Transit and toll-road agencies will slap higher fares and tolls on commuters beginning Thursday, despite a fragile economy that has incomes stagnating and workers facing the threat of unemployment.
RTD’s fare increase, which boosts the regular local cash transit fare to $2 a ride from $1.75, follows a rate hike that the agency put into effect just a year ago.
The Regional Transportation District proposed an across-the-board increase for 2009 earlier this year, in part, as a way to deal with the soaring cost of diesel fuel at that time.
The price of diesel hit $4.80 a gallon in July, and many thought fuel prices would stay high, or even increase. Instead, they have plummeted.
Still, the fare hikes are justified as sales taxes, RTD’s main source of revenue, “are coming in short of sales-tax projections because a lot of people are not spending money,” said Daria Serna, an RTD spokeswoman.
To compound RTD’s financial problems, the agency may pay more than market rate for diesel fuel next year because it locked in the price of the bus fuel at $3.09 a gallon for the year, against the chance that fuel prices would stay above that.
On Tuesday, the average street price for diesel fuel in Denver was about $2.36 a gallon, which includes nearly 45 cents a gallon in federal and state taxes that RTD does not have to pay.
Before transit riders feel the pain of the 2009 fare increase, they can enjoy free rides on all RTD services from 7 tonight until 6 a.m. Thursday. It is a traditional RTD perk for transit users.
Cameras do the work
The E-470 toll road has major changes planned for Thursday, including a toll increase and the highway’s first attempt at full “open-road tolling.”
Starting Thursday, those without transponders can travel through the 47-mile highway’s mainline and ramp plazas without slowing — like those with the electronic devices — and cameras will capture their license-plate numbers and bill them through the mail for use of the highway.
For six months, the toll road will maintain staffed toll booths so those who want to stop and pay cash may do so as an alternative. On July 4, the option of paying cash at toll booths will end, and all users of the toll highway will be billed either from transponder readings or license-plate billing.
The new standard toll at E-470’s mainline toll plazas will increase by 50 cents, and the new toll at ramp plazas will jump to $1 from 75 cents. Those with transponders will pay 25 cents less than the standard toll at mainline plazas and 10 cents less for ramp tolls.
Northwest Parkway also is raising tolls Thursday, but unlike E-470, the 9-mile toll highway has not put in the photo technology to bill those without transponders by capturing license-plate images, said Steve Bobrick, the road’s operations director.
“It’s a major system change, and we’re analyzing it to see if it makes sense,” Bobrick said.
Because many E-470 users continue on seamlessly to Northwest Parkway when traveling west, the parkway will post electronic signs beginning Thursday reminding those without transponders that they must stop at toll booths and pay cash, Bobrick said.
Northwest Parkway’s mainline toll will jump to $3 from $2.50, and at ramp plazas, it will go to 75 cents from 50 cents.
Parking fees in Feb.
Also Thursday, peak-hour tolls charged on single-occupant vehicles along the Interstate 25 HOT lanes that run between Coors Field and Pecos Street on U.S. 36 will jump to $3.50 each way from $3.25. Peak travel times are 7:15 a.m. to 8:15 a.m. southbound and 4:30 p.m. to 6 p.m. northbound. The peak toll is going up because it cannot be less than RTD’s express-bus fare for the same route, and that fare is going to $3.50.
RTD riders who use select park-n-Rides also will be paying parking fees for the first time at select lots early in the new year, but the pay-for-parking program won’t begin until Feb. 1. Those RTD park-n-Rides are Stapleton, Wagon Road, Thornton and Airport Boulevard/40th Avenue.
Go to rtd-denver.com for full details on fares and the new parking fees.
