saulblum wrote:
SEPTA runs hourly service on most regional rail lines on the weekends, unlike the T. Take a look, for example, at the Fitchburg line North Station departures on the weekend:
8:35, 11:15, 12:45, 3:00, 4:15, 6:00, 8:00, 11:30
And how much more should peak fares rise?
SEPTA can run hourly service off-peak because their system is nowhere near as extensive as MBTA CR. Increase the distance a line covers (more properly, increase the one-way trip time) by 50% and you basically cut in half the service level you can run with a given budget ("basically" because time to turn and any padding between runs is more or less constant, the shorter the runs, the less time the trains and crews are in revenue service, and also because this is a discretely, as opposed to continuously valued function).
SEPTA lines matched to MBTA lines by distance (I'll exclude the Airport Line), with hourly weekend service to equivalents:
Wilmington/Newark: 38.7 mi <=> Wickford Jct (Providence): 62.9 mi
Paoli/Thorndale: 35.2 mi <=> Fitchburg: 49.6 mi (to be 53.7 mi with Wachusett extension)
Doylestown: 34.4 mi <=> Worcester: 44.2 mi
Trenton: 32.5 mi <=> Newburyport: 36.2 mi
W. Trenton: 32.5 mi <=> Kingston/Plymouth: c. 36 mi (approximation weighted by train movement)
Warminster: 20.1 mi <=> Middleboro/Lakeville: 35.6 mi
Manayunk/Norristown: 18.1 mi <=> Rockport: 35.3 mi
Media/Elwyn: 15.1 mi <=> Haverhill: 33 mi
Chestnut Hill West: 11.3 mi <=> Forge Park (Franklin): 30.3 mi
Fox Chase: 11.1 mi <=> Greenbush: 27.6 mi
Chestnut Hill East: 10.8 mi <=> Lowell: 25.5 mi
Cynwyd: 6.1 mi <=> Stoughton: 18.9 mi (Needham is 13.7 mi and Fairmount is 9.2 mi)
Of course, the more ridership there was on the weekend (weekday off-peaks are a little bit of a different kettle of fish: to a point, labor for weekday off-peaks is free because you needed the labor for the peak runs), the higher the operating budget and the more service could be run. The low ridership is partly the result of low service, but it's more directly caused by low perceived value by riders relative to the fares. Peak travelers see a lot more value for money in commuter rail fares mostly due to road congestion making commuter rail sufficiently time-competitive with driving, so making off-peak fares less than peak fares (whether that's by raising peak fares, cutting off-peak fares, or both) is, to my mind a good idea.
My suite of fare changes involving CR would probably include:
* Raise the cash-on-board surcharge to $6
* Charge the cash-on-board surcharge on peak-direction trains at all stations unless the rider is over 55/under 18 to encourage the purchase of passes
* Cash-on-board transactions round up to the nearest dollar
* Implement off-peak discounts by allowing Interzone tickets to be used on off-/reverse-peak trains to zone 1A
* Reduce single-ride ticket validity periods to 72 hours
* 10 ride tickets for cost of 9 single rides (valid for 30 days)
* 20 ride tickets for cost of 17 single rides (valid for 90 days)
* annual passes for the cost of 11 monthly passes
* Maybe: raise Zone fares by $1 across the board, with proceeds going to bus/rapid transit; in turn, activating a Zone mTicket on a phone associated with a CharlieCard deposits the CharlieCard subway fare on the card (this is entirely doable with the current CharlieCard infrastructure)... this is effectively a $1 paper ticket surcharge and a fare cut for users of mTickets who transfer to bus or subway (this would not affect passes, though the $10/month mTicket pass discount would go away with the ability to link with CharlieCards)
For a rider between zones 1 and 1A, the effective fares would be (with my last change):
Cash-on-board single (peak/off-peak): $13.00 / $4.00
Cash-on-board round-trip (peak / off-peak): $20.00 / $7.00 ($10.00 / $3.50 per ride)
Cash-on-board 10-trip (peak / off-peak): $67.00 / $30.00 ($6.70 / $3.00 per ride)
Cash-on-board 20-trip (peak / off-peak): $121.00 / $56.00 ($6.05 / $2.80 per ride)
Prepurchase single (peak/off-peak): $6.75 / $3.25 [Prepurchase includes paper and mTicket users who don't use subway or bus]
Prepurchase round-trip (peak/off-peak): $13.50 / $6.50 ($6.75 / $3.25 per ride)
Prepurchase 10-trip (peak / off-peak): $60.75 / $29.25 ($6.08 / $2.93 per ride)
Prepurchase 20-trip (peak / off-peak): $114.75 / $55.25 ($5.74 / $2.77 per ride)
mTicket w/ subway/bus single, effective (peak / off-peak): $4.65 / $3.25
mTicket w/ subway/bus round-trip, effective (peak / off-peak): $9.30 / $6.50 ($4.65 / $3.25 per ride)
mTicket w/ subway/bus 10-trip, effective (peak / off-peak): $39.75 / $29.25 ($3.98 / $2.93 per ride)
mTicket w/ subway/bus 20-trip, effective (peak / off-peak): $72.75 / $55.25 ($3.64 / $2.77 per ride)
Monthly pass (peak / off-peak): $182 / $105 (14 / 27 cash-on-board single fares, plus subway and bus)
Annual pass (peak / off-peak): $2,002 / $1,155 (154 / 289 cash-on-board single fares, plus subway and bus)