Spare the Air and Raise the Fare

Last Thursday, I was crowing about how the five-day air quality forecast for ozone and smog levels looked good. I thought it meant we might be spared from another Spare the Air day for a while. Later that day, the Bay Area Air Quality Management District revised its forecast and declared Friday a Spare the Air day. Soon afterwards, they went ahead and declared Monday one, too.

What that meant was three consecutive weekdays of free transit, which was great because, well, it meant free train rides, but sucked because I now have nothing to look forward to this summer... transit-wise. Unless you count the fare increase Caltrain soon plans to enact.

I heard about it on the news last night. There isn't much suspense surrounding the rate hike. It's happening. When it comes, it will be the third one in two years. It's now just a matter of learning when it will take effect and how big it will be.

Caltrain is considering two plans. Plan A calls for a 25-cent zone fare increase. Plan B calls for a 25-cent base fare increase in addition to the zone fare increase. Of the two plans, my wallet prefers the former, but fully expects them to implement the latter. If they choose Plan A, I imagine we'll hear rumblings of another fare increase six months down the line. With any luck, we might not experience another rate hike until next summer if they choose Plan B.

Just in case you're wondering how the Caltrain fare system works, here is how I understand it. The train line is divided into six zones. To travel in any one zone costs $2.25. That's called the base fare. For every additional zone traveled, they charge a zone fare of $1.50. Currently, I have a three-zone commute, so a single-ride ticket costs $5.25 ($2.25 + 2 * $1.50). If they adopt Plan B, that same one-way ticket will cost $6.00 ($2.50 + 2 * $1.75). That translates into an extra $1.50 per day or an additional $30 per month (assuming a month has twenty workdays and I rode every day).

Here's hoping they adopt Plan A.