WA: Seattle-area transit riders get new ways to pay their fares

Forget buying a paper ticket, and put away that ORCA card, because local transit agencies are joining the ranks of public transportation systems around the world by allowing people to buy fares with a smartphone or credit card.

The new Tap to Pay feature begins Monday with a soft launch on Metro's RapidRide G Line, the bus rapid transit route that runs through downtown and Capitol Hill largely on East Madison Street. Passengers can pay by tapping a Visa, Mastercard, Discover or American Express card, or using mobile wallets like Apple Pay, Google Pay and Samsung Pay.

Users will be charged $3 for one adult fare, and each form of payment can only be used for one rider's fare.

ORCA cards will still be accepted, and are the preferred method of payment, but the upgrade will make taking transit in Seattle easier not just for residents, but for tourists as well. Introducing the system well ahead of this summer's FIFA Men's World Cup matches should allow any bugs to be worked out.

It's also a welcome modernization to fare payment for many of the agencies in the regional ORCA system, including Sound Transit, King County Metro, Community Transit, Everett Transit, Kitsap Transit and Pierce Transit.

The program will expand to most of the ORCA system by the end of the month, but won't be available on Washington State Ferries, Seattle Monorail, Community Transit DART, ZIP or Pierce Transit Runner, according to a presentation given in January to the ORCA Joint Board by Erin O'Connell, Sound Transit's deputy director of customer experience.

The two-hour transfer period will not be honored during the initial tryout phase on the G Line, but will be after the expansion. Reduced fares — like ORCA Lift, disabled or senior passes — aren't available if paying by card or phone.

Opening more ways to pay comes nearly two years after Sound Transit began enforcing fares again, and about a year after Metro stepped up enforcement. The two agencies — which provide the most regional transit rides by a wide margin — largely stopped enforcing fares during the pandemic, when fewer people used public transportation. After just a few years, Sound Transit estimated nearly half of its riders weren’t paying, and Metro said about 34% of its riders weren’t paying the fare.

The new pay feature also follows the June 2024 change allowing passengers with Android phones to download digital ORCA cards to their Google Pay wallet apps. When that feature was unveiled, system officials wouldn't say when Apple iPhones would support a similar function.

Now, with the ability to use Apple Pay to buy a fare, they don't have to. But David Jackson, a Sound Transit spokesperson, said there's a commitment to bringing a digital card to Apple users.

Cash remains an acceptable form of payment.

Still, there are kinks to work out. Contactless payments have been tested around the ORCA system since November, and some passengers unintentionally paid by credit card when trying to tap their ORCA card in the same wallet, according to GeekWire, a technology news site based in Seattle.

Jackson said there was no real way for digital fare scanners to read ORCA cards first, so he said passengers who use a physical card should remove the card from their wallet to tap and should not tap entire wallets, purses or bags on the card reader.

INIT, a German technology company focused on public transportation agencies, helped reconfigure existing ORCA card readers to be able to scan credit cards and smartphones and validate fares.

Many transit agencies already allow the use of smartphones or credit cards to purchase fares, including in big cities like New York City, San Francisco and Chicago, as well as smaller ones like Portland, Grand Rapids, Mich., and Tampa, Fla.

Even Spokane Transit Authority beat Seattle to the punch (or tap), and started its own contactless system in 2022.

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