Meeting_Body
FINANCE, BUDGET AND AUDIT COMMITTEE
JANUARY 17, 2018
Subject
SUBJECT: NEW LOW INCOME FARE SUBSIDY PROGRAM (LIFE)
Action
ACTION: APPROVE RECOMMENDATIONS
Heading
RECOMMENDATION
Title
CONSIDER:
A. AMENDING the FY18 Adopted budget in the amount of $3.6 million to include Measure M funds to support the Board approved Low Income Fare is Easy (LIFE) program; and
B. RECEIVING AND FILING the LIFE Program Update.
Issue
ISSUE
At its May 2017 meeting, the Metro Board approved the expansion and consolidation of Metro's low income fare subsidy programs, effective January 1, 2018. At that time, the Measure M guidelines had not been approved by the Board (they were subsequently approved in June 2017) and this action incorporates Measure M funding as planned and provides an update of current and future planned activities.
Discussion
DISCUSSION
As noted above, effective January 1, 2018, in an effort to leverage new Measure M funding, the Rider Relief Transit Program (RRTP) and the Immediate Needs Transit Program (INTP) have been combined to form the consolidated Low Income Fare is Easy (LIFE) Program. See Attachment A for LIFE program Guidelines.
Implementation of the LIFE program is moving forward in two phases.
Phase 1
The first phase is to increase the subsidy for participants with the immediate expansion of the program using the current coupon/token based distribution methods of providing qualifying riders access to discounted 7-day or 30-day passes (RRTP) or the distribution of tokens by Metro affiliated network of social service agencies (INTP).
Table 1 below reflects the increased subsidy amounts effective January 2018.
Phase 2
Phase two will consist of integrating this program onto TAP fare collection system, eliminating the need for coupon and token usage and will be fully implemented by the end of 2019. For 7-day passes, upon implementation of Phase 2, the TAP fare collection system will automatically apply a $6 dollar pe...
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