The communities testing or considering free transit are diverse, ranging from major metropolises to small towns and from blue-collar to affluent. Just an hour’s drive from Worcester is Lawrence, Massachusetts, a post-industrial city with a large immigrant population. It used a municipal budget surplus to make some bus service free on a trial basis last fall, and the city has seen ridership go up 20%. [...]
The equity impact of a free ride is obvious: Beyond a few big cities, it’s the most marginalized people who are least likely to own cars and thus rely most on transit. And for those who count on it, transit is at least as vital as other services that cities are expected to fund entirely through tax revenue, from parks and libraries to schools and police forces. [...]
Climate change, however, may finally tip that political calculation. In the United States, according to federal government data, transportation is responsible for 29% of greenhouse gas emissions, with passenger cars and light trucks emitting 59% of that. Putting a dent in those figures will require public transit to become more attractive than driving, and given the cost of fueling, parking and maintaining an automobile, the word “free” could have a certain appeal. [...]
Fares sometimes amount to only a small fraction of a system’s funding — 14%, or about $3 million, in Worcester — which means lost revenues can often be made up for with federal and state grants, budget reallocations or special taxes. France uses a payroll tax on businesses to support urban and regional transit systems, allowing some of them to offer free rides. In the U.S., free transit in some college towns is made possible by a subsidy from the local university.
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