Photo by nosonakedeye

Metro’s Board of Directors agreed yesterday to set dates for public hearings on a slate of fare hikes that could see the cost of just entering the system during peak rise from $1.95 to $2.10 and the maximum cost for a trip jump from $5.00 to $5.75.

The menu of fare changes (see below) also includes scrapping the 20-cent peak-of-the-peak surcharge, replacing the $9.00 one-day rail pass with a $14 all-day alternative, potentially adding a $1 surcharge for use of paper farecards and charging $6 for a paper farecard for outer stations and $4 for inner stations.

A five-cent surcharge would also be imposed for two stations in each of the three jurisdictions Metro serves for the purposes of funding station improvements, and bus fares and Metro Access costs would also increase. Just about the only thing not going up is the cost of renting a bike locker, which would drop from $200 to $120 per year.

The increases would go to cover an estimated $116 million budget gap and pay for maintenance throughout the system. But it’s that exact need for maintenance that might make the fare increases such a hard sell.

Metro users are increasingly frustrated by the state of the region’s transit system, and they’ll likely wonder out loud why they have to pay more for service that’s getting worse. Metro officials have countered that the years of deferred maintenance have led to today’s problems, and that without the money that could come from fare increases, they’ll have to cut back on service to be able to afford the necessary fixes.

Yesterday’s epic Metro meltdown won’t likely made these fare increases any more palatable than they were before, but Metro officials will surely say that without them, those types of meltdowns could only become more frequent.

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