Jarrett Walker at the blog Human Transit writes persuasively that transit agencies should do away with transfer fares. The basic argument is that having a route structure that includes transfers allows the transit agency to provide better service more cost effectively. When booking airline tickets, trips that involve a transfer typically cost less for this reason. Charging passengers extra for the inconvenience of a transfer that benefits the system as a whole is, to quote Walker, “insanely self-destructive”. I encourage you to read Walker’s whole blog post as it does an excellent job explaining the issue.
The rest of this blog post addresses what would be involved in eliminating transfer fees in Allegheny County specifically. This is a change that has been advocated for by Pittsburghers for Transit. As reported in the Post Gazette, the Port Authority evaluated eliminating transfer fees in 2016 and estimated it could cost up to $\$$5 million a year in revenue. This is small compared to the $\$$501 million in total Port Authority Revenue for operating and capital expenses.
I have written before about how the Port Authority should charge for parking at its park and rides. According to the Port Authority’s 2018 annual service report, approximately 5,500 cars park in the port authority owned park and ride lots every day. If the Port Authority was able to earn $\$$3.48 per weekday for each of these spots it would generate the $\$$5 million in revenue needed to eliminate transfer fees.
$\$$3.48 is cheaper than parking downtown and in Oakland. Some park and rides are served by busways which are time competitive with driving, which should also sustain demand for parking spots. Therefore above $\$$3.48 per spot per day is realistic.
Calculations
$\frac{\$5,000,000}{\textrm{year}}\times\frac{\textrm{year}}{365\ \textrm{days}}\times\frac{7\ \textrm{days}}{\textrm{week}}\times\frac{\textrm{week}}{5\ \textrm{weekdays}}\times\frac{\textrm{weekday}}{5,500\ \textrm{cars}}=$
$\$3.48\ \textrm{per car per weekday}$
[…] transfer fares is an excellent idea, as I have written before. Having a transit network that requires transfers between some origin and destination pairs […]