The Northern Indiana Commuter Transportation District (NICTD) may be looking at a new fare structure in the coming years. The nearby Metra system is looking at condensing its 10-zone fare system down to four zones, and NICTD President Mike Noland says the South Shore Line needs to look at updates to its own 11-zone system.
"I think the best time to do that will be after we've implemented our new service," Noland told the NICTD board last week. "To do it now doesn't make a lot of sense. But we need to look at our fare structure going forward, as well."
One change will be coming sooner. Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, the South Shore Line has been offering two monthly passes for the price of one. Noland said that deal will go away at the end of the year.
This comes as weekday peak ridership is starting to recover, as businesses require workers to spend more days in the office. Weekend ridership saw the strongest gains initially but now appears to have hit a plateau.
Overall, South Shore ridership is still less than half of what it was before the pandemic.