The C-Tran Board of Directors didn’t vote on a staff proposal to eliminate the monthly and daily passes for C-Van, its paratransit service, and so the monthly and daily passes will remain unchanged.
Board members still had many questions about the proposal and the incoming electronic fare system, the Hop Fastpass, in the minutes before they were scheduled to take action. When it came time to decide, no one made a motion to bring it up for a vote.
C-Tran staff planned to discontinue the C-Van passes in early 2018 when the Hop Fastpass is fully integrated into C-Van. The goal was to rein in the paratransit service’s rising operating costs by making riders pay for every ride they take, which the agency hoped would encourage its heaviest users to ride less often.
During the meeting, Vancouver City Councilor Anne McEnerny-Ogle asked whether it was possible to keep the current fare structure in place until after riders have had time to use the Hop Fastpass before making changes.
“As I’m looking at these high-frequency riders … we’re talking about 100 people out of the thousands of people that ride and we could just do an incremental change right now just to say we’re going to wait, go to the Hop pass, see how it transitions and see how we do with that and revisit this issue next year with a possible increase in C-Van amounts,” she said.
Clark County Councilor John Blom expressed concerns over how the change might affect people’s budgets for travel.
“With the monthly pass there’s a consistency in what you’re spending per month and if you have these spikes and declines people would see their monthly transportation expenses vary pretty greatly if they had extra doctor’s appointments,” he said.
After the meeting, C-Tran spokeswoman Christine Selk said she wasn’t sure if staff would bring up a similar proposal later on.
Paratransit usage is continuing to grow, as is the cost of providing the service for C-Tran. The agency predicts C-Van’s increasing costs could hinder its long-term ability to provide fixed-route services if paratransit expenses aren’t addressed in the near-term.
C-Van accounts for 4 percent of the agency’s ridership but about 23 percent of operating costs. A typical ride on C-Van costs the customer $1.80, but C-Tran’s actual cost of providing the trip is $44. Meanwhile, a fixed-route bus ride typically costs $1.80, while C-Tran’s expense to provide the ride is about $6.
Out of the estimated 1,270 people who use C-Van every month, about 450 buy a monthly pass and only about 150 took at least 33 trips required to equal the pass’s $59 cost.
Of those nearly 150 pass holders, 18 took an average of 55 rides per month while two people took an average of 75 rides per month between August 2015 and July 2016.
Both groups spent an average of $59 per person per month on a pass, but the group that rode about 55 times per month cost C-Tran an average of $2,774 per person. The two people who rode 75 times per month cost the agency about $3,502 per month.
C-Tran held three open house meetings on the proposal in March and a public hearing in April on the proposed changes. Many attendees of those meetings asked that the passes not be eliminated and expressed concern about the potential for increased costs.
