ORCA Pod Welcomes Monorail

The monorail in the 1962 World's Fair Credit: Seattle Municipal Archives

At its March meeting Monday, the Regional Fare Coordination Committee, a.k.a. ORCA Joint Board, unanimously approved an agreement that would allow the Seattle Center Monorail to start accepting ORCA payments.

The estimated start date for ORCA on the monorail is Metro's September service change. In the meantime, the monorail has started accepting debit/credit card payment.

Once ORCA acceptance starts, the monorail will honor inter-agency ORCA transfers and passes. Fares will increase to $2.75 for regular payers, $1.50 for youth ages 6-18, and remain $1.25 for seniors 65+ and riders with qualifying disabilities. A new low-income (ORCA LIFT) fare category will be set at $1.50.

Transfer credit from a monorail ride paid for using an ORCA card will be good for full fare, within two hours, on:

• King County Metro buses
• ST Express bus reduced-fare rides and intra-county regular-fare rides
• All reduced-fare and intra-Seattle trips on Link Light Rail, along with various other Link trip pairings
• Seattle Streetcars
• Community Transit local buses (pending approval of the low-income fare proposal by the Community Transit Board of Directors)
• Everett Transit buses (pending approval by the Everett City Council of a low-income fare)
• Kitsap Transit buses and local ferries.
• westbound Kitsap Transit cross-Sound ferries
• Pierce Transit buses (except for LIFT cardholders, who still have to pay the regular $2 fare)

Partial transit credit from the monorail will be applied toward the higher fares, within two hours, on:

• the longest regular-fare Link Light Rail trips (or you can tap off and tap back on halfway to avoid an upcharge)
• regular-fare ST Express inter-county buses
• Sounder
• King County Water Taxis
• Community Transit commuter buses
• westbound Kitsap Transit cross-Sound ferries

Washington State Ferries accepts ORCA e-purse, and various WSF-only passes, but not inter-agency transfers or passes.

The City will pay a pro rata share of ORCA operating and capital costs based on the monorail's share of ORCA boardings.

Other Business

The Pod received a staff report on the Next Generation ORCA Monthly Program Dashboard, a high-level planning tool which has existed for over three years, and was finally presented to the Board. Jason Weiss from Sound Transit requested, perhaps in jest, that a high-level risk assessment be included in the monthly report.

The Board also updated its policy on Public Disclosure Requests.