[MarkDaMan]

I should have clarified, I do have an employer paid annual pass, my employer also pays payroll taxes on my salary. However, I realize I have a generous benefits package from my employer, without the pass or a free system, I'd be in a world of hurt considering how many times a day I actually use TriMet as opposed to say, a taxi everytime I'm traveling more than five blocks.

Even though my employer subsidizes fareless square and those who ride in it, it subsidizes other users too. My employer subsidizes the special Lift busses that are used to get handicap and elderly people around. Maybe those who can't afford the system should be forced to pay the full cost of that expensive service or go without too? Or, maybe we should discountinue service to routes in outer Hillsboro and Clackamas, since they are subsidized by my employer also.

I have the greatest respect for you PacNW but life isn't always about, why do they get the free ride while I get the shaft? Fareless square has a myriad of benefits, I mentioned a couple. It is vital to keep downtown as the central hub for our transit system. It is also important to be mindful of the businesses and employees that work downtown and need to get around in a easy fashion. It would be criminal, IMO, to expect my employer to give me a quarter so I can ride the MAX up three stops instead of having to carry a 45lb box of conference materials up the street or face getting a hefty fine if I didn't have a quarter in my pocket.

Fareless square isn't acting as a free service to homeless and the lazy people that don't want to pay, it benefits the conferences at the OCC, tourists visiting downtown, employers using the system to get their employees and goods around the core, developers and dignataries leading delegations from other cities to our various projects, people living in the higher concentration of subsidized housing in the core to their service agencies, and even those that might catch a game in the Rose Garden, and dinner downtown before.

I'm just saying, before trashing fareless square because a handful of vagrants take over precious space and create a hostile environment, lets look at resolving that problem without losing all the other benefits downtown has enjoyed for some 30 years from having a clean and friendly fareless square.