Such bus fare anarchy has brought calls for a common bus fare for the Bay Area. There is a plan afoot to introduce a regional "smart card". This is a high-tech thing like a credit card, which can store a money balance, and other information about the rider. One waves the magic card near the reader on the fare box, and the fare is deducted. It’s a step up from the present BART ticket. The smart card would work for all the transit systems, probably the ferries too, and be able to deal with all the various fares and pass plans. It might be used for non-transit purchases too.

For most people, bus fare is a bargain. You can board a #72 bus in downtown Oakland, deposit your dollar, quarter and dime, and ride all the way to the Hilltop Mall in Richmond. AC Transit offers such a deal only because it’s too much trouble to keep track of where people get on and off. On other bus systems, you may pay a higher fare if you cross a zone boundary. AC Transit does this only on the transbay lines.

Like any price, people see bus fare as high or low depending on financial situation and psychological attitude. Bus fare is big money if you haven’t got it. A one-way fare is about the same as a cheap fast-food meal.

To middle class people, bus fare is spare change, but middle class people tend not to be bus riders. A disproportionate number of AC Transit’s riders are low-income people, who try hard to economize on bus fares. This has kept fares low.

The most popular way to save on bus fare is to squeeze all you can from a transfer.

Many people have to use transfers, because they must ride more than one bus to get where they are going, and don’t want to pay the fare twice. One could argue that an extra fare is fair, because it gives the bus company a way to charge for distance traveled. But this rewards one rider who goes Oakland-to-Richmond for one fare on the #72, and penalizes another rider who must use two (or more) buses to make a much shorter trip.

It’s not really clear what a bus fare should buy. Is it distance? Time? Maybe just permission to board?

Transfers used to be free, and still are on many other bus systems. But there was a lot of cheating on AC Transit; one popular practice: pay a fare and get a transfer, then hand the transfer out the bus window to your buddy, who is still in the boarding line. In downtown Oakland, several times, people offering cut-rate transfers have approached me.

There have been some confrontations over transfers. In October 1999, AC Transit decided to tighten up their rules on transfers. Under a policy adopted in 1995, a transfer cost 25 cents extra, and was valid for two uses within 90 minutes of issuance. But in practice, out there on the buses, transfers were being accepted up to 2 1/2 hours after issuance. The proposed policy was a 2 1/2 hour limit, and 2 uses, but to limit travel to the same direction as the issuing bus.

This proposal was wildly unpopular. Transfers are very important for cutting the cost of bus fare. A lot of people objected to the proposed ban on round-trips. Many people pay a bus fare, buy a transfer, then go to the grocery store for a few items. After that, they want to use the transfer to get back home. One lady said that she has to make a lot of connections, and that without transfers, a morning run to a class she attends, with a stop for groceries on the way back can add up to $5.40 in bus fares.

A public meeting made it clear that transfers are more important than the bus fare itself (the fare had recently been increased). The transfer issue was settled by leaving the 2 ½ hour limit, and allowing travel in either direction.

Transfers are easier to manage today on AC Transit. New fare boxes have been installed on all the buses, with a transfer reader/printer attached. When the driver pushes a button, the box prints a little card, stamped with the time and also records the time on a magnetic strip. When the rider boards the second or subsequent bus, he sticks the transfer into the machine and it tells whether the transfer is still within the time limit.

We could totally forget about transfers if everyone had a monthly pass. But there are a lot of people who are dependent on bus transportation, yet always pay a cash fare. Some say that they cannot afford a pass, that $49 is to big a hit, especially near rent time. Others claim that they don’t ride the bus enough. The monthly pass breaks-even after 18 round-trips. Anyone who makes one round-trip every weekday will go over that.

Some bus systems offer a day-pass, which lets you ride all day, for one day. However, the day-pass usually costs at least two regular fares. This is fine for a tourist, or someone who has several errands to run, but the person who takes a short round-trip to the grocery store, just once a day, still pays two fares.

Well, couldn’t we make the buses free?

We’re most of the way to free fares right now. Fare box revenue falls far short of the bus operating costs. For AC Transit, only about 22% is covered by fares. About 11% more is covered by sales of advertising on the buses. So that’s 33% of operating costs covered; the rest is subsidized from taxes.

And that was just the operating costs. The capital costs – buying the buses – are entirely funded by Federal Grants (i.e. the Federal Income Tax).

Of course, taxes of all kinds are disproportionately drawn from the middle class. So the middle class is paying more than pocket change, for a service that some of them never use. The bottom line politically seems to be that taxes are quite high enough, and that transit should pay some of its own way.

If most people used transit, there would not be a need for such subsidies. In Hong Kong, public transit fares are a little higher than in the Bay Area, but nearly everyone rides public transit there, so there is no subsidy. The fares pay for it all, even buying the buses.