What’s interesting about this article is what it leaves out. It cites experts who claim this is “diverts scarce resources from more pressing priorities: transit service and quality” yet that was far from the case in one of the cities cited in the introduction.
In Olympia, Washington, the city was needing to replace their fare-collection boxes. Fares accounted for 2% of the total transportation budget in Olympia, and when compared to the cost of installing and maintaining the fare-collectors, city officials realized they would only be breaking even. Why even collect fares if you end up with no gain? Is it really “diverting money” when the high cost of implementing the tools to collect fares costs as much or more than you will gain from fares?
Local Olympia Newspaper on Olympia dropping fares in 2019: https://www.theolympian.com/news/local/article237257744.html
Those fares net less than 2 percent of IT’s operating revenue. Meanwhile, IT’s fare collection boxes need to be replaced. The agency says it looked at switching to a card-based payment system but most cost at least $1 million to introduce.
It would cost about that for IT to start using ORCA, the payment system used on buses in King and Pierce counties and elsewhere in the region.
“It basically is a wash in terms of what we collect and what we would have to pay for the capital investment and for the operational investment to collect money. Because it costs a lot of money to collect money,” said Ann Freeman-Manzanares, IT’s general manager. “And if at the end it’s pretty much a wash, why are we doing it when we have all these incredible benefits to gain?”
Those include a potential increase in ridership, speeding up service, and attracting businesses to the area with the promise of “free” transit.
TransitCenter, a transit advocacy group, found in a 2018 survey of riders with household incomes below $35,000 in eight major cities that frequency, safety, crowding and reliability were higher priorities than bus fare.
Maybe I’m missing something, but if they’re surveying people who are already riders, then OF COURSE fare isn’t their biggest complaint. They’re not getting feedback from people who want to use public transit, but can’t afford to.
The information gathered from this survey is still valuable, but shouldn’t be used as an argument for or against free public transit.
Statements like that are why I tend to follow the idea that any government service should be provided to every citizen equally without exception.
We spend so much money in the US trying to make sure only the “correct” people are receiving things like welfare or Medicaid. If we just dropped the restrictions we’d likely be fairly close to being able to afford covering everybody with those programs.
This is exactly what Luxembourg did with their public transit recently. They realized they were spending more in upkeep/salaries/HR/computer systems/policy/etc, and just ripped it all out, and made it free.
It’s so much simpler, and so much nicer!
That’s the reasoning behind an Universal Basic Income system: deciding who needs financial aid and who doesn’t, is more expensive than just giving everyone a fixed monthly payment and calling it a day.
That is, except for those who think nobody should get anything for free, and are trying to rip out the aid systems altogether.
I live in Tacoma, Washington, and we also just put into effect that no one under 18 needs to pay for public transit. It’s entirely free with a special Orca card. It seems like the whole state is on the path to making it free for everyone some day.
Good! Free, reliable, accesiable public transport for all!
Defecto “free” ridership has really hurt the local public transport system in the SF Bay Area.
Quite a lot of people refuse to take public transit due to risks of being harassed or witnessing open drug use. Easy to dismiss that as a guy personally, but I definitely think that creates an environment that’s hostile to many people who need to use or would otherwise be using public transit.
On the other hand, Margerite bus at Stanford has been free for decades, and it’s never been a significant issue there.
So it’s very difficult to generalize across different systems that have their own unique issues.
I feel like the problem there is less the free transit, and more how many people we’ve let fall to the bottom of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs
Yes, if people are complaining that there are Dirty Dangerous Poors™️ there, maybe house people instead of trying to remove them from public 🤷🏻♂️
Eeh? I’m a woman, I don’t have this problem on transit at all, either in Chicagoland or in SF. First of all, witnessing open drug use isn’t, like, the end of the world; it might make you uncomfortable, but it’s not dangerous.
Being harassed is a real fear, but I find that I’m more often harassed while I’m just walking around than in a bus, train, or the muni, and when I’m on board transit there are cameras and an operator to potentially step in!
Public transit is a public good. If seeing poor people and drug users makes us uncomfortable, the solution is to address the root causes of poverty and addiction, not to force poor people off of public transit.
You might not, and neither do I have a problem with it. I grew up low income and rode plenty of “sketchy” bus lines where fights would break out. I know when to remove yourself from danger.
Plenty of people I know have, or at least have that perception. My S/Os parents visited from out of the country, and they were harassed by someone screaming racist epithets at them and got scared, and ended up taking Uber the rest of the time they were here. They are old, retired, and we didn’t want to risk them getting uncomfortable. Obviously we have the privilege of doing that, but not everyone does.
Again, it’s not about being poor, it’s about antisocial behavior that destroys the public spaces. That goes for rich assholes too.
We have free transit in Albuquerque. It’s basically turned into a rolling homeless shelter. They hired security to manage it. My dad was one of those. He was attacked by someone using drugs on the bus and had the back of his hand bit off in a brutal attack. The busses here are VERY dangerous and I’d never step foot on one again.
Well, there’s a sign that you need better housing solutions for homeless than the bus.
I ride the Albuquerque buses to and from work. The worst I’ve seen is an intoxicated guy being thrown off by the driver. I’ve also seen a couple people kicked off for riding a full route, which I guess is how they keep people from riding all day. For reference, I’m a smallish woman, usually carrying a messenger bag. I’ve never been bothered.
What happened to @Dandylion’s dad is horrifying, though. That is exactly the kind of stuff that keeps me off public transit as well. “It never happened to me” isn’t really a valid argument.
Sure, but “our city handles homelessness poorly” isn’t a good argument for not improving public transit either!
I was thinking more like that solving the homelessness problem needs to be a part of improving public transit, and cities in general. Nothing made me want a personal vehicle more than being forced to ride public transit. Every day I’d look at the people passing us by in cars and say to myself “One day, that is gonna be me!”
It is me, now.
It’s true that you’ll probably see something unpleasant on public transit once in a while but most folks aren’t going to share the experience of someone who is literally tasked with engaging with and managing the people causing problems on the bus.
It’s unfortunate though because in my experience transit feels a lot more pleasant when there are at least a decent amount of people riding with you. When people start to feel unsafe and stop riding, it can drive further people away if they have other transportation options.
This was my immediate thought.
So… how long until the Property Value Karens of the world get all wound-up about how “crime will increase” in their neighborhood?
They do that regardless of whether there are fares. In my neck of the woods, the suburbanites have fought like hell against installing light rail to connect downtown with the greater metro area because they’re worried about the “crime train”. Who cares if it would improve commuting for the majority of the population?
I have always been wary about free PT. I find the public quickly undervalues it for being free.
In Chicago the whole system was designed for you to pay before you get on. There’s a turnstile to get into the station, and you can only get on the front of the bus and tap before you enter. So fares are actually a large percentage of the budget (I looked it up, it’s about 35% pre-pandemic, post pandemic the numbers got all weird). I have no idea why the system is designed in SF where you can essentially “jump” on for free and never pay.
Speed, space, and cost usually. With busses it is way faster to board if you can just open all the doors at a busy stop and everyone paid on the platform or online. They just get on and sit down and go. The busses in Chicago let you pay by credit card (tap) to get on, which is not particularly common in the US, which helps with this.
It’s also much more expensive and challenging to build a system separated by fare and non fare zone. CTA runs a very old system that was designed ages ago so its pretty easy to keep it that way. Many newly built systems are dealing with expensive right of way acquisition and high construction cost. It’s way easier just to slap a few pay stations around and call it a day. Most people pay to ride voluntarily anyway, and those that can’t afford it weren’t going to pay if there was a fence in the way.
Source: enthusiastic about public transit and city politics, feel free to correct me please
For the summer, RTD Denver is having free fares. The idea is to help keep ozone down in the worst part of the year, but there is hope it’s more permanent.
Transit is basically free in my city. Just look down on your luck and the drivers will wave you through. If they are running behind they will yell at you to “just get on” instead of paying because they care more about being on time than collecting $2.50 (minus credit card fees, minus admin fees, minus grift, minus whatever else).
It seems to work okay. They crazy folks and (extremely) smelly folks would get refused service even if they had $2.50 so I don’t think that is a valid concern.
