Discount Please

OP-ED2
Alex Estrada
Jour 570
10/08/09


Will this change help?

I am sitting on a BART train on Sunday morning on my way back to San Francisco after celebrating my friend’s birthday in Berkeley. As my two friends and I get off the bus, we grab what we think are transfers to ride MUNI for free for the first 90 minutes after leaving BART. We step on the bus and hand the driver our “transfers” only to tell us that they are coupons for a discount to MUNI. I quickly reach for change in my pocket, and I’m 25 cents short of the fare. Luckily my visiting friend has an extra quarter for me.
On July 1, 2009, the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (MUNI) raised the fees for the bus lines, light-rail and cable cars from an already expensive $1.50 per ride, to an even more expensive $2 per ride. MUNI’s decisions to raise the fees came from the $30 million deficit the agency faced last year.
So what benefits do riders have? Riders getting off of BART in San Francisco stations, have the option to print out a coupon for a discount on MUNI just before leaving the gates of the station. However, while the coupon promises a discount, it is never mentioned anywhere how much the coupon is worth or how much the discount is. From experience, I learned that the discount coupons only take $0.25 off the $2 that MUNI charges for a bus rides. If this is your first time and don’t do research ahead of time at the website, you won’t know about this little trick. Luckily, MUNI drivers still hand out a 90 minute (or more) bus transfer/ receipt upon the rider paying fare. Will it get better? A program called Translink may change the way riders pay but still keeping the fundamentals behind transferring.
According to Translink, by 2010 Translink plans to make the transition from one public transportation system to another easier, and more convenient for one’s pocket. The program will allow people to transfer from BART to MUNI or MUNI to the Golden Gate Transit, GGT, and other Bay Area county means of public transportation with ease, and the swipe of a card. Sounds fairly easy right? It is. Translink allows people to use the card like a credit card. People can add money to the Translink card when the value on the card starts to get low. Translink will allow people to continue transferring from one MUNI line to another, and still get a discount when transferring from BART to MUNI.

This program sounds reasonable and affordable: buy a card, put money on it, and never wait in line at the front of the bus to pay. The fact that we never have to show proof of payment or spend time busting out exact change to ride seems likes a splendid idea. It is also nice to know that any discounts from transferring from one form of transportation to another are automatically done for you. That is, this only really works for a frequent rider. And that doesn’t change the fact that we initially don’t know how much of a discount we get. I also don’t come back to the city from Santa Rosa very often by public transportation; however, whenever I ride GGT, or get off BART I would like to save some money that adds to my savings for my trips to Utah and Oregon. Only discounting one quarter from the normal fare just doesn’t cut it. I will never make it to my friend’s wedding at this cheap discount. Nothing about this new program or nothing on MUNI’s website says anything about the possibility of getting ride free transfers from other transportation systems to MUNI lines. BART and GGT already burn a hole in my pocket with their high fare rates. When people ride BART or GGT back into the city, it would be nice to have a decent discount or free transfer to the first MUNI ride. I hate paying $11.80 for a one way trip from Santa Rosa to San Francisco. And I believe it’s ridiculous that the only discount from BART to MUNI is only worth a mere quarter. For people who don’t change public transportation on a daily basis, a quarter’s worth of discount from BART to MUNI does not add up to much at the end of the day, it doesn’t even punch a dent out of one’s daily expenses. As a poor college student, I can’t afford to only save a dollar or two every month I travel to the Eastbay and back. Trankslink and the Bay Area transportation agencies must really consider making transferring a more easy and affordable for tourists, part time commuters, and students; and give us a discount we can use, transfers from one public transportation system to another that we can afford, and help us save some money in this harsh economy. We, after all, are supporting them as much as we can by riding their reliable buses, boats, and trains.




Sources:
SF MTA
http://www.sfmta.com/

Translink
https://www.translink.org/TranslinkWeb/