(Un)Fare Hikes? Buses: 17%; Trains: 5%

A state plan to boost bus fares three times more than train fares went over about as well as CT Transit service does at the proposal’s final public hearing, in New Haven.

Most of the about 50 people who showed up Thursday for the last round of public hearings blasted a state Department of Transportation (DOT) plan to raise fares on both CT Transit buses and Metro-North trains. Two back-to-back hearings were held in the Hall of Records at 200 Orange St.

The DOT said it needs to raise fares to cover a $37.5 million gap created by state budget cuts this year. The fare increases would represent a nearly 17 percent increase for bus riders and a 5 percent increase for train riders. Should the department move forward with its proposal, the fare increases would go into effect Dec. 4 for bus riders and Dec. 1 for train riders.

A one-way ride on CT Transit buses — where limited service and outdated routes have provoked widespread criticism in New Haven from the mayor down to riders — would rise from $1.50 to $1.75. Many lower-income workers find it hard if not impossible to use the bus to get to jobs, particularly in the suburbs, especially after 5 p.m. or on weekends; many other commuters find the service too inconvenient or unavailable. (A 9.5‑mile commute can take two and a half hours.) Mayor Harp came out against the proposed fare increase.

So did New Havener Miriam Grossman, who testified that mass transit service here hasn’t improved enough to justify fare increases.

Speakers were asked to limit their testimony to the fare increase and its impact, and were asked to give any others concerns they had about service to staffers in the back.

But complaints with service kept popping up.

“You hear all the talk about CTfastrak, but where is our equivalent in New Haven?” Grossman said, referring to improved new bus service in the state Capitol region. ​“Yes, we’ve gotten new buses, but I feel like other things have been holding back like GPS to know when a bus is coming, and increased weekend service for people who are coming and going from Union Station on Sunday.”

Grossman also pointed out a sore point for many of those who testified Thursday, the increased bus fare disproportionately impacts the people who can least afford to pay it — senior citizens, the working poor, and people with disabilities who already pay more.

Marc Anthony Gallucci, executive director for the Center for Disability Rights, told DOT officials that many riders live on small and fixed incomes who will find the increase painful. People with disabilities who use the paratransit system pay $3, or twice the cost of regular bus fare. Under the proposed fee structure that fare would go up to $3.50.

“The spirit of the ADA regulations says that you are allowed to charge double,” he said. ​“But it doesn’t mean that you have to.” Gallucci said that the net impact of the fare change could be that the state is shifting costs away from DOT to other strapped state agencies such as the Department of Health, Safety and Human Services.

Not everyone came to the hearing just to decry the fare increases. Robert Bloch came to offer solutions. He suggested that DOT officials consider pushing for a value-added tax that he believes could generate enough funds to not only keep from increasing the bus fare, but even position the department to reduce the cost of bus fare.

Bloch pointed out that low-income people spend a disproportionate amount of their money on rent. Any increase in the cost of going to work can make it hard to keep a job if a person has one, and can make it harder still for a person who is out of work to find one, he argued..

Anstress Farwell, president of the New Haven Urban Design League, suggested that the state is going for the quick fix of raising fares, when it hasn’t actually maximized its ability to generate more money.

“Can you imagine New York building a parking garage next to Penn Station, Grand Central Terminal, or the new transit center at the World Trade Center?” she said. ​“The New York MTA looks at those parcels of land as being the most valuable real estate, and manages its own portfolio of properties to bring in income to expand transit services. It’s really hard to hear Connecticut DOT ask for more money when they are throwing away the value of assets they hold. Connecticut DOT needs to optimize the value of land it owns at the train station in this way. It would be a win-win for the city and state.”

She said that MTA has multiple streams of income including fares, tolls and dedicated tax sources such as oil and fuel, taxi, mortgage taxes and local and state payroll taxes.

“Connecticut DOT needs to look at broadening and balancing the funding stream, rather than instituting a fare increase which will disproportionately effect lower income people,” she said.

Harp Administration Weighs In

City transit chief Doug Hausladen didn’t get to submit his testimony during either of the hearings Thursday, but he shared a written statement he submitted to Connecticut DOT before the midnight deadline. In the statement, he noted that his boss, Mayor Toni Harp, is deeply opposed to the increases because of their impact on poor people.

“As we work together in the next two years to study and redesign our CT Transit system in New Haven, let’s move New Haven to a transit system [that] connects residents to jobs and people to their community,” he wrote. ​“Let’s move CT Transit into a position to have frequent service seven days a week for more than nine hours a day. Let us move New Haven to foster the support of investing in transit, rather than balancing our difficult decisions on those whom are doing what we ask of them: don’t drive yourself to work, take transit.”

Like Farwell, he highlighted areas where the state has failed to generate revenue by eschewing highway tolls or an increased gasoline tax.

​“We give away free parking at a great expense to every state building while not providing adequate bus services to the same building,” he further wrote. ​“We cannot build our way out of traffic and we cannot increase fares on transit to balance our budgets. We must look to every other options before raising the rates on CT Transit one cent. … We can and must do more to promote our transit systems rather than punish our transit riders.”

DOT’s Redeker Responds

The man who ultimately will decide whether the fare increases will go into effect as proposed is Connecticut DOT Commissioner James Redeker. Redeker said Thursday that he is likely to make the decision before the end of the month.

Redeker (pictured above in an earlier video interview responding to New Haven bus riders’ concerns) said the speed with which the decision has to be made has to do with the time needed to change the fares and to implement the equipment for the one new service that could come as a result of the fare increase: a new smart card system.

The smart card system will allow CT Transit to implement fare capping, which would ensure that riders pay no more than the lowest authorized fare for any period of travel. It also would mean not having to worry about having exact change because riders would be able to load their Smart cards with as much cash as they want and the system would take care of the rest.

“You can do that at a ticket counter or a grocery store where they have them,” Redeker said. ​“As you take more trips and add value to it you will automatically be charged the lowest fare for the number of trips you take. You’ll never pay more than the lowest possible fare for the number of trips you make. So, the fact have people who are really dependent on the system and use it all the time — and that’s a lot of people — they will actually find an automatic savings that’s guaranteed for them. And that’s pretty cool.”

Redeker said it’s not lost on him that the fare increase could have significant impact on certain populations such as those with disabilities, and that’s why it was important to hear the testimony that people provided at the series of hearings. He said he would weigh it heavily in his decision making process.

He said right now, though people who use the paratransit system pay twice the regular bus fare, the state still heavily subsidizes their rides to the tune of about $50 per person, per trip. In fact, the fare that bus riders pay only covers about 24.2 percent of what it cost to keep CT Transit running.

He juxtaposed that to rail riders, who most would assume are wealthier and can afford to pay more. But he said there are people dependent on train service who aren’t wealthy and are taking the train to find jobs. The state already subsidizes bus riders’ trips far more than it subsidizes train riders’ trip, Redeker said: Train riders’ fares cover about 55 percent of what it costs to run the trains. That’s more than double the percentage that bus riders’ fares cover. The average fare for rail is about $300 a month, Redeker said, while the average for bus is closer to $40 a month. The use of rail and CTfasttrak also is up, while bus ridership is down, mirroring trends across the nation.

Redeker said the fare structures for CT Transit and Metro North are designed to address different populations with full fares, half fares for seniors and the disabled on buses, and peak and off-peak fares and discounted fares on the trains. Connecticut DOT tapped the University of Connecticut to conduct and equity analysis for the proposed plan to increase fares. Redeker said that analysis will be redone if the plan changes.

He agreed theoretically that Connecticut DOT could do more to generate revenue. But while raising fares is in his purview, generating other kinds of revenue is not. He also said that the budget shortfall is a right now problem that has to be solved quickly. The fare increase for train riders also has to pass muster with Metro North’s board, which meets Sept. 24.

“There are other models for how public transportation, and transportation in general, is funded,” he said. ​“I know there was reference to New Jersey or New York, but in fact but the decision on how to fund transportation is not mine. That’s a governor, legislature decision. In this moment we don’t have that at our disposal. It is this year’s budget and the legislature is not in session until January and they won’t finish their deliberations until next year. This is an urgent budget problem. This is our proposal to fix it on the transit side.”