As the debate about bus fares and the budgetary woes of Madison Metro Transit kicked off, Mayor Dave Cieslewicz had some opening advice before the discussion delved into advertising and the social injustice of increasing fares.
"We don't panic in these situations," Cieslewicz told the Transit and Parking Commission Tuesday night. "It's like being tossed in the deep end of the pool. You figure out how to swim."
Every member of the public who addressed the committee was opposed to raising fares, which Metro management and Cieslewicz see as a necessary way to help balance the department's budget.
Blaming unexpectedly high fuel costs, Metro is coming up short by about $421,000 this year and, mainly because of sluggish increases in state and federal support, faces a gap next year of some $1.2 million.
Although the debate touched on some ideas for bringing in extra money through advertising -- Cieslewicz said he supports ads on bus shelters, but not wrapped around buses -- the public repeatedly hit on the rate structure that Metro offers various riders.
By charging less per ride through monthly passes and bundled tickets, Metro essentially gives professional commuters a discount. And for those who work for employers who contract with Metro to provide unlimited ride passes, the discount is even deeper. The University of Wisconsin, for example, pays 82.5 cents per ride for its employees while the cash fare is $1.50.
An influential report in the early 1990s by a transit analyst named Richard Orem predicted that a fare structure like this, which he called "Deep Discounting," would boost ridership by giving commuter types a significant break. It's worked. As anyone who now takes a Metro bus in central Madison during the rush-hour knows, the seats are full to overflowing. Metro boasts the highest ridership since the mid 1980s.
By comparison, those who do not plan ahead by buying monthly passes, or only collect enough cash to cover one fare at a time, have less economic incentive to ride the bus. That is, it's costing them more -- both in absolute terms and in terms of a percentage of their income.
Lisa Subeck, who works with homeless women at the YWCA, told the commission that boosting the base fare would further diminish the ability of her clients to take public transportation.
"My clients use the cash fare," she said, adding that it was a misconception that the poor and homeless who ride the bus do so for free. When asked by a commissioner how they came up with the fares, she replied: "Honestly? A lot of it is panhandling."
Ron Richardson, a Madison resident who lives on the near-east side, said the fare structure is "a social justice issue" that stands to become more inequitable under the proposed increases. He said he saw a familiar pattern: When a government agency gets into budgetary trouble, it "takes services or money from those who can least afford it."
Richardson challenged the city to instead decrease rates for all, and "perhaps something wonderful would happen," as those who pay cash fares might, for example, fill buses during the off hours.
Cieslewicz said he was committed to supporting Metro, noting that last year he increased the city's payments to Metro from the general fund by 10 percent, significantly more than other departments.
"I'm going to find some more general fund money to put into Metro," he said, "but it cannot possibly fill the entire gap."
He said he hoped the commission would find a way to raise about $500,000 through increased fares next year. A 2 percent increase in state money would also help, and he encouraged the search for some advertising revenue.
The NASCAR approach, where just about everything except the windshield is covered in an advertisement, did not draw any enthusiasm from Cieslewicz, who found the idea "gaudy" and said the darkened windows made a bus "like a cave."
But the mayor said that he enjoyed ads at shelters, which he said "enlivened" shelters in Chicago and described them as "absolutely fine."