Our local surprisingly better than we deserve and doing their best with what they have kinda RTA, if anyone's interested:

#Worcester #Bus #Transit #UrbanTransit

https://therta.com/

But I was wrong! Making the #bus #transit system free *did* significantly increase ridership, even on routes that have very shitty frequency.

And as every transit advocate knows, more riders equals more political power equals a better chance at more funding. It's a positive feedback loop.

So free fares is a loss leader, even if it costs in the short term it strengthens the system in the long term. I did not expect that, and I was wrong!

Is the problem some teenagers ducking their #subway fare, or a bureaucracy insistent on shoveling huge amounts of money to a private vendor for fare collection machinery and to law enforcement to punish Those Undeserving Poors?

"Just asking questions," as one says

It seems at least possible that it would be cheaper to just make the #MBTA free than to invest hundreds of millions into a new generation of turnstiles, fareboxes, vending machines, and cash collection... not to mention transit cops to pursue "fare evasion".

Has anyone done this analysis? If not, why not?

So now when I see the #MBTA talking about their "ring of steel" plan and their "next generation #CharlieCard" plan, I have to ask... why are they bothering?

Turns out,

-Maintaining fareboxes and farecard machines (owned by a notoriously unreliable and uncooperative third party, natch)
-Validating and issuing reduced fare cards for elderly, disabled, and low income riders
-Collecting, depositing, and accounting for cash fares
-Customer service and refunds for farecard failures

*COST* the RTA about $4M a year.

So really, to make the system free only cost $3M a year, not $7M.

Now for the interesting thing the RTA discovered:

(These numbers are from memory and probably not exact, but generally the gist of it.)

The #Worcester RTA was collecting about $7M in fares pre-COVID. So it was assumed we'd need to come up with an annual $7M budget increase to keep the system free.

But.