An audit of Metro’s TAP fare card program was submitted to the agency last month and it wasn’t pretty. The audit, in short, found that that the cost of the program increased from $75.5 million to $154 million over the last decade (some as a result of adding things like gates to rail stations) and that the TAP effort is understaffed.

Here’s a link to the Los Angeles Times’ story on the audit, which was also discussed at last month’s Metro Board meeting.

Even without the audit, the TAP fare card was running into issues. The Board of Foothill Transit also voted last month to stop using the TAP cards because of problems that officials said were delaying bus service.

The agency did provide members of the media with the audit but did not post it on its website. A member of the public subsequently obtained the report by submitting a public records request to Metro.

As a result, the audit is now posted on the website of The Transit Coalition, a mass transit advocacy group.

In the meantime, Metro officials have vowed to fix the TAP card system. I’ll be posting more about that effort soon.