Annual scheduled transit fare change takes effect July 1
Annual scheduled transit fare change takes effect July 1
Phase One of the Mayors Council’s 10-Year Vision calls for much-needed transit investments to increase capacity, reduce overcrowding and introduce bus service to new areas.
To help fund this, the Mayors’ Council identified annual increases to transit fares over the next decade, which was announced in November 2016 as part of Phase One‘s approval. These minor fare increases will help bring more and better service to everyone in the region.
Beginning Sunday, July 1, transit fares will increase by 5 to 10 cents.
- Single-use concession fares will increase by five cents for Stored Value fares and 10 cents for cash fares.
- Single-use adult fares will increase by 10 cents (this includes HandyDART).
- DayPass fares will increase by 25 cents.
- Monthly pass fares will increase between $1 and $2, depending on zone type.
- Fare increases will be the same on West Coast Express.
Just like today, Compass Card holders who use Stored Value will continue to enjoy a discounted fare compared to cash customers and Tap to Pay customers pay the adult cash fare. Even with these increases, Metro Vancouver continues to have the lowest average fares of all major Canadian cities.
These modest, scheduled increases are helping to fund transit investments to increase capacity, reduce overcrowding and introduce bus service in new areas. Improvements being funded in part through annual fare increases include:
- Five new B-Line bus routes.
- 10% increase in bus service by 2019.
- 15% increase in HandyDART service by 2019.
- 20% increase in rail service following the delivery of 56 new SkyTrain and 24 new Canada Line cars beginning later this year.
The Mayors’ Council identified annual transit fare increases over the next decade as a way to fund the Vision.
* You can now tap your Visa® and Mastercard® contactless credit card or mobile wallet to pay your adult cash fare. Remember—the most cost-effective way to travel across the system is to use a Compass Card.
Learn more at translink.ca/fares.
Again, I have to ask: what is the justification for smaller proportional increases for 2-zone and 3-zone users? Especially on the monthly passes, where increases of $2.75 and $3.75 for 2-zone and 3-zone users respectively would be more appropriate. The discount for 2-zone and 3-zone passes is already higher than for 1-zone passes… and these increases only exacerbate that gap.
Hi Joey, I’ve reached out to see if I can get more info about this. Hope to have an answer for you soon. Thanks!
So tell me this it specifically says that one month would be $1 or $2 more depending on the Zones, I don’t freaking see the $1 anywhere on the Monthly passes. I see all $2 increase. Also this is a rip off, the more people wouldn’t pay for riding the buses, I won’t be surprise if this thing you guys are implementing will backfire. Boycott the buses and don’t pay since a lot of people are already not paying to ride the buses, which they say there are security guards checking bus passes. I haven’t seen them anywhere since maybe 2010 when the Olympics was in Vancouver.
Also kind of funny how they say it will improve bus system, you don’t even need to increase any bus system. Like people would fall for Translink saying ohh we are adding new buses to the system, in which they are just adding them from places that were removed. Also if you say that to reduce overcrowding, maybe you shouldn’t have a lot of Granville Street buses going to Downtown at night right after each other, while the residents of East Vancouver suffere and don’t even see buses after 30 minuts the most at night.
Thanks Allen… it would at least be useful to know the thinking behind it. I know in the past they tended to want to stick to certain round number increments for fare increases (often 25¢ for cash fares and $1 for monthly passes) but I feel like with the advent of Compass, that’s not a valid constraint to be working under (which I am happy to see is already the case given the many 10¢ cash fare increases, although I do think some of those should be 5¢ and not 10¢). I get that it maybe “looks better” on the surface to raise all fares by the same amount but obviously in the long run that means those of us who travel primarily in 1 zone lose out. It only takes basic math to figure out the 1-zone raises are more, and sometimes substantially more, than their 2- and 3-zone counterparts. Since TransLink has subscribed to the notion that people travelling farther should pay more since at least the 1980s, and looks to be favouring that same notion with the expected move to distance-based fares later this year, I’m not sure how it justifies a monthly pass increase for a 1-zone pass that is nearly double the increase of the 3-zone one. This will only compound with the next scheduled fare increase, which for monthly passholders will be a whopping $3/month (which as an increase is nearly 50% higher than this year’s fare increase—for 1-zone passholders, at least).
P.S. Is there any way threaded replying could be turned on for us mere mortals? I know you guys are able to reply to our comments directly but your readers (or maybe it’s just me?) don’t seem to have that same ability. Obviously my last post would make more sense if it was easy to see it was in response to yours.
I am slightly appalled that concession prices only decrease by 5 cents when its stored value. But adult fares decrease by 60 cents. Come on translink 5 cents? Also I daily take the bus in Surrey and pretty much all bus routes out here are regularly late if they show up at all. Service everywhere is extremely unreliable, I haven’t seen any major improvements to any of the major issues here in Surrey. I actually recently bought a scooter because I was tired of being late for everything.