This is incredibly important. The city of Birmingham was responsible for the new BRT (Bus Rapid Transit) Express line and it uses a new fare system to allow for purchasing tickets at the stations.
The system was then transferred over to the BJCTA. However, this new fare system isn't compatible with the existing fare system for the BJCTA Max fixed route buses.
This initially wasn't a huge issue for two reasons:
- The BRT Express was free for the first 6 months
- There wasn't a lot of cross-over between the BRT and fixed route.
However, last month the BJCTA began optimizing routes and is using the BRT Express as a backend for that optimization, which means routes like the 17, 48, and 7 now only connect to the BRT and you have to transfer to come all the way downtown.
Having to buy a separate fare now that you are forced to transfer is a major issue. This is even more difficult for those of us that purchase a monthly pass for the fixed route buses, but still also have a pay individual fare daily for the BRT transfer.
This money will allow the BRT Express to continue to operate fare free until a unified system is rolled out.