Santa Clara County transit riders benefit from integrated, affordable fares
As the VTA board considers joining the regional transit funding measure, board members want to understand the spending programs, including the relatively small but powerful “transit transformation” investments intended to increase ridership by making transit more convenient and affordable, and the large $264 million pot of “return to source” funding, over and above what Santa Clara County will need to prevent Caltrain and BART service cuts and implement regional network coordination.
This blog post provides data showing the value of the fare integration programs to Santa Clara County. The fare programs slated to be funded by the measure include free and reduced price transfers that will be rolled out in the coming months with next-generation Clipper, and Clipper START, the standard discount for low-income people.
Clipper START potential in Santa Clara County
According to 2023 ACS data, there are about 170,000 adults in Santa Clara County who are eligible for Clipper START earning below 200% of the poverty line. Adoption of Clipper START has been growing rapidly, nearly doubling in the last year with increased promotion and outreach and making it easier to qualify for people who already receive CalFresh, health or other large benefit programs that are tied to the income threshold.
Because Clipper START provides discounts on all agencies using Clipper including BART and Caltrain, this program provides Santa Clara County transit riders with more affordable access to faster rail services, providing low-income people with greater mobility.
Affordable transfers in Santa Clara County
While the free and reduced price transfer program is scheduled to roll out later this year, clear evidence of the pent-up demand for transfers in Santa Clara County can be seen in data from the Clipper START program, and the success of the Clipper BayPass all agency pilot at San Jose State University.
In Santa Clara County, about 25% of trips taken using Clipper START are inter-agency transfers, which is the same share as in the rest of the region (source: MTC staff analysis). This indicates that when transfers are affordable, more low-income people transfer.
San Jose State students using the all-agency Clipper BayPass took six times the number of transfers than students with a single agency VTA pass. The BayPass data also indicates that affordability is a barrier to people transferring in Santa Clara County, and making transfers more affordable increases the transfer rate.
The data from the Clipper START and BayPass programs shows that there is strong pent-up demand for transfers in Santa Clara Counties, and offering free/reduced price transfers is likely to increase the transfer rate.
In addition, the Title VI analysis for free and reduced price transfers shows that this program is disproportionately likely to benefit minority and low income populations.
Using historical information about the low level of transfers in Santa Clara County as evidence that people don’t want to transfer and use other agencies is like assuming that there’s no need for a bridge because people are not swimming across a river.
While the VTA staff report infers a low value to free and reduced price transfers because of a relatively high low share of Santa Clara County residents taking intra-county trips, this does not consider people who connect between VTA and Caltrain or BART on trips within the county.
Cost-effectively increasing transit ridership in Santa Clara County
The BayPass pilot results also show how providing integrated, affordable fares increases ridership, especially in Santa Clara County. According to the Clipper BayPass pilot evaluation, San Jose State students took 69% more transit trips overall when given an all-agency pass, and 37% more trips on VTA with a BayPass than with a VTA only pass. VTA gained more ridership than any other transit agency among BayPass passholders at SJSU, despite the fact that SJSU students already had single agency VTA SmartPasses.
In the coming academic year, San Jose State students will be seeking to renew the BayPass program, following the model of UC Berkeley, where students recently voted over 90% to renew the overwhelmingly popular program.
In addition, an MTC assessment in 2020 showed that integrated, affordable fares was the most cost-effective strategy evaluated to increase ridership.
The data shows that the programs for integrated, affordable fares have already been increasing transit ridership and have strong potential to increase ridership, mobility, and benefit for low-income transit users in Santa Clara County.