VRE riders could see 4% fee increase in July

The Virginia Railway Express (VRE) is considering increasing the ticket fares by 4%, which riders could see in place by this July.

In addition to the 4% fare increase, the Step Up tickets offered by the VRE would go from $3 to $5.

According to Bryan Jungwirth, the Director of Public Affairs & Government Relations for the VRE, there are many reasons why they feel the fare needs to increase.

“We’ve lost $1 million dollars with reductions in state operating funds. Our jurisdictions that provide a lot of our funding – those have remained constant. They don’t have any [more funds] to lower the fare increase,” Jungwirth said.

Operations of the track and the trains, along with a federal mandate for positive train control have also contributed.

“Track access fees have increased by $1.1 million dollars, and then the train operations cost has increased $690,000, due to CPI (Consumer Price Index)…and positive train control, which is a federally mandate, which begins in fiscal year 2016, and is estimated to cost $775,000 a year,” said Jungwirth.

The federal mandate for the positive train control is meant to increase safety on the tracks, by adding technology to the trains that will allow them to sense if there are issues – that will allow the train to automatically apply its brakes.

“…to make sure that they’re not operating on the same tracks at the same time. [It’s] mainly for safety reasons,” commented Jungwirth.

The VRE has attempted to save on costs, according to Jungwirth, and have seen savings in their fuel costs.

“We’ve saved some money on fuel costs, with fuel cost decreases – and consumption as well, because we don’t idle trains as long as we used to,” Jungwirth stated.

It has been two years since the VRE increased fares by 4% in 2013.

There are several public hearings planned throughout the VRE service area, and once these hearings are held, the comments will be referred to the VRE’s Operations Board in March. The Operations Board will then vote as to whether or not the fares should be increased.