The Port Authority of Allegheny County is set to resume fare collections next week. They were suspended in late March as “social distancing” became one of the steps taken to mitigate the spread of coronavirus.
But transit activists and advocates for the poor are urging the mass-transit agency to not reinstate full fares. If the government has decreed there should be not evictions or utility cutoffs during the pandemic, full fares should not be restored either, goes the argument.
So, when does the pandemic end? The county goes “green” this Friday. Is that the end? Does it end when there are no more cases? That could be… never given what we still don’t know about the coronavirus.
Some even are urging that low-income riders be allowed to ride for free. After all, they say, transit is as essential as housing and utilities, the P-G reports.
Some others even have gone as far as to say public transit is a “basic right.” That would be news to the Founders and Framers. But that’s an argument for another day.
So, why not simply make mass transit free for not just “the poor” but for all – all the time?
Simply put, it has been considered a bad public policy idea for decades. Nonetheless, your typical garden-variety “progressives” keep advocating for it.
Perhaps one of the more recent succinct narratives came from a blog post from a noted transit observer who goes by the moniker “Mean Green Cougar Red.” The name might be unorthodox but his economic/public policy reasoning is spot-on.
In January he detailed Houston’s experience with the free transit concept, citing the below news account:
“After a comprehensive analysis by
Metropolitan Transit Authority staff, transit board members said removing fares
from the system actually would increase agency costs by creating a need for
more buses and operators, potentially to the tune of $170.6 million annually.
“’It is just not feasible to do free fares,’ Metro board member Jim Robinson
said, echoing others on the board and in the transit agency.
“Proponents argue transit use would skyrocket and reduce overall traffic
volumes if transit was free. Riding also would be easier, they say, because
buses and trains could open front and rear doors for boarding without the need
for users to stop and pay fares.
“Metro’s analysis concluded that ridership would jump from 86 million trips a year to an estimated 117 million if fares were eliminated altogether. Even offering free rides only during peak hours could boost ridership to around 100 million, the study found.
“Those new riders, however, would come at a big cost, said Julie Fernandez, the transit agency’s lead management analyst. To handle the demand, Metro would need nearly 500 more vehicles, mostly buses, and 415 new operators. Such a sizable jump in vehicles and employees would require the agency to build a new bus operating facility to complement the existing six bus depots.
“’Even preparing the transit system for free rides would take four years,’ Fernandez said, adding, ‘it takes time to order new buses.’
“The cost of going free prompted many Metro board officials to conclude it was not likely.”
And that appears to be just the beginning of the problems associated with making mass transit “free.”
Also noted the transit blogger:
A free fare system “reduces revenues which, in turn, could lead to service cuts, it allows buses and trains to become rolling hangouts for people who aren’t actually ‘going anywhere’ and it deprives the system’s actual users of any sense of stakeholdership:
“Even if it is mostly subsidized through tax revenues, the fact that a fare is being collected gives transit’s actual users a special sense of ownership of the system because they pay for the service twice: once through taxes and again through fares.
“That, in turn, empowers them to hold the agency accountable for things like shelters that are clean or buses that run on time. Eliminate fares and the user becomes no more of an ‘owner’ of the system than the public at large.
“This reduces or eliminates entirely the rider’s sense of empowerment and leads to a lack of respect for riders’ needs. Service quality degrades and people are discouraged from using the system.”
You can read “Mean Green Cougar Red’s” enlightening blog in its entirety at: http://indotav.blogspot.com/2020/01/fare-free-public-transportation-is.html.
Far from being “free,” “free transit’s” real costs, monetary and social, are exorbitant and, as is so typical with “progressive” ideas, hurt the very people the concept is promoted as helping the most.
Colin McNickle is communications and marketing director at the Allegheny Institute for Public Policy (cmcnickle@alleghenyinstitute.org).
