I saw this on the morning news. What a great day to start my Friday. BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit) announced they are looking into increasing the fees for riders during ‘peak’ hours. Peak hours are the times people are commuting to and from work. Obviously, isn’t this when people are supposed to use BART? So people using the system for commuting are expecting to pay more.

In a one-year study, BART planners and consultants will look into a wide array of strategies to get more passengers to take the trains a little later or earlier than rush hour.

Congestion pricing — the practice of charging more to use electricity, car pool lanes, parking spaces or trains during peak demand periods — is possibly the most effective way to get riders to shift travel times, a planning team told the BART board Thursday in a briefing on the study.

“It is very effective,” Jeffrey Tumlin, a planning consultant told the board. “Is it politically controversial? Absolutely.”

Planners said they are concerned a surge in ridership in the past two years is bringing BART faster than expected toward capacity problems at some stations.

This report from the Contra Costa Times raises a few questions. First how much is this “study” going to cost? What do they expect this increase to be? It wasn’t too long ago when BART was complaining that they didn’t have enough riders and asked for subsidies because of the costs of running the line. A BART report stated that the average weekday ridership is now at 367,570 people. That’s a whole lot of bodies being moved.

A rider from Concord BART going to the Montgomery station pays approx $9.90 round trip. That’s about $198 a month (20 days a month) already. BART is supposed to be an economic way of transportation and for the most part it is but since they can’t seem to add additional trains to the service during commute hours, it makes sense that they are reaching capacity.

I was happy to see this morning that Brittney over at Eye on Blogs had made a post about this as well. I figured she would since she mentions BART many times in her blog. She also did the math and explained how much she already is forking over to ‘the man’.

It costs me $7 a day, round trip, to commute to work from North Berkeley to Embarcadero, which adds up to $140 a month, if that’s the only time I travel. Which it’s not. For many in the City and all around the Bay Area, an increase in BART costs could be crippling to their budget.

Crippling is right. The costs of living are increasing exponentially and the family income is remaining stagnant. The answers for both are like a catch 22. The National economy is horrible. People that ride BART should be up in arms about this announcement. I have yet to be on a train going into or leaving the city on work days and being able to see much daylight. We feel like we are being crammed in like cattle and all BART can think of is increasing fees. Paying more money isn’t going to dictate my travel times. People have to be at work at a specific time during the day and I can’t speak for everyone but when the work day is done, I would want to get home as soon as I can. So if BART is going to increase fees, they are screwing everyone that has a job. I don’t think business owners and companies are going to look at the BART fee increase and say “Oh..employees taking BART can adjust their work schedules.” Lets be honest, BART users are going to get hosed if the fees increase. The fee increase for BART has not been set in stone. The company says that they are going to have this study complete by the Spring. I really hope they find away around making commuters pay more for traveling on trains packed to the gills.

My solution, start allowing for more commuter discounts. Sure, BART has this deal with some companies that have a large number of users but this should be expanded to anyone using the system. If BART wants to increase fees for individual short term users then fine but people who rely on the trains everyday should not be punished.

One of the comments on Brittney’s Eye on Blogs shared this funny clip from YouTube. I guess concidering the alternative, a fee increase might be nice. But I think many people riding BART currently already feel like this.

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