Chesterton Tribune

 

 

NICTD mulling possible South Shore fare hike to fund capital projects

Back To Front Page

 

By KEVIN NEVERS

Earlier this year the Northern Indiana Commuter Transportation District put into effect an across-the-board rate increase of 10 to 15 percent, depending on which station a rider boards from.

For folks riding all the way from Dune Park to Millennium, the fare hike amounted to 75 cents, a 10.3-percent bump.

At the time, General Manager Michael Noland said the increase would generate approximately $1.5 million more in annual revenues, needed to meet the creeping operating costs associated with running the aging South Shore fleet.

Operating costs, however, weren’t on Noland’s mind at Friday’s meeting of the NICTD Board of Directors. Capital costs were.

As Noland reminded the directors, the $80 million expense of installing the federally mandated positive train control (PTC) system will effectively exhaust NICTD’s bonding capacity, or as he called it, NICTD’s “self-funding ability.” For that reason, Noland said he doesn’t expect to recommend “an operational fare increase” in 2016 but does want directors to start getting their head around the value of implementing a fare hike “and putting it to capital projects, to station or rail improvements, something tangible.”

“It would augment our capital match capability now that our existing stream of state funding is committed to debt service,” Noland said. “We need to think about a self-generating capital program.”

Noland added that he still plans to revisit in the New Year a proposed increase in the premium --doubling it, from $1 to $2--charged to riders who purchase their ticket in cash and on board from the conductor. The board tabled that proposal earlier this year over concerns that it would unfairly penalize “unbanked” and “underbanked” riders who don’t have debit cards and thus aren’t able to buy their tickets from vending machines.

Noland did note that Metra has approved a fare increase for a Hegewisch-to-Chicago ticket of 25 cents for a one-way ticket, $1.75 for a 10-ride ticket, and $2.50 for a monthly.

Performance through October

* A fractional increase in riders of 11,213 or 0.4 percent was posted over the first 10 months of 2015, with the biggest increase--101 or 1.2 percent--during the average peak; and a decrease of 73 riders or 2.2 percent during the average off-peak.

* Of the 1,126 trains run in October, 187 of them or 16.6 percent experienced delays in excess of five minutes (ranging from six minutes to 117 minutes), with a median delay of 10 minutes. Of the 1,083 trains run in September, 165 of them or 15.2 percent experienced delays in excess of five minutes (ranging from six minutes to 64 minutes), with a median delay of 11 minutes.

 

 

Posted 11/23/2015

 
 
 
 

 

 

Search This Site:

Custom Search