Michelle Wu writes an op-ed in the Globe suggesting (as I’ve long advocated) that the T be made fare-less, that is to say, free.
I’d like to re-iterate my wholehearted endorsement to this idea.
What would the T cost to simply be a simple transit system? Remove all the carbuncles and barnacles and bolted on junk… simply make it trains you get on and get off. Make it only and solely about safety and speed of movement. Remove the fare collection system. Get rid of the need for yet another special ‘charlie’ card. Remove the turnstiles. Open the system up to any and all riders.
Wu cites a figure of one-fifth of total revenues from the fares. I think that’s a pittance, really, and a potential problem if you ask; how much does the fare collection system itself cost? If it’s anywhere near one-fifth of the total T cost then the fare collection system is just paying for itself. And, as Wu points out, fare hikes drive down ridership, making the margins therein ever so much slimmer. At some point, with rising fares and declining ridership, the fare collection system will cost more than the revenue it generates.
Suppose the fare collection system costs one tenth of the total cost. Getting rid of the fare collection system already makes it that much cheaper and you only have to make up one-tenth revenue instead of one-fifth. (I really have no idea of the numbers, other than what Wu cites, but I’m just trying to get at the dynamics here…)
What would be the car ridership if public transportation was zero hassles? Implement congestion pricing and I bet you get the equivalent of that one-fifth of revenue back before you can say ‘pahkin lawt.’ Then you can have bike lanes and better bus times and a nice goose to climate change mitigation.
How much more revenue would restaurants, clubs, concerts and games see if families could afford to come into the city more often?
Where is the downside to making the T free?
The only potential downside I see is an inability to keep up with demand, but otherwise I have long thought that as a public good it should be free just like almost every road is.
Love this idea. How do we fund it? I have one suggestion: Real Estate near free transportation has GOT to go up in value if this were implemented. How about funneling some of the real estate taxes to pay for this?
I’m not entirely convinced that funding is at all a concern.
Wu’s point is that 80% of the funding has nothing to do with the fares: it’s completely separate from the fare collection. The very worst case scenario is that we have to figure out how to replace 20% of the T’s present revenues, less the amount it costs to implement and administer the fare collection system. I think we can do that with congestion pricing on cars in the city.
One of my other points is to ask if the fare collection system costs as much as the fares it collects: if you remove the fares you have to make up the revenues less the cost of implementing the fare collection system and if the fare collection system costs anywhere near the amount it collects, then what is it we have to make up? As noted, the worst case scenario is if the fare collection system costs very little, say x. Then the revenues to be made are 20%, or X, so X – x… As x approaches X, then the revenues to be made up approach zero.
The T board signed a deal in 2017 for $732 million over 13 years for Cubic Systems of San Francisco to design and implement an automatic fair collection system (and one that doesn’t allow cash on buses, which is stupid and discriminatory) That’s an average of $55 million per year for the 13 years of the contract. (and if anyone thinks the costs will be contained I have a bridge, also in San Francisco to sell…)
General revenues, plus the millionaire’s tax is being tried again and I believe transportation was one of the intended benefactors thereof.
That would be a terrible way to fund it. Increases in real estate values need to be limited, not encouraged,
I agree it is a great idea to have free transportation. The state is providing miles and miles of free roads and maintenance to the rural communities, which is what they need. The needs of the cities are different, and the same expectation of free infrastructure should be the norm.
There should also be free parking at transportation hubs. The system right now is full of negative incentives. Why would two people park at the T and take the train when it costs less just to drive yourself?
The easiest way to raise the standard of living is to lower the cost of living, which is undoubtedly what Adam Smith meant when he said that ‘a nation with the highest rate of profit goes to ruin the fastest.’ Here in the northeast we are always running out of money because we are pricing ourselves into misery. We have become a slave to numbers rather than their master.
The politics aren’t there. Folks in the suburbs, exurbs, gateway cities, Down Cape, and out in Western Mass already begrudge the money they put into the MBTA today (they don’t begrudge the tax revenue generated in Boston spent elsewhere, natch). There’s simply no state-wide interest in replacing that revenue.
Think the MBTA is doing so well that they could do it with 20 percent less revenue? I don’t.
HOWEVER, total fare revenue is 20 percent. How much is bus revenue? 5 percent? 3 percent? I’d also bet that, from an infrastructure perspective, bus fare is especially expensive, because you need fare boxes on every bus. From a systems perspective, fare boxes on buses are a disaster — they make boarding far slower than alighting, and that has substantial schedule implications. From a social justice perspective, neighborhoods with streetcars, subways, or commuter rail tend to be far wealthier than neighborhoods in the MBTA system only served by buses.
My proposal: make buses free. My bet (with no analysis!) is that it’s the smallest fare impact, the largest cost reduction, improves bus performance time, and provides the free MBTA service to the residents within the region who are generally poorer than the average MBTA rider.
Between my wife and myself, although we don’t take the T daily, we do take it often. Between her and I, three or four of the last ten trips we took were ‘free’ as in, the fare box wasn’t accepting money properly so the driver just waved us on. I think this is, historically speaking, about average and likely the impetus for the ‘cashless’ bus service and online charlie accounts upcoming (all of which add cost and complexity). Because we don’t take it daily we don’t often get a chance to top off our charlie cards. Sometimes my youngest will grab my card for a jaunt into the city and come back with a dollar seventeen left on it… so that when next I go I have to put money on it and we get the situation stated.
I think, too, that the fare collection is the most stressful part of the job for the driver. I’ve seen some of the drivers get rather vexed at the inadequacies of the thing. They are, after all, on a schedule and when more than one person gets on and someone has even a relatively simple problem, it can drastically slow things down.
I agree. And Wu actually begins here, advocating not an immediate drop of the entire fare collection system T wide, but a phased approach starting with busses (near as no never mind) as outlined above. Perhaps, in my rush to give Wu an ‘amen’, I didn’t make this sufficiently clear.
We need to make the MBTA a statewide concern, with service to places like Springfield and Pittsfield, and make sure we provide funds for busses in and around those cities as well.
Do you believe reports that say as much as 40 million in revenue is lost because of fare evasion? One reason we out here in the sticks don’t want to give more.
According to various sources, Massachusetts lost about $26M in toll revenue in 2018 because of vehicles that used our highways without being properly billed. In addition, the Boston Globe reports that the state is owed another $30.5M from vehicle owners who have not paid their transponder bills (emphasis mine):
That’s about $56 M per year in “fare evasion” for the highways — about 20% higher than the number you complain about for public transportation.
One reason we in the city don’t want to give more highway funding to Western MA is because drivers in that region evade their highway tolls. Do you think this is a fair argument?
The fact is that Boston-area taxpayers have been subsidizing roads, highways, and bridges that we don’t use for decades. There is no “giving” involved — the state has and needs a transportation network. Western MA benefits from the government spending on the rail network, the port of Boston, our roads and highways, bridges and tunnels throughout the state, and public transportation.
Funny how the various excuses for freeloading (which is what you advocate) only work one way.
The 30 million owed is not for just one year, it is the accumulation of many years.
Well, it’s the balance accumulated over several years. Since any outstanding balance has to be paid in order to renew a registration, and registration has to be renewed every two years, then it’s still a safe bet that about $15M/year is unpaid. So perhaps the highway fund losses are about the same as the fare evasion total cited.
The fact remains that neither number is relevant to the question we’re discussing. It doesn’t make sense to not fund highways because some revenue is lost to non-payment of tolls. It doesn’t make sense to not fund public transportation because some revenue is lost to non-payment of fares.
The state needs highways, bridges, tunnels, public transportation, ports, airports, and all the other aspects of transportation infrastructure. Every resident benefits whether they admit it or not.
If people evade tolls confiscate their car and a week of community service. If they evade a fare two weeks of community service.
The point is that we don’t stop funding highways because of people who evade tolls.
You’re going to confiscate their car because of a fare evasion…? So very, and completely, draconian. Tacking on a week of community service seems like… well… just being a complete and utter dick.
What happens when someone “evade fares” because the Turnpikes camera/sensor/reader/whatever simply isn’t working? That is to say, it’s entirely not their fault?
1)The bulk of the fare evasion (greater than 30 mill/year I believe) is in the commuter rail, which has (or had) a completely different fare collection system from the ‘charlie card’ so this is apart from the discussion to make the busses and subways free. Sorry that I didn’t make that clear.
b) Do you, somehow, believe that if fare evasion was absolutely zero then you, in the sticks, would ‘give’ less? Why would you believe that?
iii) As noted, possibly the greatest amount of fare ‘evasion’ is when the fare collection system on the busses is busted and people get waived on by the driver. This would fall under the category of ‘maintenance not being done’ and, therefore, any ‘savings’ from better fare collection would be eaten up by maintenance of the fare collection system.
But if it is taxpayer subsidized to the extent that we can eliminate fares altogether that would make the fare evasion issue moot. Plus, transportation should not be our way vs. your way. We all pay for roads; we should all pay for the T; the understanding should be that all parts of the state will be adequate served by the methods best suited to them.
Sent these references to Michelle Wu, Dublin’s possible move to free public transport and a global rundown of cities with free public transport.
https://www.irishtimes.com/news/environment/free-public-transport-could-it-work-for-dublin-1.3768146
https://freepublictransport.info
A very interesting CityLab.com article which adds a wrinkle: at least in DC, the punishment for fare evasion is orders of magnitude larger the punishment meted out for parking infringements; and the discussion moves on from there to removing fares altogether…