When the Toledo Area Regional Transit Authority resumes fare collection Aug. 1, some riders will qualify for reduced fares who did not in the past.
Besides senior citizens, Medicaid cardholders, and people with disabilities, active-duty military, veterans, and youth ages 5 to 18 will be eligible for half-price bus rides — 75 cents instead of the normal $1.50.
TARTA also will introduce a $3 day pass, which will allow purchasers to board any bus all day long for the current price of a roundtrip. And free transfers will be available that will function as two-hour passes, so riders whose trips require bus connections will no longer pay double — or triple — to get where they’re going and may even be able to get home on a single fare if they run their errands fast enough.
The new discounts, day pass, and transfer policy all are supported by new electronic fareboxes for which the transit authority will offer a public demonstration Thursday starting at 3 p.m., one hour before its board of trustees meeting, at the Toledo Area Regional Paratransit Service headquarters at 130 Knapp St.
“This is going to give us more accountability, more financial accountability as we promised to the voters,” Mary Morrison, the trustees’ vice president, said while experimenting with the sample farebox Wednesday morning at the main TARTA garage on Central Avenue.
The electronic fareboxes also will provide “better statistics as to who our customers are” to support better decision making by the transit board, Ms. Morrison said.
TARTA has waived fare collection since the coronavirus pandemic’s onset more than 28 months ago, but its board decided in May to resume charging for rides rather than experiment with a no-fare model being tested in some cities.
Lucas County voters last fall approved a half-cent sales tax to support expanding TARTA to countywide service, with such expansion expected to begin later this year.
Collection of the sales tax, which replaced two property levies collected in Toledo and six suburbs, began in April and the transit authority expected to begin receiving its revenue from the Ohio Department of Taxation this month. TARTA reinstated Sunday and holiday buses, which had been canceled in early 2019 because of budget woes, in late March.
The new fareboxes will accept cash as well as fare cards, weekly and monthly passes, and electronic payment through the EZfare app. They will accept dollar bills up to $20 and nickels, dimes, and quarters.
While the machines will not dispense change, cash payment exceeding the fare purchase will be offset with a fare card carrying the unused balance. In the past, exact change was required on TARTA buses with no reimbursement for overpayment.
Riders intending to buy a day pass rather than a single-ride fare should tell the bus driver before starting payment. The day pass charge has been reduced from $5 to $3, and monthly passes will now cost $45 instead of $60.
While the new bus transfers will be free, they will not be valid for the first five minutes after their issuance. TARTA previously abolished paper transfers because of illicit use by fare-beaters.
Weekly and monthly passes are available only at the TARTA downtown hub at Huron and Cherry streets and retailers to be announced. Riders seeking to qualify for half-fare status must obtain a card from TARTA that is free, but there is a $5 fee to replace such cards if they are lost.
The TARTA station at the hub is currently closed while asbestos is removed from other parts of the building, but Andrew Cole, a TARTA spokesman, said the agency expects to reopen it by late next week, before fare collection resumes.
Passengers who use TARTA tokens and public agencies that stockpile them to distribute to clients for transportation will need to exchange them for new fare media by Sept. 30. Those holding 10 or fewer tokens may trade them in for one-way bus tickets. Those with more than 10 must schedule an appointment at TARTA’s 1127 W. Central Ave. headquarters to redeem them.
“There’s going to be a lot of learning between us and our passengers, because there are some things that are different,” Carly Allen, the president and business manager for Amalgamated Transit Union Local 697, said while stopping by at the main garage Wednesday.
TARTA officials hope to phase out cash for fare payments eventually, as several other Ohio transit agencies already have done, but opted not to take that step immediately with the resumption of fare collection.
“Realizing that many of our riders must use cash, we took extra care in implementing an easy-to-use technology interface that would also accept cash payments,” Laura Koprowski, the transit authority’s chief executive officers, said in a prepared statement.
First Published July 20, 2022, 8:47 p.m.
