Orlin Wagner/AP Photo
The zero-fare model holds the most promise for smaller transit systems, like Kansas City's, that can make the finances work.
Medicare for All has devolved into Democratic mortal combat. Free college requires federal and state governments to enact complementary reforms. Yet unlike the policy proposals that Washington has masticated for decades, free public transit is possible in communities where local leaders and motivated residents still make transformative decisions.
At a time when public-transit systems cope with reductions in federal funding and other fiscal limitations that threaten to degrade everything from capital improvements to daily service, however, going free may seem highly counterintuitive. Why abandon one source of steady, guaranteed revenues? And why make pronouncements that get riders’ hopes up about free rides if they may not materialize?
That’s why Kansas City Area Transportation Authority’s (KCATA) push to eliminate most city bus fares has jolted urban transit systems nationwide. To date, only a small number of small cities have opted to make bus travel free. If Kansas City moves to adopt this policy later this spring, it will be the largest city to have done so.
Income inequality, congestion, and the climate crisis (the transportation sector is the largest greenhouse gas producer in the United States) may not command the same level of attention from transit riders that service delays and aging buses do. But for most local officials, these issues increasingly dominate conversations about the future of transportation. The free public-transit model that Kansas City may ultimately create will be central to those debates.
The authority served about 43,000 riders on an average weekday in 2018 and nearly 13 million passengers overall in the two-state metropolitan region. The city’s low- and middle-income residents would reap considerable savings if fares were eliminated. Currently, bus fares are $1.50 per ride. A monthly local pass costs $50, or $600 a year. A monthly suburban express bus pass costs $95, or $1140 a year. Seniors and people with disabilities pay reduced fares.
Kansas City officials have divulged few details about how they plan to replace $8 million in yearly fare revenues. (The authority’s current fiscal-year budget is $105 million; with the exception of a couple of lines, the free-fare plan would apply to all bus routes.) The “zero fare transit ” plan is just one line item in a 2020-2021 budget that could approach $2 billion. In November, Mayor Quinton Lucas suggested that one possible source could be a portion of funds now allocated to parking garage subsidies for national companies, along with current fare collection savings of about $1.5 million.
The city manager will transmit a draft budget proposal to the KC city council, which voted unanimously in December to move forward with free fares. They will conduct a month of deliberations beginning in mid-February before deciding whether to go through with the plan, though its adoption is widely expected. The new fiscal year begins on May 1.
Missouri’s largest city didn’t suddenly commandeer the free-transit debate to display how woke its local officials are. The citywide conversation about eliminating bus fares heated up after the 2016 debut of the fare-free downtown KC Streetcar, a two-mile-long light-rail route. The streetcar serves gentrified white downtown neighborhoods, while buses serve largely black areas.
To determine how eliminating fares would affect the bus routes, KCATA implemented free-fare test runs over a span of several years. In 2017 KCATA CEO Robbie Makinen championed free fares for veterans in tandem with local veterans groups. One year later, the authority eliminated fares for high school students. Beginning last summer, a dozen service agencies whose clients include returning citizens and domestic-violence survivors distributed “Opportunity Passes” that provide access to most bus routes. These three groups comprise roughly 25 percent of KC’s ridership.
“Whether you have a $300 million budget or a $1 billion budget or a $105 million budget like me, if your fare revenue is less than 10 percent of your budget, I don’t know why you aren’t looking at something like this,” Makinen says.
A former social worker whose zeal for free transit is on constant display, Makinen discovered firsthand how hard it is for riders to navigate regional transit systems, each with their own byzantine fare regulations, when he lost his sight nearly a decade ago. He quickly discovered that he was ineligible for certain reduced fares because he did not live in the right Zip code or because he’d crossed a state line.
A revamping of the Kansas City bus network is also in progress with changes that are likely to debut at the same time as free fares. One major complaint about KC bus service is that most buses run sporadically and there are lines that have no Sunday service. The authority will also take a hard look at routes with low ridership. While the busiest 15 routes transport 70 percent of riders, the bottom 15 serve less than 2 percent. “You got a 40-foot bus with two to three people at $125 per head,” says Makinen with a chuckle. “Hell, I could send a limo to your house for that.”
Overall, eliminating fares speeds up travel. People board faster minus the delays that occur as some passengers fumble for transit passes or cash. Correspondingly, buses become safer since drivers no longer dispute fares with people who refuse to pay, incidents that comprise the majority of altercations with disruptive passengers.
As to the social benefits of going free, 16.5 percent of KC residents live below the poverty line. For them, not having to pay for a bus ride can make it less challenging to get to job-training classes, job interviews, and doctor visits.
Nationwide, there has been a long-standing interest in eliminating transit fares among transit systems that serve smaller urban areas, resort regions, and college towns, according to a 2012 National Academy of Sciences study. In the 1960s and early 1970s, Commerce, California, and East Chicago, Indiana, became the first municipalities to go fare-free (they still are). Some midsize cities like Salt Lake City, Buffalo, and Pittsburgh offer limited free-fare zones on certain bus and rail lines. But Austin’s ill-fated 15-month trial in 1989 showed that critical decisions must be made before implementation. The system was unprepared for popularity: Capacity crowds, rowdiness, vandalism, and increased security costs doomed the move.
Interest in free fares tends to be “cyclical,” says Michael Walk of Texas A&M Transportation Institute’s Transit Mobility Program, and concerns about congestion and equity have fueled the recent uptick in interest. Citing congestion as a factor, the Intercity Transit Authority that serves Washington state’s Thurston County, which includes the state capital of Olympia, eliminated fares in a five-year pilot program. Lawrence, Massachusetts, one of the poorest cities in a wealthy state—many of its residents cannot afford to ride MBTA commuter rail into Boston—made three Merrimack Valley Regional Transit Authority bus routes free using a $225,000 operating surplus to fund its two-year plan. Rider demand may determine whether the service continues. To fund its zero-fare streetcar line, Kansas City draws on property tax revenues and a special sales tax in a local transportation development district.
“The financing, it becomes the core,” says Jeannette Orsino, executive director of the Massachusetts Association of Regional Transit Authorities. “The one thing you don’t want to do is put something on and then have to take it off.”
The zero-fare model holds the most promise for smaller transit systems that can make the finances work. Fare revenue made up just 2 percent of Intercity Transit’s net revenues. Like KCATA, officials found that money allocated for fare collection could be better spent. Taking time to experiment is critical, as Kansas City did over the three-year period when the authority reduced fares for groups of riders. (What is clear, according to Michael Walk, is that if a system is already experiencing chronic problems with unruly passengers, those problems will likely increase if transit is free.)
Large transit systems won’t embrace free fares anytime soon. They would be forced to come up with new, permanent revenue sources to replace fare revenues that make up more significant slices of their budgets. Minneapolis-St. Paul’s Metro Transit, where fares generate about $100 million or 22 percent of its budget, has already expressed some skepticism about launching a free-fare program. Boston fares bring in nearly $700 million, or about one-third of the MBTA’s annual budget. But years of poor MBTA service and growing traffic congestion fuel insistent demands for fare-free buses. For the New York MTA, where only the Staten Island Ferry is free, fare revenues make up 50 percent of its operating budget. In the largest metros like New York and Boston, a special fare for low-income residents is more likely to be the route to a more equitable system than free fares for everyone.
In Los Angeles, another hotbed of free-fare activism, congestion pricing has been floated as a way to fund eliminating fares. In L.A., fares bring in only $284 million on a $7.2 billion 2020 operating budget. But establishing a congestion charge would be a difficult proposition in car-centric California. For most Angelenos, car travel across their far-flung city is a right, not an option, and paying to access freeways would provoke furious debate, even if a toll contributes to saving the planet or puts more money in the pockets of bus-riding, low-income Angelenos.
Drivers in epicenters of congestion like Los Angeles or Boston might be persuaded if faster and more reliable options ever appeared. But for Walk, the evidence is mixed on whether free fares will entice car drivers to give up their vehicles. “If it is still perceived as inconvenient or perceived as unsafe from the get-go, the change in fares might not move the needle that much,” says Walk.
The Kansas City zero-fare model demonstrates that free transit could make the difference between being able to move about a region independently or not at all. As the fiscal impact of the plan becomes clearer, other transit systems could be motivated to get creative about extending those benefits to their own riders. As last year drew to a close, KCATA unveiled another new project; the agency swapped out one local bus line for a new bus rapid-transit line—with 90 days of zero fares—that runs from downtown KC through predominantly black neighborhoods on the East Side of the city. This being Kansas City, the Wi-Fi is already free and the buses could be free for all very soon.
