Unfortunately, the T never has gotten one particular aspect of its fares right: monthly passholders pay full fare in cash when they ride on a higher-level service.  A pass might be good for several dollars credit against the fare on one service, and not a dime on another.  The T inexplicably fails to give passholders the full value across the entire system that they purchased for one particular service.

An illustration might help.  There are two levels of express bus service, inner express and outer express.  The outer express bus generally travels to more distant stops.  An $89 inner express bus pass is good for the entire $2.80 inner express bus fare.  Not surprisingly, the pass is not good for the $4.00 outer express bus; there is a more expensive pass for that bus.  But here’s the riddle: if I offer an inner express pass good for a $2.80 fare, and the actual fare is $4.00 for the outer express bus, I only should have to pay an extra $1.20 cash, right?  Not so, at least on the MBTA.  Passholders receive no discount on the more expensive service.  They pay full fare, even though they hold a pass that would entitle them to credit for all of the fare on a different bus.  (And as an aside, there is an additional complication that the T charges different cash fares and prepaid pass/charlie card fares).

This has been a problem for years.  It is most obvious with the flexible passes for the express bus, commuter rail, and boat, because there are multiple levels of service.  However, “Link Pass” on the stored value card offers no solution, except to add a further technological hurdle to the administrative one.  Fare-takers on the commuter rail and boat don’t have the equipment to verify that a rider has a valid “Link Pass” on their stored value card.

To their credit, T fare takers typically are generous when it comes to making accommodations to passengers to ameliorate this nonsensical no-discount policy.  But wouldn’t it be better if the T used a more rational fare structure?  A $4 fare, minus a $2.80 credit for a monthly pass, ought to result in a $1.20 cash fare.

Looks like history is repeating … or at least rhyming.  Gov. Patrick directed that the proposed 2009 hike is off the table, for now.  Hopefully major service cuts also were averted.  If the consensus economic view is correct that inflation will remain subdued for some time — and assuming the inflation-adjusted fare of $1.75 remains the third-rail of subway pricing — that proposed hike won’t be finding its way to riders anytime soon.

In 2005, Grabauskas took the job of general manager with a clear vision.  The T would treat riders like customers; the system would be reliable, clean, courteous, and safe.  But mainly clean.  And accessible; inaccessibility “impacts not only on the disabled, but on parents with children in strollers, as well.” Grabauskas professed to be a neatnik; he was particularly concerned about the condition of elevators and escalators.  He apparently believed that if he made the T a comfortable place to be, riders would flock and revenues would soar.  And, of course, he wanted to control costs.

So four years later, how did he do?

Grabauskas never shrunk from the gaze of his “customers,” for example writing a regular Q+A column in the free daily paper Metro, and appearing more than once on WBUR public radio.  He was determined to keep riders safe; he initiated random, highly visible police screening checkpoints.  He committed to spending hundreds of millions of dollars to make the T more accessible, installing announcement screens and elevated platforms on the Green Line.  He resisted union contract demands and agreed to wage increases only after being overruled by a labor arbitrator.  The T renovated the Charles Street station and installed a new train control system on the Red Line that permitted more frequent service.  And there is the electronic fare system.

The list goes on.  Grabauskas was nothing if not engaged in the goings-on at the T.  Perhaps one can disagree with him on policy matters — for example it might be reasonable to question the wisdom of a having a broke organization with heavy capital needs spend hundreds of millions of dollars in an effort to meet the unique requirements of less than 0.1% of T riders — but the man demonstrated integrity and dedication to his “customers.”

But many things never changed.  Yes, the trains still are slow and late.  Yes, the escalators have at times been scandalously unreliable.  Yes there still are door-openers on the  Red, Green, and Orange Lines.  Yes, Kenmore Station still is under construction nearly five years later.  No, Dan Grabauskas does not commute to work on the T.  Yes, the T still is broke.

No Cell Zone

But none of those were the reasons that Governor Patrick and his appointees gave for the reasons they had lost faith in Grabauskas.  The breakdown occurred, they said, because two Green Line drivers in two years apparently had ignored traffic signals for different reasons, and Grabauskas was not in Washington, D. C. when the NTSB released its report on one of the accidents.  And there was a power outage on the Green Line.  That’s it.  Never mind that Grabauskas nearly overmanaged the aftermath of the Government Center Green Line collision by banning cell phones from drivers.  And never mind that he was on an unpaid budget-related furlough at the time the NTSB report was released.  And never mind he is not the T electrician.

No matter; Grabauskas is out, but to Gov. Patrick’s likely chagrin, the former T general manager emerges from the tussle virtually unscathed.  That isn’t true for the Governor and his appointees.  The termination looks like short-term political retribution — at taxpayers’ expense.

Unfortunately, the real loser here looks to be the T.  The authority is leaderless at a critical time where the patchwork of agencies is being reexamined and when the modes of transportation finance are in flux in a way they have not been in memory.  The Governor has made noises time and again that he is a friend to transit.  Now he has an opportunity to go from words to action.

What is really interesting about this is it also would put subway and bus fares at their highest levels in Boston ever, even after the prices are adjusted for local inflation.  In other words, the Boston subway never has been as costly to ride in real world terms as it will be if the fare increase is approved.

The Boston subway debuted with a nickel fare in 1897, and slowly the fare rose, to 10¢ in 1919, 15¢ in 1949, 25¢ in 1968,  75¢ in 1981, and 85¢ in 1991.  The MBTA Advisory Board published then-current figures in 2006 during the last round of fare increases.

T to Riders: How High is Too High?

In 1897, a nickel bought more than it does today.  A lot more.  According to the Bureau of Labor statistics, a nickel then had 96% more value in Boston than a nickel today.  If you adjust the value of the nickel (or quarter) for the additional buying power in had in the past, you get a chart like the one on the right (which shows fares in constant dollars since 1945).

The actual value of the nickel fare in 1897 was $1.35 in today’s dollars, which is inexpensive but not so much of a steal.  The standard fare right now is $1.70.  In the Boston subway’s 112-year history, the standard fare been higher than it is right now in constant dollars just three times: in 1933 ($1.71), 1954 ($1.77), and in 1981 ($1.90).  And for 28-years, the 1981 peak has stood as a high-water mark for the regular subway fare (in constant dollars).  If the T gets its way and promptly implements the fare hike, it will set a new record for unaffordability, although because exit fares recently were eliminated the burden will fall disproportionately on innercity riders who do not exit at suburban stops where previously there were surcharges.

What is even more interesting is that the T is raising fares just as prices for private transportation are falling.  Or at least not rising to the same extent.  The chart shows dotted lines for private transportation costs in Boston and nationwide for public transit costs (also from the Bureau of Labor Statistics), both of which have continued to decline relative to background inflation as the T dramatically raised its fares.  (note: for purposes of the graph, private transportation costs were equalized to subway fares for the year 2000; the trend of costs upward or downward is what is significant)  For fifty years, changes in regular T fares corresponded roughly to changes in private transportation costs (both in direction and magnitude), but in the last ten years private costs have been flat whereas standard subway fares soared.  I’m no economist, but it seems like the T should be able to keep its customers’ costs flat.  Instead the T simply failed to hold the line.

Riders still can take heart from a historical perspective.  Each of the previous real dollar fare-price records were short-lived.  In 1981 and 1954, the fare increases were almost immediately rescinded.  The next year fares were cut– an unusual occurrence– by 20% and 25% respectively.  In 1982, for example, the Legislature restored funding that the T lost the previous year.  And in 1934, a bout of deflation that caused the rise in the real fare price was broken and the real fare price in constant dollars declined (even though the stated fare was unchanged).

The rate hike proposal probably isn’t the best option.  Probably a fairer solution (pun alert) would be to restore some rationality to the subway fare structure by reintroducing some form of distance pricing.  Functionally the T is closer to that goal because it has introduced an electronic fare system, but distance pricing would require a revival of exit fares.  And Charlie got stuck on the subway as a result of exit fares.  No one wants Charlie to get stuck again.  A 60-year-old ditty still drives policy in some quarters.  More on distance pricing another time.

Although the fare hike may possibly be a fait accompli, the T scheduled “workshops” for riders to speak out about it.  I expect they should get an earful.  Not for nothing, the first session is scheduled to be conducted in the State House,  Gardner Auditorium, on  Monday, August 10, from 4pm to 7pm.  Probably the T hopes someone there will be listening.

Whatever decision the state makes, it will be a painful one.  But on the other hand, history tells us that $2.00 to ride the Boston subway — even for just one stop — is just too high a price.

A second express bus pass, with an identical monthly fare! Two passes for the price of one!

Buy one get one free ... oops!

I was confused so I asked the station attendant what the second pass was all about. He said that I must have paid twice, and that the pass was indeed a second monthly ticket to the bus. He recommended that I write the machine number and return the pass to the monthly pass office at a different station, when the office reopened. He figured that I must have paid for the extra pass.

But surprise! Later I confirmed that the second pass was indeed a live monthly ticket and not a receipt — it is accepted by card readers on the express bus — and best of all, my credit card only was charged once — meaning I only paid for one of the two passes! I’ve heard that I’m not the only person who has experienced this “surprise;” I wonder how often the MBTA has done this unannounced two-for-one deal.

I previously had heard of stored value Charlie Cards that erroneously had some special unlimited access for unlimited time, and I’ve had intermittent problems in the past with the fare system. For example, once when the clock struck midnight on the last day of the month my monthly pass for the previous month no longer worked and my monthly pass for the subsequent month was not yet recognized. Stranded at midnight with two monthly passes but no train fare! Imagine.

But a whole free pass — very unexpected. This potentially is an $89 mistake by the T. Mistakes like that add up quickly. The T spent thousands chasing two MIT hackers who had devised some theoretical exploit to ride the T more than they were entitled. And then the T turns around and it prints extra monthly passes for free.

Is there a contractor somewhere that owes the T some money back? I wonder how much money the T has lost through this particular quirk.