At the tail end of its meeting this morning, the Metro Board approved the staff plan on locking gates at rail stations and converting ticket machines completely to TAP. In other words, the ticket machines will no longer issue paper tickets with the conversion set to begin in a few more months.
As the Metro staff explains, the gates WILL NOT be locked all at once. Rather, the agency will aim for first locking the gates at the Normandie station on the Purple Line subway in late summer and then subsequently lock the gates in the remainder of the subway stations over the following seven months.
As the process continues, Metro staff will continue to work with other agencies — including Metrolink — on upgrading fare media so that passengers can pass through the gates.
Here is the staff report on the issue.
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For the first couple weeks of gate locking, Metro should have staff members in the stations handing out free TAP cards like candy. The transition should be made as painless as possible. In Boston (where there’s an actual human working in every station), you just ask the attendant, and you get your Charlie Card for free. It makes things so easy, especially for tourists.
Hi Katie;
I agree. I’m trying to get all the correct information for a future post. Not sure if I can get it done today, but soon.
Steve Hymon
Editor, The Source
This is Mike Duncan from Buena Park.
How does this new policy affect users of Metrolink who currently get to use their individual Metrolink ticket as an EZ Transit Pass for a day? Once this policy is in effect I probably won’t be coming to L.A. to spend money from Orange County anymore because it will just be too expensive (it would jump from $14 (B.P. to Union Station (round trip)) to $19 with the addition of a TAP card day pass. That’s a deal breaker)! $20?! How’s that a deal for me?! I may as well drive again.
I would offer as a possibility, since I already have a TAP card, the following compromise: Could staff at the Metrolink desk at Union Station program my TAP card (free of charge) for the day if I show up at the window with a valid Metrolink ticket? This way the EZ Transit Pass program for Metrolink riders could continue. Otherwise, I’ll have to stop using Metrolink.
Please remember, Metrolink riders are “stuck at Union Station” without some way to get around L.A. without having to pay again for public transit. They are already making large convenience sacrifices leaving their cars at home and taking Metrolink into L.A. If you make them pay again for public transit, they may as well just drive into L.A. again. Metrolink ridership might drop because of this. I’m just saying…
Thank you, Mike Duncan
Allon, I must admit you have stumped me—though I assume you are some sort of Metrolink passenger. Yet, I do appreciate a good riddle. Which brings me to Erik, Gary and, especially, Katie: If all of us [apparently bright] folks cannot entirely understand this subject, who can?
As for the passengers at 7th/Metro, it seems odd to me that all those generally well-suited people with briefcases would be holders of “paper day passes,” or “transferring.” One man’s thought…
As for asking these people’s status, I indeed tried a few times… and was requested to perform deeds with which I disagree. I was not looking for a fight.
Katie is correct. Metro really needs to clarify and, ultimately, FIX this!
No more Day Passes? What an incredibly poorly thought out and unnecessary move. Does MTA really think it will be cost effective to give out TAP cards to tourists on short visits, or tens of thousands of other occasional Metro Rail system users? Is the MTA really telling tourists and hundreds of thousands of annual passengers who use the Day Pass to stop using the system?
Fact: It’s is not an honor system. I’ve been inspected at least a hundrded times over the last few years. The scientifically validated evasion rate is extremely low, and the current fare inspection system makes the metro trains a lot safer to ride.
Kenny Hahn, who introduced barrier free Light Rail ticketing to LA, which is used around the world successfully, must be rolling over in his grave, at this incredibly poorly thought out move.
This tapping for changing lines is completely ridiculous. If you want to charge for how far someone has ridden on the line, have them tap in when they enter and then tap out when they leave. Calculate the line changes they’ve made. Simple.
But more to the point, charging for changing lines is the silliest idea I’ve heard in a long time. The point of a public transportation system is that it gets you where you need to go — it’s a network, not a bunch of small operations that operate in isolation. If you need to charge for distance traveled that makes sense (and can be calculated now that you’re changing to a digital system), but charging for an arbitrary use of a particular line is flawed.
Even then, if you’re going to charge for it, let the machine do the math, because people are not going to go out of their way to pay more. /end soapbox rant
There are two TAP machines on the Blue Line/Red Line platform, next to the stair railing but within the gated area, which are designed for transfer passengers. Now stand there for 10 minutes and count the number of people that actually use them. Everyone who is transferring with a TAP card is supposed to use them.
Fare enforcement has dropped from infrequent to almost zero after gates were installed. Even when the entire subway is gated, anyone who rides into Metro Center through the Blue or Expo Lines have free reign through the system, probably more so since the fare enforcement would be deployed at the gates to solve those problems, rather than checking people leaving the system.
How will this affect those of us who use the EZ Transit Pass instead of just the TAP?
Hi Greg;
This is from the staff report:
Steve Hymon
Editor, The Source