.
But his proposal may be a hard sell given Metro’s history. The transit agency had a difficult time implementing its fare increases last summer, delaying several components at the last minute.
Metro spokeswoman Lisa Farbstein said in an email that the agency is already seeking proposals to modify its electronic payment program. “We do not want to prejudge any one technology while we are currently in this competitive process,” she said.
Still, Perkins is winning some converts. Several transit advocacy groups have backed his plan, as has former Metro board member Christopher Zimmerman. Perkins is now working on current board members.
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The Perkins plan |
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Transit advocate Michael Perkins is proposing that Metro let riders buy unlimited monthly passes, with different levels available to accommodate the varying costs of the trips that riders take. |
| Under his proposal, riders would choose the pass best-suited for their lives based on the cost of the fare they typically pay. The pass would cost the equivalent of about 40 trips at that rate. |
| If the rider then takes a trip costing more than the set fare level of their purchased card, the rider would pay the difference from the stored value on the farecard. But any trips at that initial fare level — or cheaper — would be covered and riders could take as many as they want during the month. |
| That means the more that passholders travel on the system, the cheaper every ride becomes. To the rider, the additional rides would feel free. |
“I’m trying to get these thoughts into the board members’ heads on what a pass system that meets our needs could look like,” he said.
Many other transit agencies offer unlimited passes. New York City Transit, for one, offers unlimited rides for $104 for 30 days, which means the card pays for itself after the rider takes about 47 trips at $2.25 each. That’s the equivalent of going to work every day and taking a few extra trips on weekends or after work.
But Metro is more complicated. Instead of a flat fare, rail riders pay based on the distance they travel. Fares also vary by time of day. Perkins said his proposal accounts for that. His plan is modeled on passes used in the Puget Sound area of Washington state. That region, like D.C., has different transit agencies operating different types of vehicles with different fares.
