A message from Rob Gannon, General Manager of King County Metro
Metro’s RapidRide lines are our premium service, delivering frequent and affordable high-capacity transit on six major corridors. RapidRide serves one of every six transit riders in King County, and we are preparing to expand the RapidRide network to more communities.
RapidRide allows riders to pay their fares at an ORCA reader before getting on the bus, and to use all doors when boarding. This enables passengers to get on and off quickly, and helps keep buses on schedule. To encourage valid fare payment, fare enforcement officers board RapidRide buses and validate customers’ proof of payment. These officers have the authority to issue a verbal warning for a first offense, a $124 infraction for a second offense, or a misdemeanor citation referral to Metro Transit Police after a third offense.
The King County Auditor’s Office recently reviewed this fare enforcement program, and found several ways that it should be improved. The audit found that Metro lacks clear standards for measuring the effectiveness of fare enforcement. It also found that we need to collect better data to determine if we are achieving our goals, or are creating inequitable outcomes for some riders. The audit points out that nearly 30 percent of misdemeanor citations between 2015 and 2017 were issued to riders experiencing homelessness or housing instability.
We fully welcome the auditors’ guidance to improve our fare enforcement program. The program needs to encourage fare payment while also including options that work for people with little or no money. We are preparing to implement the audit’s recommendations, and have already made changes to address concerns about equity that we identified in our internal review:
- Metro temporarily stopped referring misdemeanor cases of fare evasion to the Metro Transit Police. This pause gives us time to consider alternatives to this process, which has resulted in only a small percentage of court-issued penalties being paid.
- Juveniles without proof of payment are now given one additional verbal warning before they are issued a citation. This builds on our prior policy change that made non-payment of bus fares by juveniles a civil infraction rather than a misdemeanor. We want to avoid creating barriers for youth to get to school, work, or other opportunities.
- We are providing more oversight and improved training for fare enforcement officers. We have hired a quality assurance supervisor to address some of the auditor’s concerns. We also are reviewing our training related to equitable enforcement, and are starting new training about interacting with youth.
Our next step is to implement the audit’s recommendations. We look forward to working with stakeholders to find solutions that strike the right balance between our interests in collecting fares and in promoting safety and equity. Metro is required by law to collect fares, which cover nearly a third of our operating costs, and we are also committed to providing affordable and equitable access to transit. We know that public transportation is essential for people to reach economic, health, and educational opportunities in our region. That’s why we started our ORCA LIFT program, which offers a $1.50 fare to low-income riders.
We are also committed to eliminating any institutional barriers that hinder us from serving our core mission, or that perpetuate or reinforce historical inequities.
This summer, we will convene stakeholder groups that include bus drivers, customers, social service agencies and their clients, and others, to discuss potential options and develop recommendations by fall. Together, we will:
- Explore ways to encourage fare payment that do not needlessly penalize those who can least afford it.
- Collect better data to measure our performance, identify unintended consequences, and ensure that enforcement is not disproportionately affecting people experiencing homelessness or facing obstacles to mobility. We will conduct a fare evasion study in the coming months.
- Consider how new technologies might support alternative options for holding people accountable to pay their fares. This is even more important as Metro plans to add another 13 RapidRide lines by 2025.
You have my pledge that we will continue to promote a transit environment where all customers feel safe and welcome onboard our buses. Moving people and connecting communities is at the heart of what we do, and we continue looking for ways to do it even better.
All this policy does is say stealing is not only alright but the honest people are fools.
I have some input. How about having your fare enforcement people make sure that KC Metro Deputies are on duty and available when they are enforcing fares? For some reason, when there are incidents involving metro, KC Metro Deputies are never available, so Seattle PD has to go do their work for them. Meanwhile, fare enforcement is generating work for SPD (not SPDs job) because Metro is nowhere to be found. Oh, another thing. Why are fare enforcement officers (NOT actual law enforcement officers) allowed to run warrant checks on the people they stop? How is that part of fare enforcement? When they do this, and the inevitable “no Metro units available” gets dispatched to SPD, it is taking at least 2 Officers away from legit 911 response, simply because these wannabees are playing like they are real cops. Metro has found a way to push off their LE responsibilities onto SPD. There is a saying at the KC Sheriff’s Office, that if you want to be in a unit and not work, go to Metro. So, in a nutshell, stop allowing fare enforcement to run warrant checks (not their job) and make Metro deputies start responding to handle their own incidents.
If everyone just said I don’t need to pay then we would have hardly any service. Cause taxes alone don’t pay for the metro service we have.
Anyone who thinks charging anyone $100 for skipping on a $3 fare. And not just that but charging juveniles with a misdimenor. You people need you’re petty brains examined.
There’s definitely some tribal knowledge of which buses are actually easiest to get onto without paying. I’ve mentored those without any income at all and they know which buses to take to get around when they’ve got no money. I’ve seen it often when I ride on just a few lines so I’m sure it happens on others. Certain drivers at certain times just wave people on that have no money. Other drivers give them a really hard time (leaving them angry) but still let them on. Other drivers just send them away. It makes sense to make it easy to get around when you’ve got no money. The key issue then is where is the line drawn? How little money is no money?
Face it, riding the Metro is expensive. Let’s say you live outside of Seattle to save money on rent so you’re crossing two zones. If I’m reading the fares correctly that’s $6.50 per day so $32.50 per week to get to work. At minimum wage, a worker would have to set aside 3 hours of work per week or so after taxes to pay for transit to get to work if not more (in hours). Add in some extra trips on the weekend and it really starts to be a hardship. Those riders see riders like me that gets my Orca card as a benefit and pay nothing out of pocket to ride transit (my employer pays since it reduces the congestion that makes them unattractive to future employees and the parking they need to provide) and think why them and not us? Factor in that King County Metro is not the most efficient system out there. I ride it almost every day and buses are frequently 20 to 30 minutes late or get cancelled with only a last minute notice if at all so I’m already traveling when I get the notice that my connecting bus is not going to be there. Tonight I’m going to a show in Bellevue. There’s no way I will count on the Metro to get me there or get me home afterwards. It’s just too risky. I drove today.
Amen!