Stuck in the mud of

, TriMet on Wednesday morning proposed sweeping changes that would require higher fares, longer waits at stops and more transfers for riders.

(PDF) unveiled by General Manager Neil McFarlane at

Southeast Portland headquarters, fare zones and “short hopper” round trips on a single ticket would end.

For people who pay per ride on buses and trains, the new system would offer two options: a flat, one-way $2.50 fare with a two-hour transfer or a $5 day pass with unlimited rides.

Riders could no longer take the same bus or MAX line home on a single fare. In other words, the days of catching a bus, disembarking for 30 minutes for a yoga class or grocery shopping, and then going home using the same transfer would be over.

To help enforce the rule, the transit agency is expected to switch to electronically printed bus transfers next year, McFarlane said in an interview with The Oregonian.

in February.

TriMet is wrestling with its third budget crisis in four years, with a projected shortfall of $12 million to $17 million during the fiscal year that starts July 1.

After cutting 109,000 annual hours of bus service to balance budgets in 2009 and 2010, McFarlane said preserving bus and rail routes was “the first principal” in developing the plan.

A

, in which TriMet asked the public how it would make the tough choices to balance the budget, showed a “tolerance for fare increases” from 4,800 participants, he said.

Still, McFarlane said, there’s no road to a balanced budget without further reductions.

Under the plan:

Downtown Portland's Free Rail Zone for MAX would go away,

The time between trains on the Blue, Green and Yellow Line MAX Lines would increase to 20 minutes during non-peak hours

Red Line MAX trains to Portland International Airport would begin and end at Southwest 11th Avenue instead of Beaverton Transit Center

"Low ridership" trips on 26 bus routes would be eliminated.

14 bus routes that overlap with other routes and run relatively close together would be reconfigured so that they don't compete for the same riders.

In some cases, entire segments of long-established routes would simply disappear.

In Beaverton,

would no longer run on Southwest Jenkins Road, Cedar Hills Boulevard and Center Street. where buses pass the Nike and Tektronics headquarters as well as several residential subdivisions and shopping areas.

Instead of going to the transit center, the 67 would end at the Merlo Road/158th Avenue MAX station, where riders who need to continue east would need to transfer to a train.

Regular Line 67 rider Tony Carrillo, 37, an assistant manager of apparel at Fred Meyer on Southwest Walker Road, said he could live with the change, since he already catches a bus near the store and connects with MAX at the Beaverton Transit Center to get home after his shift.

But Carrillo, who is saving up to buy a Ford SUV, said he uses the 10- to 15-minute ride to the transit center to unwind. “That’s my break time, right there,” he said. “Now I’ll only be on the bus for a few minutes before I have to get off and wait for the train.”

In Northeast Portland, the

is slated to be combined with the Line 70 and would no longer take passengers across the river to and from downtown. The Powell Boulevard section of the Line 9 would continue to serve Southeast Portland into downtown.

Northeast Portland Line 9 Riders, however, could transfer to MAX at Lloyd Center, the Portland Streetcar’s soon-to-be-opened eastside extension on Broadway or the Line 8 to get over the Willamette River.

Mary Karecki -- who takes the Line 9 directly from Northeast Portland’s Alameda neighborhood to her job at a downtown insurance company daily -- chuckled at the idea of transferring to the streetcar. “I can walk faster than the streetcar over the bridge,” she said.

Karecki, 56, was one of several riders who expressed dismay and worry about the transit agency’s plan to decrease the frequency of trips on several lines, especially when it would be asking them to transfer more often.

Davis Hart, a Line 17 rider upset that TriMet's proposal would end his

, said it takes “an act of God” to make connections already. “If you start spacing out buses another 20 minutes, and requiring more transfers,” he said, “it’s going to screw everything up.”

Meanwhile, in East Multnomah County, TriMet is considering

and 87-Airport Way/181st Avenue. Buses would run north-south along Notheast 181st Avenue instead of ending at Rockwood. Line 82 would run rush hours only and Line 87 would continue to Gateway Transit Center instead of the Parkrose/Sumner Transit Center.

Citing a slow-moving economy, shrinking federal funding and the “unsustainable health care costs” for union employees, McFarlane said his budget-cutting proposal includes $12 million in revenue-generating ideas and $5.7 million in cost-saving measures.

The transit agency is at an impasse in negotiations with

, with the general manager saying the difference between winning and losing arbitration would be $5 million in the budget shortfall.

But for all of their complexity, the bus service reductions would save just $2 million, according to TriMet. The biggest portion of predicted savings -- $9 million -- would come from a hike in fare prices and a historic shift from how riders pay to ride.

Currently, an adult all-zones ride on TriMet costs $2.40, with unlimited transfers ranging from about 90 minutes to two hours. A 2-zone ride: $2.10. An all-zone adult day pass is $5.

Monthly adult passes would jump $8 to $100 and youths ages 7 to 17 would pay $30 a month, an increase of $3. The fares for “honored citizens” 65 and older wouldn’t change.

TriMet said will actually be simpler and more fair than the decades-old zone system. Few people interviewed on the MAX or bus systems this week said the fare changes would change their riding habits. It’s still cheaper, they said, than the gas, insurance, maintenance, stress and parking costs that come with driving a car.

In fact, Amanda Peters, 30, who takes the Line 9 to her job at an investment firm downtown said she doesn’t have a driver’s license and has no interest in getting one. “Things with TriMet would have to get pretty ridiculous to change that,” Peters said. “I love the idea of public transit and I still think we have a viable system that’s not that expensive.”

Yet Jonathan Ostar,

, accused TriMet of being too conservative with revenue estimates as ridership increases and economy improves.

Among other things, Ostar thinks TriMet is underestimating the amount of payroll-tax revenue it will receive during the fiscal year that starts July 1.

As a result, the agency, he said, is moving to quickly to make cuts that will hurt low-income and transit-dependent riders. “When they’re overestimating the budget shortfall and making monumental shifts,” Ostar said, “that’s a big problem.”

Ostar, whose organization has been lobbying TriMet to improve transfer times to three hours, is especially distressed by what he sees as a plan to force people to buy a $5 day pass in order take a quick trip to the doctor or grocery store.

However, TriMet said eliminating round-trip transfers will save about $3 million a year.

What's more, McFarlane said, only about 5 percent of trips are so-called short hoppers, according to TriMet surveys. “It’s a fairly serendipitous occurrence when you can get a single-fare transfer to work for a round trip,” he said.

The TriMet budget-balancing proposal would also:

Increase per-ride youth fares by 15 cent to $1.65, or $3.30 for a day pass (which would actually be a reduction from the current $5 all-day youth pass).

Reduce annual contributions to the Portland Streetcar by $400,000.

Align the LIFT service boundary to fixed bus routes, saving $400,000.

Result in more “internal efficiencies,” including staff cuts, to save $500,000.

Sell ads on the TriMet website and TransitTracker to generate an estimated $300,000 in revenue.