Tracking Transportation/ Government/ Transportation

A Freakanomics debate about free fares

Boston’s mayor is the standard-bearer for those who say yes

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FREAKANOMICS RADIO is out with an interesting podcast on whether public transit should be free – and, not surprisingly, Boston Mayor Michelle Wu is the headliner for those who say yes.

Wu has called for eliminating all fare across the MBTA system, but on the podcast – a spinoff of the popular 2005 book of the same name by economist Steven Levitt and journalist Stephen Dubner – she sets her sights a bit lower.

“I think we can get to a free bus system,” she says. “That would be transformational for our city’s economy, climate, and opportunity. It’s about who has to bear the burden and how we see the long-term cost-benefit of what we need to do to make sure that we are cleaning our air, connecting people to jobs, healing the impacts from the pandemic, and fulfilling our potential as a green, resilient community.”

Wu makes it sound as if eliminating bus fares could be cost neutral. She cites an transit advocate’s estimate that the revenue loss from eliminating fares would be $30 million and notes the MBTA has separately estimated doing away with fares would yield $29 million in cost savings on fuel and other efficiencies.

The T, however, has different estimates. A spokesman said the transit authority estimates the cost of eliminating bus fares (and fares for corresponding paratransit service) would range from $88 million to $122 million. It would be significantly higher — $118 million to $188 million – if service is expanded to meet the higher likely demand, the T says.

Dubner questions Wu’s priorities, pressing her on why issues like early education, childcare, health care, or affordable housing shouldn’t be at the top of the agenda. “Why start with free public transit?” he asks.

“We know that the foundation for equitable access to opportunities is connectedness, the ability to get around,” Wu responds. She cites a 2015 Harvard study showing that the factor most closely linked to a family’s ability to rise out of poverty is the average commute time to work.

Others appearing on the podcast are not so sure. Brian Taylor, the director of the Institute of Transportation Studies at UCLA, said free transit would not make his top list of priorities if he were named the nation’s secretary of transportation.

“To me, right now, the problem with public transit is the problem we have with cars,” Taylor said. “In fact, in the United States we’re investing more in public transit. And that’s all for the good, except that it’s undermined by policies that keep trying to make it easier and cheaper to drive. And now we say, ‘Okay, well, we’re not going to make drivers responsible for the cost they impose on society, let’s see if we can make it even cheaper to go on public transit.’” 

The podcast looks at alternative approaches, including lowering transit prices for those who earn less money and instituting congestion fees — charging people who drive into cities like London and Stockholm.

“If you’ve ever been in Stockholm, it’s shocking,” Taylor says. “Public transit gets around very quickly and easily. People do drive there, but the streets aren’t packed with traffic. You can choose to drive in and out of central Stockholm, but you have to pay for it. And because of that, when you can take public transit or bike or walk or travel by some other means, people do it. So it’s not that it’s an unpleasant place to drive, it’s that it’s an expensive place to drive. It’s the same thing as flying over Thanksgiving or Christmas or staying at a hotel during peak holiday periods – the price goes up and down to bring supply and demand in line. Otherwise, we’d just have people queuing up, and that’s what we do now.”

Taylor also says there are different markets for public transit – the first is people who because of age, income, or disability cannot drive and then there is transit for people traveling to places where parking is difficult or expensive.

“The latter group is more affluent; the former group is poorer,” Taylor says. “That first group is transit’s dirty little secret — the idea that it was providing an absolutely critical social service, a redistributive social service, is not something that you advertised to voters because that kind of a role didn’t get as much support as saying, ‘Hey, we’re going to provide an alternative to driving that’s going to help to deal with congestion. It’s going to deal with environmental pollution. It’s going to help slow climate change.’ That has broader appeal. So those are two different goals. They’re sometimes congruent, but sometimes they’re at odds. I think that’s an important thing that your listeners think about is this opportunity cost of spending money to eliminate fares. Could we do things with that money that riders might value even more than a free ride? I would think that anyone before embarking on a fare-free program ought to ask that question. And the answer could be no, but it could be yes.”

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Bruce Mohl

Editor, CommonWealth
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About Bruce Mohl

Bruce Mohl is the editor of CommonWealth magazine. Bruce came to CommonWealth from the Boston Globe, where he spent nearly 30 years in a wide variety of positions covering business and politics. He covered the Massachusetts State House and served as the Globe’s State House bureau chief in the late 1980s. He also reported for the Globe’s Spotlight Team, winning a Loeb award in 1992 for coverage of conflicts of interest in the state’s pension system. He served as the Globe’s political editor in 1994 and went on to cover consumer issues for the newspaper. At CommonWealth, Bruce helped launch the magazine’s website and has written about a wide range of issues with a special focus on politics, tax policy, energy, and gambling. Bruce is a graduate of Ohio Wesleyan University and the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University. He lives in Dorchester.

About Bruce Mohl

Bruce Mohl is the editor of CommonWealth magazine. Bruce came to CommonWealth from the Boston Globe, where he spent nearly 30 years in a wide variety of positions covering business and politics. He covered the Massachusetts State House and served as the Globe’s State House bureau chief in the late 1980s. He also reported for the Globe’s Spotlight Team, winning a Loeb award in 1992 for coverage of conflicts of interest in the state’s pension system. He served as the Globe’s political editor in 1994 and went on to cover consumer issues for the newspaper. At CommonWealth, Bruce helped launch the magazine’s website and has written about a wide range of issues with a special focus on politics, tax policy, energy, and gambling. Bruce is a graduate of Ohio Wesleyan University and the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University. He lives in Dorchester.

Wu says the answer is yes, and she doesn’t shy away from the argument that transit is a redistributive social service. She also doesn’t shy away from being bold.

“It’s very easy to be just reactive in these roles, and we have to exercise every bit of planning and capacity and organizational muscle to be proactive,” she says. “I keep a countdown clock, a little widget on my phone, that shows me exactly how many days are left in the term, because every single day should count, and we have to move at a pace that is closer to the urgency in the communities as opposed to the usual pace of government.”

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