Starting in January it will cost 50 cents more to take a Valley Transit Authority express bus one way, $20 more for a monthly pass and $220 more for a yearly express pass.
But there’s some good news: Some youth fares will drop on buses and light rail. SIngle bus rides go from $1.75 to $1; a day pass goes from $5 to $3 and a 12-month pass goes from $495 to $330.
Light rail day fares will jump from $6 to $7 for adults and a monthly pass will go from $70 to $80.
Youth light rail fares drop from $5 to $3 and a monthly pass drops from $45 to $30.
Effective January 1, customers will get two-hour fares that include free transfers by using a Clipper card or VTA’s mobile fare app, EZfare. After the first tag on Clipper or upon activating a Single Ride fare your smartphone through EZfare, customers will be able to transfer within the next two hours for free across all VTA bus and light rail service (except Express Bus.)
These free transfers are only available to those paying with electronic fare methods.
VTA’s fares, like COG’s fares, TAMC’s fares, SCCRTC’s fares, and the fares of all other public transit agencies, Caltrain’s fares, only cover about 1% of fully amortized costs (including capital and fixed costs). So, motorists gas&diesel taxes are stolen by our leaders and diverted to keep bankrupt transit running. We have a double standard in transport funding, shielded by unelected “directors” at joint power authorities (VTA, COG, TAMC, SCCRTC, MTA, etc., etc., etc.), immune from voters’ recall remedies, who use nontransparent financials to conceal the true extent of their losses. Unaccountable and nontransparent transit agencies use Enron style, Bernie Madoff style, off-book accounting, which is illegal for everyone else per federal & state tax regs. VTA was awarded “worst in the Nation” by the MIT study of all the Nation’s transit agencies. Both the President’s Blue Ribbon Commission on Transport Funding (Bush II) and the California Transportation Commission recommended that we fund transport with “user fees.” If VTA’s fares
are barely covering 10% of their operating costs, they are borderline illegal because the statutes require (HaHa) them to make 10% of their costs from their patrons. Total travesty; total farce; total Road to Serfdom,
based on the history of the previous century. Motorists are paying 102% of our costs on about 4.5T miles/yr., and you know who gets the overage-transit. Planned, intentional, chronic insolvency is bad governance. To stop the hemorrhaging we ought to just pay for transit riders’ Uber & Lyft rides. We’d save billions. Legacy public sector union pension obligations would become manageable; today they are not. Our leaders in local government are aiding and abetting Sacramento in destroying this once Golden State. Joseph P. Thompson, Esq., Past-Chair, Legislation Committee, Transportation Lawyers Assn. Gilroy (408) 848-5506
Caveat viator.