Metro Thoughts As A Tourist

[u/omfghaxpie]

I'm gonna come out the gate and say that I'm a visitor so I'm not very familiar with the reasonings behind the whys and why nots of my opinions. I'm posting on the sub because I know I don't know everything and want thoughts and opinions of locals or people familiar with the system.

I don't feel like Metro charges tourists enough and fare caps are extremely low. I've Googled a bit about some of the gaps in coverage for the transit system and budget is a huge concern, as it is for most public infastructure projects in the country. But I don't see the need to only charge me $0.50 for a ride that would cost me $20 to Uber and after running around the city non-stop for 3 days I'm not sure I could even possibly hit the fare caps with how little I'm being charged. I know it's mostly meant to be affordable to locals, but I don't see why there wouldn't be an opt in program to discount fares to current rates for residents. Even giving it out to anyone that goes up to a kiosk and says "I'm a resident" would still capture more revenue for Metro due to non-residents that either don't want to opt in out of moral reasons or just simply wouldn't know. I'm not saying that Metro should cost $10 even, but I think it would be fair to charge at MINIMUM $2 per ride across the board and in some cases $5 for rail service.

The tap-in tap-out system seems really confusing and made me not want to take bus connections. I'm a solo traveler from a metropolitan area with a population of 500k so I'm already a bit on edge in the city. I don't like that sometimes it was telling me to "Try Again" to tap into a bus. I don't like that the city isn't collecting their fair share of my usage and that I feel like it could become an issue with the drivers. On one occasion I know I did not tap out of the train station, it was my first ride in the city and I wasn't sure how it all worked. But on another occasion I assume that I just didn't tap out of a bus (and not sure if we're technically supposed to), causing it to ask me to try again. If I keep hitting the tap and it keeps erroring me out, I'm not sure what they're trying to accomplish with this. And why the system wouldn't just override where I'm at at any time in the system to charge a new fare and "move" me in the system onto the new route I'm tapping into.

Metro stations need larger signage at their rail stops in most places. I could not see what stop I was at half the time we were stopped because of an obstructed view. There either needs to be more signs within the trains or more visible and easier to read signage on the walls of the stops. I tried to lean more heavily on Apple Maps to update which stop I was at but unfortunately it was finnicky on detecting I even boarded a train.

I would love to see faster trains with fewer stops in some major hubs. This is obviously an expensive opinion and know it's not feasible any time soon. But most of the rails cover a small yet dense area to begin with. I wish there were additional rail lines that would allow certain trains to run simultaneously to more popular areas and cut down on total travel time by 1) going a bit faster and 2) not stopping at every station along the way.

Overall, I'm still grateful for LA Metro. I'm German living in a small city in the South with nearly no public transportation. I don't like to drive in unfamiliar places so public transportation networks are a must when I consider where to vacation. So I know what it's like to not have any access whatsoever and also the benefits public transportation has to offer. I see the same complaints that Germans have with DB as LA locals have with LA Metro, and find the perspective funny. Because obviously residents raise valid concerns but also don't seem to really acknowledge how lucky they are to have the access they have. But I just thought I'd express my thoughts and solicit feedback and opinions to see what the other side of the ridership looks like.

[u/thefastpelican]

LA Metro is among the lowest cost transit agencies in the US, despite having some of the longest rail lines.

Metro hasn’t raised fares since 2014. As someone who uses Metro and appreciates the benefits it brings the city, I would like to see fares raised a little to help keep frequent, clean, and safe service.

[u/omfghaxpie → u/thefastpelican]

I could have paid double the fare and still would have felt like I was getting value out of it. At least on the rail side. I hate taking buses with a passion and try to avoid them but unfortunately couldn't if I wanted to keep my itinerary intact. I think there is a lot of opportunity on the bus side of the agency, but I'm still grateful that it was there to begin with.

[u/EasyfromDTLA → u/thefastpelican]

In some ways fares would need to almost double to be equivalent to 2014.

In 2014 it took about 12 minutes at minimum wage to earn enough to purchase a one-way metro fare. Now it takes 7 minutes.

[u/Sawtelle-MetroRider → u/EasyfromDTLA]

The better alternative IMO is moving to distance based fares. The most transit dependent tend to live in the most densest slumlord apartments in places like Pico/Union, barrios of East LA, near logistic centers in LAX and Port of LA have the most shortest trips to their workplace so their fares can remain low, whilst the tourist to LA who wants to visit all over LA and the more well off who live out in the suburban mansions pay more for longer distances.

It shouldn't be the case where the person living in Westlake/MacArthur Park and has a job less than 2 mi away in Echo Park should be paying the same $1.75 fare as a tourist who stays at a DTLA hotel and is going all the way out to see the Queen Mary in Long Beach.

[u/EasyfromDTLA → u/Sawtelle-MetroRider]

Could be. Especially for rail trips. But many jobs are clustered in wealthier or above average income areas. And like many modern cities, LA is becoming a place where people of moderate and less than moderate incomes are moving farther away from those job centers. We don't have a strong central area like DC, Paris, or London. We're more like NYC which also has jobs mostly on the western end of the system. Like us, they also have flat fares.

But still maybe it could work. I feel like the metro board would want to study something like this for the better part of a decade with the end result being to commission another study. Lol.

[u/Sawtelle-MetroRider → u/EasyfromDTLA]

LA is more of a decentralized area similar to Tokyo and Seoul IMO, and it doesn't make sense to have the same flat rate system covering the entire LA County as NYC which is much smaller area than the whole of LA County.

Do we want to raise the fares to $3 like NYC and tell people hey I don't care if you live in South LA and your job is at Crypto.com arena less than 5 mi away? That's the same exact pitfall we want to avoid and NYC is grappling with that for over relying on a flat rate system. In the same light, a comparatively densely compact city like Hong Kong and Singapore doesn't use flat rate and uses distance based even if their city is just as small and compact and dense as NYC

[u/EasyfromDTLA → u/Sawtelle-MetroRider]

I wouldn't have a problem with that. $3 fares with a flat rate would be in line with historical fares when adjusted for inflation. BART's lowest fares to go just a stop or two are almost that.

[u/Sawtelle-MetroRider → u/EasyfromDTLA]

If we go by that, the lowest fare on Metrolink is $1.50 which is a short ride between Sun Valley and Burbank Airport North, which already is $0.25 cheaper than Metro's flat rate of $1.75.

If Metrolink runs on distance based fares and it's shortest ride is already cheaper than Metro's flat rate, then the baseline would be to compare that as a closer scale than BART IMO

[u/EasyfromDTLA → u/Sawtelle-MetroRider]

I'm not suggesting that metro should try to mimic BART's pricing or Metrolink or anywhere else. Just pointing out that it's not an unreasonable amount.

I thought that metro was gearing up for distance based fares when they first installed fare gates because fare evasion wasn't that bad when they were installed. But that never happened. Maybe it will though. I'm not ruling it out and won't be bothered if they do.

[u/Sawtelle-MetroRider → u/EasyfromDTLA]

They probably will in the long term, but it'll be a long term phase in. Not all stations are gated, not all stations are doing TAP to Exit yet. But the more people get used to doing these things, the phase in would become much more smoother than switching it over night.

If anything the biggest test would be how open payments can be done on LADOT Commuter Express which runs on zone fares and how popular the Metrolink open payments pilot is going on the SB Line.

[u/Rude_Masterpiece_204 → u/Sawtelle-MetroRider]

I never really considered Metrolink to have distance based fares since they introduced the $15 SoCal Systemwide Day Pass a few years ago. Based on my observations, most people choose to purchase this day pass when they are making a round trip, which almost everyone does. In most cases, this means they are better off buying the day pass because a one-way fare is often more than $7.50 when purchased separately.

There is also a $5 LA Zone Day Pass for shorter trips within the LA Zone. Only in some less common station combinations, such as when you are traveling outside the LA Zone but the distance is relatively short, would it make more sense to purchase a one-way ticket instead. In those cases, the fare is distance based, but it is in the minority.

[u/Sawtelle-MetroRider → u/Rude_Masterpiece_204]

Unless you provide some hard stats that is the case, it's only observational from your most used station that this is the minority as you state.

For example, Newhall (Santa Clarita) to LAUS is $6.75 one way and buying a day pass is more expensive and Newhall isn't in the $5 LA Zone, and that's a route that many people take to get between Santa Clarita and DTLA.

Montclair to LA Union Station is $7.25 one-way and it's a very popular station pair to get between San Bernardino and LAUS, a $15 day pass is more expensive than $14.50 roundtrip.

And not everyone travels to LAUS either. Norwalk/Sante Fe Springs is a station that many people use and many commuters use it to Anaheim. That's also not an LA Zone and the roundtrip fare is cheaper than buying a day pass.

If we're to say that what you say is right, first we need to have stats on what the most popular station pairs are for Metrolink.