爱城公交现金票价将跳到3.50元，从2月1日起
原始发布日期： 2019-01-09 发布者：虫子字变大 字变小
 Transit riders will have to fork over an extra quarter for a single cash fare, beginning Feb. 1. The hike from $3.25 to $3.50 was approved by city council during its four-year budget deliberations in late 2018. City staff had proposed increasing the fare to $4 by 2021. Council only agreed to the 2019 bump, electing to wait for administration to prepare a fare policy report before deciding whether to go ahead with the increase to $4, which could make Edmonton’s single fare the most expensive in Canada. In a press release Wednesday, Edmonton Transit advised that the jump to $3.50 is still comparable to other Canadian cities’ fares. During the budget debate, city staff revealed ridership will drop by 280,000 rides annually by 2022 if the $4 fare is implemented. The last time fares increased in 2016, the city estimated people would take 430,000 fewer transit rides the following year. In the press release, Edmonton Transit branch manager Eddie Robar encouraged people to purchase a 10-ride pass, or a monthly or annual pass to save money. Fees related to other transit passes will not rise in 2019. Proposed increases to other fare products are also on hold pending the fare policy report. A date for when the report will be brought to council has yet to be set. Edmonton Transit is in the midst of planning major changes to the system. A bus route redesign will roll out in 2020, along with a cut of 50,000 service hours. A smart card transit fare system is also in the works, which will allow riders to use one payment system to travel all across the Edmonton metropolitan region. ‘We have very low ridership’ Ward 1 Coun. Andrew Knack said those changes will transform the system, and that the 2019 fare increase is something that will be “begrudgingly” accepted while the service is awaiting the improvements. “If we were charging $3.50 and planning on leaving the service as is, that would be a pretty big concern because our system is not being used heavily. We have very low ridership that’s been declining even over the last couple of years,” Knack said. But he’s optimistic that with the smart card system, not many people will be paying the cash fare anymore. And he said he’ll advocate for a fare system based on zones or distances. “All of these changes are going to help make transit actually far more affordable. There will have to still be some type of single-use fare for the very occasional user, but if you’ve refined the rest of the system, if you’ve made it more efficient, if you have some type of mechanism that recognizes the distance travelled — I’m not so worried about the cash fare in the long term because I don’t think that that’s going to be the way we charge in the future,” Knack said. pparsons@postmedia.com twitter.com/paigeeparsons |