I remember being able to just show a student ID and that was in the late '80s, early '90s. But I don’t think it was “free,” I seem to recall that some portion of our student fees were transferred to CapMetro. What I do remember a bit more clearly, was that CapMetro experimented with system-wide fare elimination, this would’ve been in 1990 or '91. It turned out that whatever money CapMetro was getting from UT students was still being collected and thus subsidizing the free fare for everyone.
I’m not sure it amounted to much, maybe it was $5 per semester, per student? (I figured in the grand scheme of things it was a net positive, anyway. At the same time I paid for (mandatory) athletic fees that I never, ever used at all.) There was a small-to-moderate kerfuffle about it. But then I’m not clearly remembering the whole thing in the first place.
When I worked downtown I regularly took the bus. It was 50 cents a ride, which was dirt cheap (even in 1996 dollars). But if one bought a ticket book in advance, then it was only a quarter per ride, and as often as not the driver wouldn’t even take it from me (I guess CapMetro got paid anyway when I bought the book). My main problem with riding the bus was that, on the way home, the driver would forget to change the route number when he got downtown and continued north (the same bus would ply two routes, one south of downtown and one north). So I’d be waiting an hour or more for the 5 to take me home, while three or more number 10 buses (or whatever it was) that should have said “5” went right past me.
There are a lot of good arguments in favour of making it a universal benefit (including as jan_ciger mentioned, higher political support). And of course, I like it because it would be a $250 monthly subsidy to me.
My only point is only we must also look at the opportunity cost of such a universal subsidy in order to evaluate whether it’s the best use for available money. Taking $1.2 billion from other services to pay for it (the amount in fares in Toronto last year) would blow quite a hole in the social services the city provides.
I should ask my son’s high school (in downtown Austin) if there was a fee it paid to CapMetro. AFAIK my son and his classmates never spoke of CapMetro fees and their school, but then the teenagers I am familiar with there aren’t really good at spotting hidden costs.
I don’t have a good answer for you in 2019.
Sometimes, weird grants and stuff keep CapMetro afloat, typically short-term attempts to boost ridership.
I wonder if Big Data has made its way into Dunkirk enough that the free bus experiment now running has available datasets… akin to: https://capmetro.org/metrolabs/
Actually, Austin made the entire bus system free a couple of decades ago for about a year and a half. It was part of Max Nofzinger’s campaign promises that he kept. While this was nice, it did have drawbacks, such as horrifyingly smelly people, vomiting people and the threat of violence from a few unstable people.
No more gate system, no ticket machine, no vending machine, less damage to the planet, less cars, less electronic equipment to power.
Still people argue it can be done in large city.
Why?
Boston just made the entire transit system free for middle and high school students resident in the city. Bus, subway, boat, and commuter rail out to zone 2.
Cause with paid buses, these people did not existed?
Or you just could see them.
With a free bus ride, maybe some safeguard should also be implemented, but overall, it’s a win for our future if less car are used.
Interesting. My city doubled prices for occasional riders like me in January. It now costs more to ride public transportation than it does to drive, including parking fees. The result: When I don’t have time to walk or it’s raining, I drive, where I used to take the bus. Great job, guys.
(These are the same guys who tried to privatize our water system a few years ago. They got voted down, but not out.)
This is a great experiment and I hope more cities get behind it. Most French cities have not been build for cars and seeing less of them is always great.
Also this report is really interesting, if you need any help to translate it, send me a DM !
There was a downtown zone referred to as “fareless square” years ago but it was eliminated with the rest of the multi-zone system – there is one fare from anywhere to anywhere else now
For those of you who aren’t familiar with London local politics, one of the issues that prompted central government to remove power from local government was Livingstone’s attempt to reduce public transport costs back in the 80s
Also that giant sign on the roof of County Hall, facing the Houses of Parliament, displaying the current unemployment figure; his support for the hated terrorist Nelson Mandela; his opposition to nuclear weapons; his support for women’s and LGBT rights; his propensity for making socialism seem reasonable and likeable on TV; etc. But yeah: Thatcher and her cenobites burned down the GLC in large part to get rid of Ken.
It’s an instructive story in relation to current UK politics, because the hysterical fear cultivated around Corbyn is a direct, imaginationless continuation of the way the tory press smeared Livingstone in the eighties (Corbyn has the same #2, John McDonnell). They haven’t felt the need to change a single line of that script. Boris the Dog Turd called Corbyn a “Bennite” in Parliament as if that were a shocking insult in 2019. It’s a remarkable line of attack because, in retrospect, Thatcher-era Tories were on the wrong side of every single issue they used to demonize people like Ken Livingstone – in some cases, like Apartheid and gay rights, the very wrong side. If they want to recycle that conversation, cool, let’s play back the fuckin tapes.
The city I grew up in did this back in the early 90s as well, as a way to save money on school buses. It worked great, and gave us tweens and teens way more mobility outside of school than we otherwise would have had. It opened up the city to us in a way that bicycles couldn’t and I think it genuinely made that generation of kids more well-rounded. We went all over town doing things on our own that we never could have otherwise, Nowadays it’s just expected that your parents drive you to every activity on your densely-scheduled Make My Kid A Genius calendar.
This also goes to funding. Congestion fees, fuel taxes, and the like on private non-commercial vehicles can offset a large amount of fare revenues lost when a public transit system goes to free.
This is a complex issue where scale and local prosperity play a large part, but what I’m seeing in the various comments from different cities and regions is that the attitude toward good, well-funded public transit as a key life-improving benefit for citizens is the starting point for programmes like the one in Dunkirk. If politicians are knuckleheads who see car ownership as a symbol of rugged individualism, you’re going to see underfunded or non-existent public transit (usually with a racist undertone).
The best place to see this slow, halting change in attitude is Los Angeles, where the world capital of car culture is pushing public transit in response to the many negative externalities of everyone using private autos (e.g. pollution, sprawl, long commutes, etc.).
That’s a false choice. EVERYONE benefits from free public transportation. Yes, the less-poor might get “free handouts”, but they’ll also generate less pollution, the roads will be less clogged, and overall people will be happier.
Also, Seattle used to run its buses in the downtown area for free and it wasn’t just less pollution and traffic; it was also a huge economic boost to businesses downtown, especially bars and clubs, as now-fully-mobile drunkards could bar- and club-hop at their leisure SAFELY for themselves and others. The decision to end this was absolutely submoronic.
Social aid (like a subsidized / free transit pass) has an overhead cost to both admistrators (obviously) and recipients (time and needed to apply, follow other rules).
In some cases its cheaper just to give everybody the same benefit.
