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As of today, Feb. 3, Madison Metro [1] riders can expect to pay a little bit more at the bus stop.
[2]A decision stemming from a Dec. 12 meeting of the Transit and Parking Commission determined the cost for all fares is increasing between 8 to 13 percent. The goal of the increase is to help reduce the overcrowding and scheduling issues of current lines.
Riders can now expect to pay $1.25 per ride as opposed to $1.15 for the Commute Card rate. Rates for a 31-day pass for both regular riders and seniors or disabled riders have also increased to $58 and $29 respectively. Tickets for paratransit riders (peak and non-peak) have also increased to $3.25 cash for a pack of three.
The increase will generate approximately $60,000 [3] in revenue to implement service expansions and improvements first proposed at a Nov. 7 meeting [4]. The revenue will fund an expansion of extra services that will alleviate overcrowding issues of buses along University Avenue and improve scheduling issues between the South Transfer Point and the West Transfer Point. An additional public meeting will be held in March or April to discuss the changes in more detail.
The initial proposal at the Nov. 7 meeting hoped to generate $218,000 to create additional services in the Owl Creek neighborhood [5], in addition to addressing the current scheduling and overcrowding issues. Committee members decided against an overall rate increase at that time, only to support the fare increase later. The city did choose to allocate funds to service the Owl Creek neighborhood. After trying to keep the fares as low as possible, city officials deemed the overcrowding issue an immediate problem that needed to be addressed.
