TriMet Hears Thud on Fare Plan
By Dylan Rivera, The Oregonian, Portland, Ore.
Jan. 17–The message to the agency running MAX trains was bell-clear: Fareless Square does more than give downtown residents, workers and tourists an easier way to get around. Free rides on trains tell of a city that values equality and sustainable living — and charging fares will do nothing to reduce crime.
So said scores of Portland-area residents at two public hearings held Wednesday by TriMet, the regional transit agency.
“Fareless Square covers the part of the city with the greatest concentration of the most powerful political and cultural institutions,” said Guy Berliner of Portland. “It’s important that we make access to those institutions free. It says a lot about our city, a city that does that.”
TriMet proposes to curb the hours of Fareless Square, which now runs around the clock, to 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Recent violence at transit stops in Gresham and elsewhere has focused attention on safety, especially on MAX light-rail trains and platforms. Charging nighttime fares is seen as discouraging to people who ride the trains to panhandle and threaten others.
TriMet General Manager Fred Hansen made limiting Fareless Square hours a centerpiece of a December speech on beefing up security. The agency has added security guards and cameras on the rail system and in coming weeks will form transit police precincts in eastside and westside suburbs.
Established in 1975 to reduce air pollution by encouraging downtown transit use, Fareless Square covers Portland’s core, Old Town and Lloyd District.
Hansen said the idea of free rides has outlived its usefulness. More than half of transit riders now use passes, so they don’t worry about buying a ticket for each trip. Also, riders tell TriMet that aggressive panhandling and obnoxious behavior increase in fareless areas, especially at night.
Police say that eliminating the fareless zone would allow them to root out criminals by first asking for proof of payment.
The crowd at a midday hearing at a Lloyd Center office building vehemently disagreed with Hansen’s proposal. Of about 85 people who attended, 38 signed up to speak, according to TriMet’s tally. Those who opposed restricting Fareless Square dominated by at least 4-to-1.
At an evening hearing at the Portland Building downtown, 103 attended and 53 signed up to speak, TriMet said. Again, the opposition was in the majority.
At both hearings, most speakers endorsed more visible security on trains and more frequent checks for fare payments. They argued that Fareless Square encourages transit use and shopping downtown, cuts greenhouse gas emissions and welcomes tourists.
Limiting the service would discourage the poor and the young when more transit ridership is needed, said Alexandra Bradbury of Southeast Portland.
“If there’s one thing city dwellers seem to agree on about safety, it’s that isolation is dangerous and crowds are more secure,” Bradbury said at the evening hearing. “Because, by and large, our fellow humans are not threats but allies.”
Vance Yoakum, who lives downtown, suggested that troublemakers on MAX might live elsewhere and pay fares to get downtown. “TriMet should question its own assumptions,” he said.
At the afternoon hearing, David Wardell of Northeast Portland said reducing fareless hours downtown doesn’t make sense as a response to suburban crime.
Some riders, he said, “may not be the kind of people we might have in our living room, but I think it’s important to include all people in our transit system.”
A few speakers from the tourism industry said the simplicity of around-the-clock fareless rides encourages tourists and burnishes the city’s image.
Several speakers objected to the hearings’ format: The TriMet board did not attend. Speakers stood at a lectern facing a hearings officer and a court reporter TriMet hired to conduct the hearings and transcribe comments for the board.
That wasn’t enough assurance for some, including Richard Shavey of Beaverton. “You think they’re going to read through it? Fat chance,” he said.
Joe Uris, a retired professor from Portland State University, said the agency should make fare checks commonplace just outside the fareless zone. Ticket or even briefly jail offenders, he urged.
“Before you do away with something that has given our city a great reputation . . . and, in fact, is uniquely Portland-esque, start with the problem — not an arbitrary, idealized, absurd notion that somehow if you just make everyone pay, the system will change,” Uris said.
—–
To see more of The Oregonian, or to subscribe the newspaper, go to http://www.oregonian.com.
Copyright (c) 2008, The Oregonian, Portland, Ore.
Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.
For reprints, email tmsreprints@permissionsgroup.com, call 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, send a fax to 847-635-6968, or write to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave., Suite 303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA.