All of the options to raise revenue for cash-strapped Sacramento Regional Transit are grim. RT can either cut bus routes, reduce the frequency of trains and buses, raise fares or charge people who park in the district's light-rail parking lots. Of this host of bad choices, the parking fee is the least onerous, which makes it the one that RT's board should seriously consider.
Under the plan laid out for RT board members this week, transit users who leave their cars in the district's 20 light-rail lots would be charged $1 a day. RT officials estimate the fee would raise $1 million a year in badly needed additional revenue.
But collecting the money won't be easy or cheap. Officials wisely rejected the notion of installing traditional ticket-taking machines and gates at the district's 20 light-rail parking lots. Such a system would ensure traffic jams during high-volume morning and evening commute hours.
Instead, RT is considering parking fee collection systems that would allow patrons to buy parking passes when they buy their monthly transit pass or, in the case of occasional riders, to park first and pay before they board their trains. For those who don't buy passes, there will be the unavoidable added hassle of stopping and negotiating yet another ticket machine before they can ride.
Before it can begin charging, RT has to install new ticket machines and restripe and number parking stalls, a $210,000 initial investment. The district must also make sure parking attendants are available when the system first goes into use. The $1-a-day fee probably won't turn off riders, but a confusing, time-wasting pay machine that makes people late for work will.
Parking fees alone will not solve RT's budget problems. The district has lost more than $22 million in state support over the last year. With the state nearly bankrupt, that money won't be restored anytime soon.
So RT must continue to hold the line on all expenses, including employee wages and benefits. In these tough times, RT's primary goal has to be to preserve service by keeping as many buses and trains running as often as possible. A parking fee seems a reasonable step toward that goal.
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