Update: City officials have announced a 25-cent fare hike on CTA train rides and bus fares beginning January 7, 2018.
We’ll soon learn what’s in the cards—the CTA is slated to announce its final 2018 budget this week. Thus far no one’s said how big a fare hike might be needed, but it should be noted that even a 25-cent increase to the current fares of $2.25 per train trip and $2 per bus ride could tip the scales for some customers, who might turn to other affordable options like Uber Pool, Lyft Line, or Divvy as an alternative, which could be counterproductive for increasing revenue. Moreover, an extra quarter per ride adds up to about $120 a year for daily round-trip commuters, a nontrivial expense for working-class Chicagoans and a real hardship for some impoverished residents.
These include building more car-free bus lanes (which already exist on the downtown Loop Link corridor and the south side’s Jeffery Jump route) and enforcing them with traffic cameras. Transit-friendly stoplights shorten reds or extend greens to help buses travel more efficiently—the city is currently implementing this technology on Western and Ashland. And prepaid, all-door boarding can reduce “dwell time” at bus stops. Whitehead adds that elected officials should look into establishing discounted fares for low-income residents, similar to what currently exists for seniors, students, and people with disabilities.
If a CTA fare hike is in our future, how about some sugar in the form of service and equity improvements to help the medicine go down? v
