Friday Night Fare Media?

#FareEnforcement

So there RantWoman was, on her way home from an afternoon of errands. The sky is clear blue. There is full sunshine with a pleasant breeze when what to RantWoman's febrile mind should wander: FARE MEDIA?

Puget Sound transit agencies love it when people pay fares with ORCA Cards, passes, or now amazingly credit cards.

Digression: RantWoman was asked recently how to find RFID blocking wallet or other way to keep one's bus pass separate enough from one's credit cards to avoid accidentally paying bus fare with a credit card. This is especially important since RantWoman has not looked up how the pay by credit card process works if one has a "regional reduced fare permit" (RRFP), colloquially a disabled pass. 

RantWoman's answer: go to your favorite store and #AskAHuman . RantWoman's first thought was "look on Amazon." Based on what RantWoman knows about this beloved senior's digital prowess, "look on Amazon" is a silly answer.

RantWoman knows a lot of people who just don't do technology and / or don't have bank accounts. Here RantWoman's free range policy analysis instincts wandered back to Metro's recent fare enforcement report. RantWoman has been doing civic participation in a lot of meetings talking about transit fares and fare enforcement. One key moment the report does not address at all: people who don't have bank accounts, like to pay for things in cash and need to pay fares to go anywhere need places near them where they can pay for passes or put money on their ORCA cards. 

So if RantWoman were evaluating the effectiveness of fare enforcement officers, RantWoman would want to know something about agreements with businesses throughout the area to sell ORCA cards. RantWoman would want to know something about how many such locations there are and whether fare enforcement efforts have resulted in more people using places near where they live to get ORCA cards. This question is not in the ordinance the report responds to so RantWoman is just going to toss the topic into the conversation and let public servants take it from there.