"Can You Bag My ORCA Card?"

This spring local retail stores began selling ORCA cards. Since ORCA started in 2009, retailers have been able to load fare value on existing cards, but this is the first time they started selling cards.

That was a huge step for the ORCA program as it quadrupled the number of locations where you could buy an ORCA card if you didn’t already have one.

People who qualify for reduced fare, such as seniors, disabled or youth, still must buy their ORCA card in person at a transit agency customer service center because proof of eligibility is required. But the vast majority of transit riders use the standard “adult” ORCA card and that can now be bought at Safeways, QFCs, Roger’s MarketPlace and other convenient locations.

When you visit one of these retailers, there is often an ORCA sign, usually at the Customer Service desk. A new ORCA card costs $5, plus the cost of a monthly pass or whatever E-purse fare you want to put on the card. The hope is that expanding the locations where you can buy an ORCA card will encourage more people to use transit.

At community fairs this summer, we've been asked a lot of questions about ORCA, and many people don't know how convenient it is for paying fares. Now we can point down the street and say, "You can get one there!"

Where did you get your first ORCA card?

Fares for All Services Will Increase February 2013

Beginning February 1, 2013,fares will increase for all Community Transit services. The new fares are posted on our website. If you are an ORCA monthly passholder, please remember these new fares as you reload your ORCA pass or E-purse in January.

As we mentioned in a past post, the fare increases on buses, vanpools, and DART are necessary to pay for current service levels and not new service. This move also puts Community Transit’s adult local fare on par with other transit agencies. The new adult fare will be $2; Pierce Transit also charges $2 and Metro charges $2.25 for non-peak and $2.50 for peak-hour local service.

Raising fares helps Community Transit:

• Keep pace with cost increases, including fuel prices, wages, benefits, and inflation.
• Pay for approximately 21 percent of the cost of riding the bus. This means 79 percent of each trip is subsidized by sales taxes, grants and other revenue.

The agency will launch some new trips in February, thanks to grant funding. But to pay for significant new service, we need new funding.

The State Legislature convenes Jan. 14 and may consider ways to fund transit this session. Community Transit will be asking for direct funding, or the ability to take a measure to local voters to authorize additional funding for the agency. After cutting 37 percent of our bus service since 2010, we want to do the best job we can of providing the transit service our customers want. Fare increases help keep pace with inflation, but don’t give us the financial room to bring back Sunday service nor add trips where many people want them.

We recently updated our six-year plan forecasting our financial revenues and service levels in the near-term future. The report asserts the same point as last year— we are still waiting for a strong economic recovery and sales tax revenues. We encourage you to review our Transit Development Plan, 2013-18 and participate in the public comment period which is now underway.

Seattle Ride Free Area Going Away

King County Metro Transit has decided to eliminate the downtown ride free area on Sept. 29. The decision was really made by the King County Council as a concession to approve the two-year $20 car tab fee.

Either way, there are a few impacts for Community Transit riders.

Commuters who board Community Transit buses in downtown Seattle will pay on entry, which is how they pay everywhere else. This also means that riders must board at the front doors.

Having an ORCA card will make boarding faster; so far the vast majority of Community Transit's commuter riders have ORCA cards.

Lynnwood-bound riders who board north county Routes 421, 422 or 425 will need to let the driver know they are only going to Lynnwood before paying fare. This allows the driver to change the farebox from the default north county fare. Currently, this is done at the Lynnwood Transit Center as people deboard.

The upside to this change is that when commuters get to their destination they can just hop off the bus from any door! Also, there shouldn't be a lot of "free riders" taking their seats in downtown Seattle. Community Transit does not have a local fare in King County, so anyone boarding a bus downtown will have to pay a commuter fare.

The downside could be confusion the first few days after the change. There may also be longer waits for buses downtown as people take longer to board.

For information on how people can get around downtown, visit Metro's website.

Fare Increase Proposed for February 2013

The Community Transit Board of Directors has proposed a fare increase that would take effect on Feb. 1, 2013. The proposal would raise fares by 25 cents on local bus service, 50 cents on south county commuter bus service and 75 cents on north/east county commuter bus service (Routes 421, 422, 424, 425 and 821).

DART paratransit fares would go up 25 cents and vanpool fares would increase 10-15 percent based on the vehicle.

The fare increase is intended to keep revenues in line with inflation; in other words to pay for existing service not new service. Local and DART fares were last increased in June 2010; commuter and vanpool fares were last increased in October 2008.

As a service agency, Community Transit must bring in as much revenue as it spends to operate service. In recent years the agency was spending more than it brought in as sales tax revenues took a nosedive. The result was two major service reductions totaling 37 percent of bus service and 206 employee layoffs.

To help prevent the agency from landing in the same predicament, a Six-Year Transit Development Plan approved in early 2011 called for regular fare increases every two years. This first fare increase was to have been implemented this fall, but CEO Joyce Eleanor chose to push back the proposal to Feb. 2013 to provide some relief to riders who have endured so many cuts.

Still, the fare increases are an important revenue tool to keep the agency afloat. In 2011, fares paid for 18.5 percent of the cost of operating the agency's service. If the proposal is approved, that rate would rise to 21 percent in 2013. In other words, even with the fare increase about 79 percent of the cost of each bus trip (on average - some trips cost more than others) are paid for by sales taxes and other revenue.

Finally, while the agency has no near-term plans to add bus service, there will be 30 commuter trips added in Feb. 2013 thanks to a federal CMAQ (Congestion Management and Air Quality) grant. Even the 20 percent local match for that grant is paid for - by a small new pot of transit money authorized by the state legislature this year.

Here's how you can comment on the fare proposal.

ORCA Reaches Operational Milestone

The multi-party agreement that created the ORCA smart card project was signed in 2003. Community Transit was the first agency to sign on and has been a regional leader in transitioning riders to the ORCA card. Currently, more than 70 percent of all Community Transit bus riders use the ORCA card; the percentage is even higher on commuter service to UW and downtown Seattle.

Although the ORCA system went live more than two years ago, the project just received Full System Acceptance (FSA) last week. That milestone means that ORCA is no longer a “project” for the partner agencies, but is simply the basic fare system.

Nothing changes for the public or our employees with FSA, but it begins a new phase for ORCA. Vix, the company formerly known as ERG which manages the system, begins a contract to operate the system for the next 10 years. All new changes to the system will be charged (up until now changes that made the system work correctly were considered part of the project contract). Most importantly, additions to the system can be made, whether it be new agencies coming on board, new products offered or new functionality for the ORCA cards.

The Joint Board, which is made up of CEOs and general managers from the seven partner agencies, will take time in considering what changes to make to ORCA. The system still has some operational kinks, but the program is a big success. Of the nearly 500,000 people who ride transit daily in the Puget Sound Region, about 300,000 of them use ORCA cards to pay their fare. A big percentage of those are workers and students whose employer or school provides an ORCA card. The number of business institutions has gone up since ORCA replaced the PugetPass system.

Tell us what your experience with ORCA has been, good, bad or in between.

New Tool in Fare Enforcement

About a month ago, Community Transit drivers started handing out a small business-sized card to riders who fail to pay their full fare. The card informs the rider that fares are mandatory and that s/he is riding at risk of a $124 citation.

For years, there have been complaints that drivers don't do enough to make people pay their fares. In fact, the agency's policy was for drivers to ask for fare once then not argue with a rider. The policy is to ensure the safety of the driver and other riders, and to keep the driver focused on driving the bus.

If you ask some people, they'll say fare evasion on buses is rampant. On some routes, in some areas, with some riders, it is a problem. But we had our drivers and monitors do a survey recently and found that on all Community Transit buses the fare evasion rate (those who underpay or don't pay at all) is about 2 percent. One can say that's a small number, 2 out of 100 people, but with ridership in the millions it adds up.

When we started Swift bus rapid transit, with its off-board fare payment and no fare box, we stepped up the practice of having deputies ride on buses. In the past it was more a symbol of security, but with changes to state law authorizing civil citations for non-fare payment, the deputies had a new job - fare enforcement.

Our drivers started keeping logs of fare evasion, filling out forms to indicate which routes, which locations and which times of day fare evasion was occuring most often. The deputies use this information to decide which buses to ride, in uniform or in plain clothes. A problem arose, however, when deputies encountered a fare evader and their excuse was "Well, the driver let me ride anyway."

By handing the fare evader the new card, the rider is warned and has no excuse. In fact, one supervisor told me last week that a driver handed a card to a gentleman who had underpaid. The guy sat down, read the card then came back to the front and paid the rest of his fare. Good call!

On Swift, the ambassadors are there to check fares and educate riders about how to pay fares on this different type of service. Because it's an honor-payment system, fare evasion is higher than on the rest of the system (up to 6 percent), but there is also a greater risk of getting caught as we have more patrols checking for fare evasion.

Our hope is, with this new reminder, more people will pay their fare without hassle. Drivers can remain focused on the road and deputies can do their job without worrying that a fare evader "has an excuse."

King County Metro Gets Car Tab Revenue. Why Not Us?

On Monday, the King County Council approved a two-year, $20 fee on car tabs that will help fill King County Metro’s $60 million budget shortfall and stave off a 17 percent cut in service.

Why doesn’t Community Transit seek a car tab fee?

Short answer: We can’t.
Longer answer: We tried. The original bill to give transit agencies the authority to temporarily raise revenues with a “congestion relief” or car tab fee was written with Community Transit in mind by state Rep. Marko Liias. Ironically, Community Transit and Pierce Transit were excluded from the bill when it finally passed out of the state Senate Transportation Committee.

Why don’t we raise money some other way?

Short answer: We have done what we can.
Longer answer: We have raised bus fares twice in the past three years: local and paratransit fares in 2010, and local, commuter and paratransit fares in 2008. But the public service that is transit cannot be funded by fares alone.

Snohomish County voters approved a 3/10 of 1 percent increase in the sales tax in 2001 after the state took away a third of our funding that came from the motor vehicle excise tax. That vote put us at the state maximum 9/10 of 1 percent sales tax. As it happens, the only other agency in the state that has topped-out its sales tax authority is King County Metro.

As a result of the recession, agencies that have sales tax authority remaining have been asking voters to increase support for transit for the past two years; some have succeeded, some haven’t.

Bottom line for Community Transit: We need state support – in terms of direct revenue or new taxing authority – to help fund our service. Until that happens, the Community Transit Board must make difficult decisions to balance our budget, and Snohomish County residents face more painful cuts to public transportation.

Fare-Well to a Swift Original

More than 1 million people have boarded Swift since the service started in November 2009. Joyce Dews has talked to thousands of them as one of three people filling the job of Swift Ambassador.

Swift riders may not know her name, but they do know her trademark red hair. Even when she goes to the grocery store or visits a car dealership, people recognize her as “the bus lady.”

When she boards a Swift bus, some people – those who failed to pay their fare – jump off. “They all act like they’ve got somewhere important to go,” she explains. Ambassadors and Snohomish County Sheriff’s Deputies have worked together to issue hundreds of $124 tickets to non-paying riders so far this year.

A 60-something grandmother in real-life, Joyce is also the “mom” of Swift, the one who tells people not to eat on board, not to cuss, and to clean up after themselves.

Driving Is An Expensive Choice

I went shopping at REI this weekend to spend my dividend and use my discount, along with thousands of other members and shoppers. We started at the Alderwood REI, but soon confirmed that we needed more choices. We had brought our ORCA cards just in case we wanted to take Sound Transit to the downtown Seattle REI.

Just as we were heading to Lynnwood Transit Center, one of those spring squalls passed through. We decided to drive to Seattle instead.

It was an expensive choice.

Tough Year Had Some Bright Spots

By Tom Pearce

Community Transit Public Information Specialist

Last year was a busy one for Community Transit, with a major service change and a fare change, the rapid growth of Swift bus rapid transit service and the start of the “Buy Local for Transit” campaign.

The service change that took place in June dominated the first half of the year, as Community Transit hosted public meetings around the service district. These meetings drew standing-room only crowds as riders came to learn about the proposed changes and voice their concerns. The Board of Directors hosted a lengthy public hearing in February, then in March reluctantly approved the suspension of Sunday service and other cuts. Final adjustments to the proposal were made in April, then it was time to implement the plan.

Community Transit conducted a massive public outreach in May and June to explain the changes to the public. Dozens of our employees were out riding buses or meeting passengers at park & ride lots in the six weeks prior to the changes. The education efforts appeared to be successful, as by the time the change was implemented on June 13, almost all passengers were aware of the changes.

The June fare change, which increased all fares by 25 cents, also was implemented smoothly and has helped balance the budget.

Swift had a big year, as ridership increased steadily as the months passed. By the end of November – which marked the completion of one year of Swift service – ridership had increased from about 1,500 boardings on the first day to 3,500 per day. The average daily boardings after one year were 40 percent higher than estimates.

Swift was recognized as one of the region’s best projects with a Vision 2040 Award, designed to recognize outstanding work that helps our region grow wisely and improves the quality of life in all of the region’s communities. Swift won numerous national transit and advertising industry awards as well.

Community Transit’s staff also collected awards and honors throughout the year. The team of Howard Evans, Steve Hanks and Joe Hulett paid their own way to Cleveland to participate in the 2010 International Bus Maintenance Roadeo, and finished third out of 25 teams. In 2009, the trio won the championship.

Another the highlight of the year was the number of long-time safe drivers Community Transit recognized.  Three coach operators became Two Million Mile Drivers: Betty Burns, Carl Huth Jr. and Merlin Yost. To earn that recognition, each had to meet the National Safety Council’s standard of 25 years without a preventable accident. Community Transit also honored 11 coach operators as Million Mile Drivers, for 12½ years without a preventable accident: Tim Caldwell, Mary Davis, Michael Felt, Reza Ghandari, Cris Healy, Solomon Habte, Amjad Khalil, Mike Majors, David Rix, Dorothy Saarinen and Diane Sassé.

Community Transit capped the year by rolling out its “Buy Local for Transit” campaign. This long-term effort is designed to encourage people to shop in our communities, strengthening local businesses and increasing local tax revenues, which supports public  transportation. Community Transit is funded primarily through a portion of retail sales taxes generated in its service district, which includes most of Snohomish County.

With 2010 in the books, Community Transit now turns its attention to the future. This year our agency will be busy planning for a sustainable level of service based on the new economic realities. Your involvement will be critical to that process. Keep reading this blog for more information.

May I See Your Swift Ticket Please?

By Mario Rojas
Community Transit Swift Ambassador

Neither cold winter nights nor hot summer afternoons nor rainy spring days nor freezing fall mornings prevented us from performing our daily endeavors as proud members of the Community Transit family during this past year. However, you may ask yourselves, what exactly does a Swift Ambassador do?

As Swift Ambassadors we boarded more than 8,100 Swift coaches this past year and we conducted over 75,700 individual fare inspections. Each fare inspection began with a warm greeting to each Swift passenger followed by a request that each rider present to us their individual valid Swift tickets, tapped ORCA cards, acceptable coupons or current passes.

Approximately 70,100 riders presented a valid form of bus fare during our fare inspections. We issued and documented 890 verbal or written warnings to invalid fare holders; however, each and every individual Swift passenger was treated with the utmost respect and courtesy. For our many passengers, the role of the Swift Ambassador in assisting with and verifying fare payment is much appreciated. We have answered many questions concerning ticket purchases, fare price variations, ORCA card purchases and “tap” process and ticket vending machine procedures.

We have also assisted the members of the Community Transit Police/Snohomish County Sheriff‘s Office during our shared ambassador and police fare inspections. Also, we created and updated daily a shared database that has been a successful source of information for both agencies.

Each of our passengers is unique and their travel experiences while on-board Swift are equally unique as well.

For example, for students, the Swift service represented a quick and affordable form of transportation while maintaining a balance with educational expenses. For parents, Swift meant a savings in transportation needs that in turn can be used for groceries and other family-related expenses. For the “green” minded commuter, this mode of hybrid transportation is a way to sustain and contribute to a positive ecological environment that will no doubt benefit future generations. For the disabled and senior passenger, Swift was symbolic of self-reliance, freedom and mobility.

Many of our passengers relied on the members of the Swift Ambassador team for directions to correct rider destinations; accurate information regarding Swift station stops; transferring or connector points for inner and outer bus agency routes; Spanish information assistance; directions to popular landmarks such as major department stores, government agencies and eating establishments; and we also conducted on-the-spot trip planning via the Community Transit “Bus Plus” schedule and map book.

This was a very successful year for all members of the overall Swift service team and it was a most valuable hands-on education and experience for the Swift Ambassadors as well; thus, we look forward to the ever-present challenges and opportunities of the next forthcoming year and remember… as Swift Ambassadors, we are here to insure that your ride on-board Swift is your best bus rapid transit experience ever!!!

Many thanks for reading and for riding.

The Swift Ambassador Team

Board Adopts Service Plan v1.0

The Community Transit Board today adopted a service plan that will suspend all bus and paratransit service on Sundays and major holidays, as well as cut overall service by 15 percent. The service cuts will take effect on June 13, 2010.

In addition, the board approved a 25-cent fare increase on all local bus and DART paratransit trips, effective June 1, 2010.

The service cuts and fare increase were made in response to continually declining revenues from sales taxes. The latest monthly figures show a decline of nearly 21 percent in sales tax revenues from the same period in 2007.

The service cuts were largely similar to a proposal announced two months ago. However, the board today adopted several changes to that proposal that restored some service to certain routes. Details of the changes will be posted on the agency's website March 5, and this blog will be updated to reflect and link to those details.

Board Chair Dave Gossett, the current chair of the Snohomish County Council, opened discussion on changes to the service proposal by proposing to reduce weekday daytime frequencies on Route 101 from 20 minutes to 30 minutes. Route 101 serves 128th Street/Airport Road from the Mariner Park & Ride east to Highway 99, then Hwy 99 to the Aurora Village Transit Center.

That proposal set an upper limit of savings that could offset other service restorations that were to come. The Route 101 amendment was passed.

Other amendments that were passed to restore service from the original proposal included:

Route 106 - Two southbound morning trips and two northbound evening trips through the North Creek Business Park area loop in Bothell between Canyon Park and UW Bothell were restored. Exact times of those trips is still to be determined.

Route 121 - Two northbound morning trips and two southbound evening trips serving the link on 23rd Avenue SE in Bothell between Canyon Park and UW Bothell were restored. Exact times of those trips is still to be determined.

Route 424 was restored to its current routing through Snohomish on all trips.

Route 477 will continue to serve Brier, but with modified routing between the Brier Park & Ride and the Mountlake Terrace Transit Center via 236th, 44th and 228th. This routing will be revisited in February 2011 when the Sound Transit I-5 flyer stop is scheduled to open.

Also, Gossett proposed a $50,000 fund be set aside to help mitigate the Sunday service cuts. Details on how this would be used are still to be worked out, but it may involve using community organizations who would provide transportation that is reimbursed through this fund. The intention is for this money to be used on trips that individuals need to make to get to work or church and who have no other transportation options.

The board adopted this revised plan unanimously.

Still under consideration are possible changes to Route 277 from Gold Bar to Everett, and Route 247 from downtown Stanwood to Everett. Additional information needed to be gathered to assess the cost of proposals to restore those services, so Gossett suggested that these two items be revisted at the April 1 board meeting.

Bad News on Bus Service Cuts All Over

By Ken Harvey, Community Transit

Previous blogs have talked about recent Community Transit public meetings held regarding service cuts and fare changes proposed for June 2010.

There were some persons at a few of those meetings who said we were the only transit agency actually cutting service now. I thought it was a remarkable statement worth investigating.

So the other day I went online and googled “transit service cuts”. Up popped the first 10 of about 3,490,000 results on transit service cuts covered in news articles, blogs and documents. And it was pretty clear there’s bad news all over.

San Francisco, Portland, Chicago, New York City, Oakland, Charlotte, LA. You name it. The list of transit agencies showed the same financial realities most of us have at home. Not enough income to continue the same level of outgo. http://www.tulsaworld.com/news/article.aspx?subjectid=334&articleid=20100301_11_A1_DamonH602640
http://www.transitchicago.com/travel_information/service_changes/20100207.aspx
http://www.gcpvd.org/2009/04/10/transportation-schizophrenia/

Here’s my quick read of perhaps a dozen or more stories. Transit agencies all over are between a financial rock and a hard place, despairing on how internal cost-cutting hasn’t been enough and how service cuts and transit layoffs are hurting riders, employees, and the agencies’ mission.

Locally, Kitsap Transit proposed service cuts back in November 2008. And then had to implement two rounds of cuts in 2009, including dropping Sunday service. Worse yet, officials there aren’t sure they’ll have the money to restore Sunday service for another couple of years.
http://www.pnwlocalnews.com/kitsap/poi/news/63893712.html
http://www.pnwlocalnews.com/kitsap/nkh/opinion/83042627.html

Two weeks ago, the Bellingham Herald had a story about Whatcom Transportation Authority’s tough situation. They are asking voters to vote to increase their local sales tax to help fund transit service. If that ballot effort fails, they have announced they will need to cut service by 14 percent in September. And they would need to make an even larger cut by the end of 2012. They characterize the second cut as a total reorganization of WTA service.
http://www.thenewstribune.com/2010/02/12/1067346/wta-looking-at-two-rounds-of-service.html
http://www.oregonlive.com/clark-county/index.ssf/2010/02/c-tran_clark_countys_bus_agency_trimmed_service_earlier_this_year.html

That’s very similar to what Pierce Transit faces. They just implemented a 6% service reduction for their February 2010 service change. They are also proposing a sales tax increase ballot measure to their board which would help them avoid a total transit system resizing. Pierce Transit staff are warning that without new revenue by 2012, they face a drastic cut in service of approximately 57%! http://seattletransitblog.com/2009/06/30/pierce-transit-service-cuts/

Consider the impact to riders and employees if their current bus routes are trimmed from 51 down to an affordable 23! They will have a very busy spring and early summer sharing their set of options with their board of directors and the public.

King County Metro is not immune either. They are one of the largest transit systems on the west coast. And they are facing the same realities. It appears they’ve been successful delaying cuts for now, but the pressures which led to their news release below haven’t gone away.
http://www.kingcounty.gov/exec/news/release/2009/February/24transit.aspx

The story really is the same wherever you look across the nation.
One interesting source which gives a national perspective to the service funding problems facing transit systems is at the Transportation 4 America website. http://t4america.org/transitcuts/

Their map of service cuts is a little out-of-date because of the bad news popping up all over, but it does provide a sense of just how widespread this is.

A few more examples:
Just last week, San Francisco MUNI board members adopted a plan to cut service by 10% for June 2010. That comes on top of service cuts they made last year. http://articles.sfgate.com/2010-02-28/bay-area/17959949_1_transit-system-municipal-transportation-agency-municipal-railway
http://www.sfexaminer.com/local/MTA-Layoffs-service-cuts-rate-increases-85579762.html

The nation’s largest transport system, New York’s Metropolitan Transit Authority, just announced a proposal that includes layoffs, fare, bridge and tunnel toll increases and a service cut package that will eliminate service on local and bus routes, reduce subway and commuter, and lay off more than 1,000 workers, from management to union coach operators. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/17/nyregion/17mta.html
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/layoffs_on_track_to_save_mta_aaTjq31THmj9Ib57UwZ4hM

Portland’s Tri-Met has just proposed a service cut and fare increase package that, if adopted, will take effect this September. Among other things, it would entirely eliminate four bus routes, curtail weekend service on some routes and eliminate low-ridership portions of some routes. www.oregonlive.com/.../hundreds_comment_on_trimet_mas.html

Its really sad and frustrating. Transit agencies are in the business of offering transportation options and serving people. So these service cuts really hurt. They hurt the people we love to serve. Those who choose to leave their cars behind to save money, time, frustration or clean the air. And those who depend upon us because they have no car.

Reduced service reflects reduced jobs and job opportunities. So service cuts also hurt our great employees, as well. These are the caring people who work in transit to serve those riders; from coach operators to transit IT staff, road supervisors to bus mechanics, from transit planners to dispatchers, from the staff who answer rider questions over the phone to those who communicate via the web, outreach activities and this blog. And of course, there are others, like those who make sure the bills and transit employees get paid.

That’s why every transit agency I’m aware of, has been working furiously to cut expenses wherever possible. Unfortunately, as you can see on the t4america.org map, it hasn’t been enough.

Please remember that Community Transit is here to serve you. We’re doing our best to weather this storm. We are working to keep the bulk of our service available to help our riders and employees weather theirs.

If the Community Transit Board approves the proposed June 2010 service change, we are also committed to restoring suspended services as soon as financially feasible. Because all storms eventually end.

No-fee ORCA deadline is February 28

ORCA (One Regional Card for All) is the electronic fare-payment system adopted by Community Transit, King County Metro, Sound Transit, Everett Transit, Pierce Transit, Kitsap Transit and the Washington State Ferries. ORCA cards allow customers to travel and transfer seamlessly between agencies without having to use different passes, tickets and transfers.

Marketing Promotions & Outreach staff from Community Transit have distributed ORCA cards to customers throughout Snohomish County since the smart card launched last year. Our goal has been to get as many people as possible hooked up with ORCA before the card fee kicks in. Beginning Monday, March 1 it will cost $5 to get a new card, but right now adult and youth ORCA cards are still free. Over the past few weeks we’ve hit the outreach circuit extra hard at senior centers, park & rides, bus stops and resource fairs, with a new promotion to help our customers make the switch to ORCA. We’ll be out and about through Friday to help as many people as we can.

There are lots of ways to get your hands on a free ORCA card before March 1 – since you're reading this online, your best bet is to pop over to www.orcacard.com and order a registered card that'll be mailed right to your door. Customers who want to go in person can visit the RideStore at Lynnwood Transit Center, Everett Station, or the newest retail location at Roger’s Market in Mountlake Terrace. Click here to see all your ORCA options.

Customers who are new to ORCA often ask us how it works or how it would benefit them. Frequent riders who used PugetPass before might not see much of a day-to-day difference, though there are some great online features that PugetPass didn't offer. You can register your ORCA card online so that your value is protected in case of loss or theft, and you can set up an auto-reload feature so you'll never run out of E-purse or forget to buy next month's pass.

The best benefit of switching to ORCA now is for customers who pay their fare with cash. Transfer policies changed in January with most agencies no longer issuing or accepting paper transfers for cash-paying customers. Now, ORCA is your transfer – when you pay by ORCA card you always get a 2-hour transfer (good from the time of your first card tap).

Proposed Service Changes -- Let's Chat!

Welcome to the Community Transit Blog!

On this site we plan to provide information about Snohomish County’s public transportation agency and let you drive the conversation. Not only are your comments welcome, but without them this blog won’t work.

About three weeks ago, Community Transit announced a proposal to cut service in June, and also to raise local bus and DART paratransit fares 25 cents. If you’ve been to any of the community meetings on this topic, you know there’s been a fair amount of community discussion around the proposal.

You can see the details on the agency’s website, but the gist of the proposal is:
· Suspension of all Sunday service, including DART and Swift
· Shortening of the work day by two hours, so buses start service at 5 a.m. and end at about 1 a.m.
· Elimination of 12 routes, most of which will be consolidated into other routes
· Truncation of many routes to eliminate loops and deviations, as well as loss of some trips

As with any service cut proposal, riders want to preserve their ride. That’s completely understandable. The idea behind this plan was to keep the bulk of frequency during the week when there are more riders. This doesn’t help early morning and Sunday riders, but from a macro perspective, there is less impact from this plan than from a plan that reduces service all week long.

There are a couple videos on YouTube (Part 1 and Part 2) that explain the agency’s economic situation and outline the service proposal.

So, tell us what you think!

This blog is for conversation on this topic. If you'd like to submit an official comment for Community Transit's Board of Directors to consider, please send your comments to 2010servicechanges@commtrans.org.