The Virginian-Pilot
©
NORFOLK
Tide riders can now buy tickets online.
Hampton Roads Transit launched an online ticket sales program over the weekend to sell light-rail day passes by computers and smartphones for $3. A day pass at ticket vending machines is $3.50.
E-Tide is the agency's first venture into electronic ticketing. HRT hopes the program will ease congestion at ticket vending machines at station platforms.
E-ticketing is available only for The Tide. If it's successful, HRT will consider expanding the program to buses and ferries.
Tickets can be bought by visiting www.gohrt.com and clicking on the e-Tide link. Customers are asked to select the date of travel, the number of tickets and an email address. An email confirmation is sent to the purchaser's home computer or smart phone.
Customers may be asked by fare enforcement officers for ID that matches the name on the ticket. E-ticket holders can use a smart phone or printout as proof of purchase.
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HRT is LOWERING the 92% subsidized fare????
Good Lord, can this train wreck get any worse???
Why is HRT LOWERING a fare that is already a 92% taxpayer subsidy????
Are they THAT DESPERATE to get people to ride this train???
The ride costs $15 for the $3.50 fare - people NOT riding the train are forced to pay the rest.
The fare needs to be RAISED to make the people riding the trian at least pay enough to cover the operations and maintenance costs!!!
This is an outrage.
Reid,
HRT will raise the fares to cover the costs just as soon as you start paying the full value for your useage of the roads & highways in this country.
Be warned though; the price of a gallon of gas will probably need to jump by close to $1 before you actually start fully paying for those roads & highways.
Roads are paid for by users
Alan roads are paid for by gas taxes. They do not have a 90% subsidy paid for by people not using the roads and buying gas.
Meanwhile, light rail is also paid for by drivers paying gas taxes! Gas tax money that is supposed to be used to maintain the roads! Federal gas taxes and state gas taxes and even regional transportation funds collected from federal and State gas taxes.
Meanwhile, light rail REQUIRES a "feeder bus system" to gain Federal funds. Guess what? HRT buses, that drive on the roads paid for by gas taxes - HRT buses do not pay any gas taxes!!!
There is no comparison to the highway robbery of Norfolk's tiny, slow, 7.4 mile train when it comes to who pays for the roads compared to who is being forced to pay for light rail.
Reid,
Absolutely incorrect. According to Subsidyscope, we drivers only manage to pay 51% of the Federal outlays for highways.
http://subsidyscope.org/transportation/direct-expenditures/highways/funding/analysis/
Since the Federal fuel tax is only 18.4 cents per gallon, that would mean that just at the Federal level, we need to double that amount to 36.8 cents per gallon before you'd have any hope of fully paying for your driving on a highway.
And again, most local streets are paved with property taxes, not gas taxes.
Oh, please
could you try to find just one site that is more liberal than Pew Charitible Trusts? I can research the same numbers and come up with a completely different story but hey, let's put all of ours eggs in a basket full of liberal socialist basket cases.
Oh Please yourself
If Pew is so Liberal, then why is there a link to another report by them on the very same page as the highway funding about how high the subsidies per passenger are for Amtrak? After all, trains are supposed to be a "liberal" thing to at least some of those who call themselves conservatives.
Oddly enough, many conservatives will ride a train, but they won't ride a bus. In fact, two conservatives Mr. William Lind & Mr. Paul Weyrich, did a survey that showed more conservatives road commuter trains than liberals.
But regardless, if trains are a "liberal" thing, then Pew would not have published a report bashing Amtrak.
Take your choice, either they're wrong about the highways and Amtrak or they are neutral and correct about both.
For starters
you might want to investigate how much money in federal and state transportation budgets or trusts from gas taxes is squandered on port, light rail, train, bus, etc subsidies and then look at how much is shifted to the general fund to make up for creative accounting elsewhere. Even if the roads percentage is close, it is not a tax or money issue, it is a spending issue where dedicated funds are inappropriately spent elsewhere like the 90%+ subsidy for this train.
While some of the Federal fuel taxes are indeed diverted
to non-road projects, it's not 50% of the revenues. At best maybe 20% to 25% is diverted to other purposes.
However, seeing as how all the revenue from the Federal fuel tax was diverted from it's original purpose, that means that every dollar sunk into a Interstate Highway was a subsidy.
The Federal fuel tax was enacted in 1932 by then President Herbert Hoover for the express purpose of helping to pay down our national debt. Congress & President Eisenhower diverted that money in 1956 to build Ike's dream of the IHS. The 1956 Highway act called for that money to go back to paying on the debt in 1972. Instead Congress continues to divert it. So it could be argued that at least $1T to $2T of our debt is due to highways.
new federal ridership verification program
I have been informed that the Federal Transportation folks are sending people out to verify ridership numbers for systems to use for evaluation for grant proposals...That is a good thing I think.
HRT, like most other light
HRT, like most other light rail systems in the US, use automated counters mounted over, in, or around the doors to count people. There is nothing to verify as the counts aren't being done by humans. Computers don't miscount and they don't lie about how many people they've counted.