Tuesday night, the common council agreed to increase Madison Metro bus fares to $2 per ride in 2009. The increase is 50 cents higher than the current fare.
In the current, bleak state of the economy, money is extremely scarce - but if the city is looking for revenue, they must look in other places than the already thin pockets of Madison's students and working class. To increase the cost of service without an immediate benefit to those who ride the bus will only hurt the Metro service overall.
Although a variety of people tend to ride the Metro on a daily basis, those most common are students, handicapped and the working class, who are either incapable of driving an automobile, or cannot afford the cost of commuting and maintaining one. Taking an extra dollar per day five times a week - close to a week's worth of a minimum wage salary - will simply drive them away from the service.
Although Mayor Dave Cieslewicz claims that the increase will create a reserve fund in the case of rising gas prices. According to AAA, current diesel gas prices in Wisconsin are under $3 per gallon, over a dollar less than the Metro's budgeted cost of $4 per gallon they reported last May. Low gas prices, coupled with a reported 5.3 percent increase in overall ridership from 2006 to 2007 - approximately 500,000 people, the highest since 1982 - wrongly raises the rates on a service that should be producing above and beyond projections.
If increased bus fares drive riders away, this will only prove to congest roads with more automobiles. Madison officials should be encouraging mass transit, not the opposite. Raising fares by 50 cents per ride is definitely not the way to do this.
According to SSFC chair Kurt Gosselin, if ASM bus passes are affected by increased fares, it will not occur until their current contract with Madison Metro expires in June 2010. However, Margaret Bergamini of the ASM bus pass committee speculates that raising fares might rob MATC students of their bus pass program, crippling an entire group heavily reliant on the bus to commute to and from class.
With expected budget deficits across the country, all state offices are in dire need of revenue. To charge individuals with little money who utilize a dependable and environmentally-friendly mode of transportation is unfair and unnecessary.
