Kudos for new bus passes

The Regional Transit Authority (RTA) is finally joining the bus fare system employed in other cities, and our editors could not commend their leaders more highly for the change.

Last week, RTA leadership proposed ending the 25-cent fee for transfers between bus and streetcar routes. What this means is that riders would now pay the base fare of $1.25 to ride one route and could transfer to another free of charge – as long as they complete the trips within a two-hour window.

This practice is standard for other major urban transportation systems from San Francisco to Boston. It encourages wider patronage of the public transit systems, and thanks to cell phone apps, has never been easier to employ. Moreover, the RTA plans to cut the price on its $55 monthly pass down to $45. Senior monthly passes will decrease to $18. Perhaps, more importantly, the authority would also consolidate the separate passes offered for ferries, buses and streetcars into a single pass. One could get on the Algiers ferry, transfer to a street car, and then to a bus, all for a single cost.

Such multifaceted interconnectivity might encourage the acceleration of the growing RTA partnership with JET, which promises to one day integrate the Jefferson Parish bus provider into a true regional transport system. Imagine, one monthly pass to travel all around the inner metro region.

This bus fare reform will be paid for – in part – by ending the current three and five day passes, which encourage short term multi-day usage by tourists, and often discourage locals from purchasing monthly RTA passes. At $45, the new monthly pass would equal 18 days of transport for most workers, rather than the normal 22-day labor schedule of most people – quite a savings. Since the agency built up an estimated $678,000 surplus during the pandemic, by decreasing frequency of buses whilst still collecting the sales taxes which underwrite the RTA (even considering the reduced retail revenues thanks to the last year of quarantines), the next six months might prove a good time to financially experiment.

Matching the two-hour riding window with the agency’s recent plans to increase bus frequency on prominent routes (by re-allocating resources in a newly designed transit map) could promise to drastically increase overall ridership as well.

The decision by RTA management, though, must be approved by its governing board in late June. It still could be overturned. The Louisiana Weekly hopes attendees will endorse them. If the reforms are embraced by riders over the next six months, the RTA could make them permanent in 2022.

This article originally published in the June 7, 2021 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.