Prepare to pay for Atlanta Streetcar rides

Atlanta Streetcar Fares:

Starting Jan. 1, 2016, you must pay to ride the Atlanta Streetcar. Payment is accepted at Breeze vending machines located at any of the 12 stops. The machine accepts debit or credit cards, and preloaded Breeze cards, and then prints out a ticket. Customers will also be able to pay with cash at the King Historic District and Centennial Olympic Park stops.

Adult one-way trips are $1. A one-day pass is $3. A five-day pass is $10; a seven-day pass is $11; a 30-day pass is $40. Children up to 46 inches tall are free with a paid adult.

For more information, visit http://www.theatlantastreetcar.com/

Facts about streetcar rebirth

• At the turn of the last century, streetcars crisscrossed many American cities. By the 1960s, the automobile had usurped them. Streetcar tracks nationwide and in Atlanta were ripped out.
• As of early 2014, a dozen streetcar systems were operating nationwide, seven were under construction and 21 were in some stage of planning.
• The Atlanta Streetcar was originally imagined in 2005 as the Peachtree Streetcar, which would have run up and down Peachtree Street as it did in the early 20th century.
• By 2009, the concept for the streetcar had broadened so that it also ran east-to-west as it does today, connecting Centennial Olympic Park to the King Center and Historic Auburn Avenue District. In order to obtain the funding, the city was forced to trim the Peachtree leg from the final grant proposal.
• The Atlanta Streetcar was brought to life through a $47 million federal transportation grant awarded in 2010. The total cost of the system construction was $98 million.

The Atlanta Streetcar will cost a buck a ride beginning in 2016. But passengers will be mostly on an honor system when it comes to paying, according to city officials.

There are no fare gates or turnstiles, and riders won’t have to show a ticket to the operator while boarding. Instead, a team of six uniformed Streetcar Fare Enforcement Officers will board the vehicles intermittently throughout the day and ask passengers to provide a ticket or receipt as proof of purchase.

“It’s a random inspection system,” said Melissa Mullinax, a senior adviser to Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed. “It won’t be all day every day, and it won’t be every train.”

The officers are civilian employees of the Atlanta Police Department, so they won’t carry guns or weapons. However, they will be supported by armed, sworn police officers when necessary.

Customers unable to verify payment could be slapped with a $100 citation for fare evasion. A person can also be banned from the streetcar system for a time as part of their sentence in Atlanta Municipal Court, according to a new city ordinance.

In the transit industry, this type of payment system is called an “off-board proof of payment system,” since the fare is purchased prior to boarding and proof of payment is shown later.

Local transit riders may find it strange, since they’re probably more familiar with MARTA’s system of fare gates, which limit access to would-be freeloaders. But off-board payment systems like this are common in the universe of transit providers.

Dallas Area Rapid Transit, known as DART, uses this type of system for its light rail and commuter trains. DART also operates a streetcar service, but it’s free to ride.

Morgan Lyons, a spokesman for DART, said the light rail and commuter rail systems have about a 97 percent fare compliance rate.

“It has worked well, and light rail systems all over the country are designed that way,” Lyons said. “When you are operating at a street level, there is simply no way to close off a sidewalk.”

A 2010 survey conducted by the Transportation Research Board found that 30 of 33 transit agencies surveyed were using an off-board proof of payment system. The average fare evasion rate among them was very minimal, at just 2.7 percent.

Mullinax said when it comes to fare evasion, “I don’t think we’re going to have a huge issue.” She added that passenger fares make up only a small portion of the streetcar’s budget — about $1.8 million of the $23 million cost for operations over the first five years.

The city initially intended to start charging for the streetcar in April. However, just days before the fare collection was supposed to begin, the city announced that the streetcar would remain free for the rest of 2015. Officials said they wanted people to develop a habit around the streetcar, and that the city needed time to work through implementation of the Breeze card system.

Ridership as of the end of November was a little over 816,000, according to unofficial estimates and the streetcar is on track to provide about 900,000 trips this year, based on past performance. That’s short of first-year projections created by MARTA in 2013 that anticipated 1.1 million riders.

The underwhelming ridership numbers are one of a number of setbacks that occurred during the first year of Streetcar operation — issues which Atlanta leaders hope to move beyond as year two gets under way.

Customers can buy tickets at Breeze vending machines at any of the 12 stops along the 2.7-mile route. And soon, they will also be able to use their smartphones to pay fares.