An integrated fare system for Bay Area transit riders is moving one step closer to reality.

The Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC) has selected an integrated transit fare proposal submitted by three groups — Seamless Bay Area, SPUR, and duo Jason Lee and Eddy Ionsescu — as the winner of its first-ever Transformative Transportation Projects competition. The award will be officially announced on Friday, February 14 at a meeting of the MTC Administrative Committee.

Seamless Bay Area’s proposal outlines a comprehensive plan for fare, service, and branding integration across the 27 transit agencies that operate in the Bay Area.

The plan took the top spot in the contest’s operational strategies category, showing a high benefit-cost ratio across a range of potential future scenarios for the region. MTC analysis forecasted that for every dollar spent on the project, $5 to $10 in benefits would be returned to the region, showing a very strong return on investment. The proposal was also found to advance equity goals, and was broadly supported by equity groups providing feedback to MTC.

Ridership modeling conducted by MTC concluded that integrated fares have the potential to attract hundreds of thousands of new daily transit riders. In addition, MTC assessed that regionally integrated transit fares would be revenue-neutral over the long term - an encouraging finding that is consistent with the experience of other regions that have seen ridership increases when fare integration is introduced.

Because of the project’s potential positive impact on transit riders across the region, MTC staff are recommending that integrated fares be included as a strategy within Plan Bay Area 2050, the region’s next long-range transportation plan.

A draft set of recommended strategies for Plan Bay Area 2050, based on MTC’s modeling, will be also discussed at the February 14 meeting. The staff report includes the recommendation that the fare proposal from Seamless Bay Area should be included in the long-range plan:

Reform Regional Transit Fare Policy Description: Streamline fare payment and replace existing operator-specific discounted fare programs with an integrated fare structure across all transit operators. The regional integrated fare structure would consist of a flat local fare with free transfers across operators and a distance or zone-based fare for regional trips, with discounts for youth, people with disabilities, and very low-income people. Funding: revenue-neutral due to incentivized growth in transit trips; $10 billion for means-based fare discount



