The most basic job of public transit is to get us all where we need to go, quickly and reliably. Fare-free transit is one way to deliver on that goal, for more reasons than you might think.
With transit systems across North America facing a ridership “death spiral”, fare-free transit is on the agenda. It’s a conversation that opens important conversations about who pays for mobility, and how we all gain when everyone can afford it.
As Ottawa faces down a collection of intersecting crises—think affordable housing, income insecurity, and the wacky weather brought on by the climate emergency—it’s important to answer those questions in a way that everyone benefits and no one is left behind.
Reliable Transit Helps Everyone
When transit starts to fail, everyone knows it. Riders are stuck waiting for buses that arrive late, or never show up at all. Traffic gridlock gets even worse as more commuters shift into private cars, abandoning buses or trains that can carry dozens or hundreds of riders per vehicle.
As ridership falls, a system that relies on fares has to charge even more for a declining service that fewer people use if they can avoid it. Ottawa has been through several rounds of this downward spiral, and it’s fair to ask: With only 20% of Ottawans riding the bus, how’s it working for us so far?
The mirror image of an effective, reliable system is within reach, and it all comes down to two questions: how that system brings riders onboard and keeps them coming back, and how we pay for it.
Eliminating fares break the cycle by drawing more riders into the system. Higher ridership gets more buses on the road, delivering shorter travel times and more reliable service for riders. And transit users reduce their greenhouse gas emissions by 77% per kilometre compared to driving.
Car commuters win, too. The only thing cheaper than driving the car you already own is taking fare-free transit wherever you need to go. And when you do decide to drive, increased transit use relieves congestion for anyone who’s still behind the wheel.
Nothing Succeeds Like Success
When communities try out fare-free transit, they rarely look back. The approach has:
- Provided better transit access through downtown Calgary along 7 Avenue
- Delivered free summer transit to more than 15,000 high school students across West Quebec
- Increased ridership by 200% and reduced operating costs per rider on the UCLA Unlimited Access system in Los Angeles
- Boosted ridership from three to seven million in Chapel Hill, North Carolina
- Delivered a €20 million transit budget surplus and achieved 83% rider satisfaction in Talinn, Estonia
- Increased ridership by 65% on weekdays and 125% on weekends among the senior population in Dunkirk, France
- Prompted 50% of drivers in Aubagne, France to switch to transit
An Investment that Keeps On Paying Back
Those results make fare-free transit an investment in consistent, high-quality service. It helps people who can’t afford a car get to and from work and take part in the life of the community.
Fare-free transit is less stressful for everyone, since fare monitoring is the biggest source of conflict between drivers and passengers.
And best of all, fare-free transit is a great deal for local taxpayers. At a cost of just $22 per month in property taxes for the average household, it takes less than one round-trip ride per week to break even. More frequent users come out ahead.
Fare-free transit takes a change of mindset when we’re used to thinking of ourselves as paying customers, rather than users taking advantage of a universal public service like health care. But it’s certainly worth our while to open a wider discussion in Ottawa about the system our transit system could be.