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Would giving everyone free transit change ridership patterns? Maybe not

January 29th, 2014 · 8 Comments

Someone just sent me this interesting story about the free-transit experiment in Estonia.

 

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  • Waltyss

    Closer to home, both Portland and Seattle had free buses in the downtown and both have scrapped the programme hoping to generate more revenue. It would be interesting to know whether ridership and traffic were affected and whether revenue has actually increased.

  • Myron Claridge

    My wife and I were in Perth in August/September, 2013. It is about the same size of Vancouver population and physically. It has six rail lines (narrow gauge but heavy rail) from the suburbs to the city, a river ferry system, a compass card system that works on buses and the trains with transfers, and four free downtown circular bus routes. We had a rental car while there and did not use it to go into the city as a five minute ride on a bus and 29 minute train ride got us into the city where we used the free bus routes around town..a contrast to Vancouver and the failure of a provincial government (and the feds) to fund transit in its major metropolitan area through suggested taxes on vehicles etc..Perth’s downtown has several pedestrian mall streets and is very pedestrian friendly-and shops were busy.

  • mike0123

    Free transit eliminates delays caused by payment. Faster buses saves people time. Faster buses finish their routes earlier, freeing up service that can be put toward increasing frequency and capacity or eliminated to reduce operating costs.

    All-door boarding has the same positive effects, and it doesn’t reduce revenue.

  • Agustin

    Fare decreases would impact ridership, but service improvements would impact it more.

    There are parts of Vancouver where there are already too few buses for the demand. Increased capacity is needed more than cheaper fares.

    Mind you, I do think that targeted fare reductions have a significant role to play in reducing the mobility barriers for some segments of the population.

  • ArianeK

    As much as I believe there should be an income threshold below which citizens would get free transit, I would much rather have BETTER transit for the rest of us. Cleaner and more reliable buses and light rail (for the love of Dog give us the light rail!) are what would actually get me to be a regular rider. (Not to mention allowing e-bikes on Skytrain – not everyone is able bodied enough to ride a regular bike!)

  • Ned

    5-6 years ago there was a smart program / pilot, I can’t remember exactly, sponsored by (I think) Translink, where a family of 4 (2 adults 2 kids) could travel ALL zones on ONE Fare Ticket on any form of transportation (bus, skytrain, ferry) over the weekend, and on any public holidays.
    For some weird reason, not too many people knew about it. I found out about it by accident. Perhaps, no proper advertising was in fact a wish for the program to fail (in terms of popularity and ridership).
    It was scrapped for no reason.
    THAT WAS AN EXCELLENT PROGRAM!
    Electric cars were here 100 years ago, but the oil barons did not want any of that…
    Think about it…

  • brilliant

    If they want to.do this they’ll have to start pruning the lush wages and benefits Translink’s unionized drivers get vs those of a private sector charter bus driver.

  • Bill Lee

    The various amateurs at Wikipedia have a long English article with long city lists of fareless systems (or zones)
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_public_transport

    The Estonian version is still short
    et.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tasuta_%C3%BChistransport

    While the Dutch are more detailed
    nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gratis_openbaar_vervoer

    In March last year the AtlanticCities site beloved of urban writers touched upon it.theatlanticcities.com/commute/2013/03/how-free-transit-works-united-states/4887/