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As Boston expands no-fare bus service today, Cambridge to look at emulating the idea
By adamg on Tue, 03/01/2022 - 9:07am
Mayor Sumbul Siddiqui is organizing a working group to see if Cambridge can or should set aside some money to for creating a fare-free bus route or routes.
As Cambridge and the region look to emerge from the pandemic with an equitable and efficient transit system in place, fare-free pilots could serve as an effective first step. The working group will be tasked with better understanding what implementation of a fare-free bus pilot would entail and what possible impacts would occur. Utilizing ridership data trends and guided by fare-free programs already in existence, the working group will report on the feasibility and timeline of a pilot in Cambridge.
Across the river, Boston today expands free service on the 28 route to the 23 and 29 routes today. Boston will use roughly $8 million in federal pandemic relief funds for a two-year pilot.
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Comments
In related news
The entire Merrimack Valley Regional Transit Authority (MVRTA) is fare free as of today and for the next two years.
No rider cost public transportation is possible and it's a very good idea.
Pilot
A very good thing? In what sense? Isn’t the point of a pilot to see how an idea shakes out and analyze data, not feelings? It’s only possible right now because of federal money. If this pilot proves to be a good thing, it will be very interesting to see where they get the money from to continue it.
In many senses
If you look at it from a data collection standpoint, it's valuable (AKA "very good") since it's going to generate actual real-world data as opposed to speculating.
It's also very good in that it's going to encourage people to take public transportation and will save people money they can spend on other things.
As for the federal money comment, a majority of the system was already financed by federal money. It's not as if federal funds weren't involved until this morning.
The point of stimulus (the federal funds) is to put money into the community. This is exactly what the ARA was intended for.
And for the MBTA
Fares made up 43% ($661M) of revenue for the last ‘normal’ full year, 2019. That’s a lot of money to find.
And?
Yeah, it is. What's your point?
$661M >>>>>>>>>>> $8M
And the $8M wasn’t even state money, it was federal money!
And?
Are you suggesting that no one should even explore ways to make the T fare free?
As Wu has shown, it's possible to start small and build up. It also wouldn't "cost" $661M to make just busses free (for example) and whenever they remove fares, they also remove the expense of dealing with fares.
I don't know what's possible. I do know complaining about it being too expensive without actually exploring possibilities and trade offs is foolish. The value of having the MBTA be fare-free is worth hundreds of millions. The time saved, the value to low-income residents, the reduction of cars, etc has monetary value.
Fortunately, Wu is doing a pilot
Instead of speculating that all those glorious things you mention will just happen.
The Carmen’s union wouldn’t agree to vaccines. If there’s a way to make the MBTA free do you think they’re just going to let those people responsible for fare collections go? The unions in MA have WAY TOO much power.
Do you think bus, trolley and Green Line drivers …
… like enforcing fare collection?
Nope
And I bet they don’t like dealing with rude people, driving trains/buses, but it’s part of the job and that’s why they get paid to do it.
You do realize
You do realize that most of this statement is untrue.
Fare Collection was outsourced several years ago. There's no more "money room" and the associated people that went with it. Brinks does the cash management end, and some IT outsource company does most of the work work. Very few few "union" IT jobs left, and most are being replaced with contractors.
As far as fare collectors? You ride the T lately? When was the last time you saw a 'fare collector'? Not in about 16 years. Today a fare collector is a computer with a touch screen.
And the people you see inside the stations... they aren't fare collectors. They are "Customer Service Agents" and are all outsourced. They are paid to stand there and answer questions and help riders use the fare equipment. Not take cash from within a glass booth for a greasy token to put into a 1950s era turnstyle.
Most of them are from a company called Block by Block and were hired for that job specifically. None of them have ever been a MBTA employee or carmen's union member (they are not unionized at all).
So what happened to all those fare collectors? Many were offered new jobs as CSRs or if near retirement, early retirement. Some were re-trained for other positions (i.e. bus drivers).. But many just left. Hard to tell someone to be nice & helpful to someone else when all they have done their career is snear at people thru a plexiglass window I guess you can't teach old dogs new tricks sometimes.
In fact, if you've been paying attention, but i know you haven't because this would go against your grain (like the rest of this post)... that the T has a staffing shortage now. So many people left. So much for that powerful union.. can't even give that sh*t away rn. (and why would anyone, the pay, hours, and benefits suck.. and we're not even talking about the customers yet)
But whatevers, like many MA ppl.. please continue on your "let's crap on the T today using 20 year old information because its all I got" rampage you're one.
#overit
I appreciate the correction
Do you know how much of the fare collected goes towards collecting it? Like I mentioned before I couldn’t find it online and I find it weird they don’t itemize it as part of the budget.
You started off great, and I really do appreciate the correction then you went off the deep end. So sorry? I don’t see where I crapped on the T other than saying the Carmen’s union is powerful. If you don’t agree, why isn’t the vaccination rate at 100% as Wu mandated?
What were the expenses?
And how much of those expenses were related to fare collection?
No idea
Do you know? Looking at the MBTA budget they don’t itemize that expense.
Not off the top of my head
But I know I've seen a number for that before.
If I had the time to look, considering there's a new fare collection system being put into place, there are likely public documents about the new system that would contain such info as the cost of fare collection under the old and new systems. At least I'd hope that information was part of the decision making process.
It should be noted
That while these 3 buses are free to ride, the riders are still paying fares to get around. Only a third of riders have saved money.
I'm sure people are sick of me saying this, yet I will say again. Wu has promised a free T. She is now celebrating 3 temporarily free (paid for by the federal government) bus lines, which riders are using to get to the subway, which costs money to ride. After years of hearing Wu's proposal, I'm still waiting to hear how the City of Boston is going to make up for the lost fares of a regional transit system.
But that is a good thing.
But that is a good thing. Those lines are much faster without fare collection and the T hasn't actually lost money. Why aren't you happy?
Why aren't I happy?
Two reasons, which are related. First, the promise was of a "free T", not a few free bus lines. Second, this is temporary due to funding, which is covering the T's potentially lost revenue. Funding is what my issue has been with all of this. If Wu is serious about a free MBTA, she needs to figure out how to fund this, remembering that the tax base of the City of Boston is very limited. Should we defund other city agencies or should the budget of the T just be cut? This is all smoke and mirrors, and considering she's been harping on this for years, you'd think she'd have a better plan than "hey, look, here's some federal Covid money lying around" as an answer.
She is doing it incrementally
She is doing it incrementally. Since the fares don't pay for the T and never have, it seems that fares are actually the fake way of providing transportation.
$661M or 43%!
That’s how much the fares cover and they’re massively subsidized by MA sales tax.
Where did you read she’s doing it incrementally?
its an observation.
its an observation.
So at this rate
Let's see, that's $8 (not city money) over 2 years. We'll need $100 million a year minimum to level fund the T. That works out to... never going to happen.
False promise that can never be delivered on by an official of the City of Boston. If she really wanted to do this, she'd have an office at the top of Beacon Hill. Either she is clueless or she decided that saying she'll give people "free" things would get her votes.
Fare free is not Free
You are holding her to a different standard than any other politician. No governor has been able to make the T pay for itself. that makes collecting fares theater. The T will improve air quality and the economy by transporting people to work without cars. The expense should be distributed accordingly.
Huh?
No governor has proposed making the T fare free, because it is a fraught proposal. I am holding her to the standard I hold all politicians, even the ones in Washington who think that creating more debt is okay (and yes, this is sadly a bipartisan view.) You want new spending, or tax cuts, or whatnot? Show how to pay for it!
You note that the expense should be distributed accordingly. Sounds good, but how? How will the lost revenue be made up for? Again, that is something that anyone who is proposing this should at least have a vague plan for. Wu has no plan, just "no more fares" and somehow the T will still be functioning as it has.
I said no governor has been
I said no governor has been able to get the T to pay for itself. You are lying about what Wu promised.
I disagree
Since forward funding was instituted, every governor has gotten the T to pay for itself, through fares, a share of the sales tax, and a tiny bit of ancillary revenue. Wu promised a free T.
Or are you just playing one of those semantic games you like to play when you are in a trolling mood? Yes, there would still be a cost to run the MBTA in Wu's fantasies as there is now, but unlike the politicians who actually oversee the T, she doesn't seem to care how the budget is balanced, except apparently that the City of Boston will be paying for the shortfall (or service and/or maintenance gets greatly cut.)
Forward funding has never
Forward funding has never paid the T budget without a bailout, so that's a fail.
.
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MVRTA found they were getting 24 cents…
…. for every dollar in fares collected after all costs to the system in fare collection were deducted. They decided to go with faster service, since one of the many drawbacks of fare collection is the delays it causes.
I’m glad more municipalities are giving this a tryout. Public transportation is first and foremost a public service.
24 cents on the dollar huh?
Reminds me of when I was a kid and the busses had that little coin machine with a lever that the bus driver would push after he saw how much each person put in. They didn't take dollars (or credit cards obviously) so I remember if we didn't have enough money, we would get as many nickels we could get and divvy them up so it would look and sound like we were putting as much money in as possible. If there were enough people waiting to get on the driver sometimes wouldn't care or look. Even better if you put your money in before the driver had a chance to press the lever and that would really throw him off. Every once in a while the driver would let you put a dollar in the side and it would stay there. Looking back I'm guessing the driver pocketed those dollars.
Fun times....fun times.....
It wasn't ALL that long ago
Your detailed story all rings true! That's how things worked in the early 80's. And yeah, I always wondered where those dollars put in the side of the box went.
80s?
Shoving a dollar in the slot with a stick was still being used in the 2000s until the Charlie system came around and tokens were eliminated.
Its been interesting to see
Its been interesting to see how much less vitriol there was directed at MVRTA than Wu and the city of Boson....
Not a good idea
The T has charged fares for over 100 years and it is not an issue.
The real issue is the service, the number of lines that currently run are a fraction of number that existed 60 years ago.
The T should be expanded not shrunk by poorly decided "solutions"
This will require some buy-in from neighboring municipalities
because very few bus routes run only in Cambridge. There's the 69 between Harvard and Lechmere, and the much less frequent 68 between Harvard and Kendall. Otherwise, the Cambridge bus routes also serve Boston, Brookline, Watertown, Belmont, Waltham, Arlington, Somerville, and Medford. (And, if you count routes that start at Alewife but then immediately leave Cambridge, there are also buses to Lexington, Bedford, Winchester, Woburn, and Burlington.)
When Wu announced the two new lines ...
The issue of why she didn't try it with other, possibly equally deserving lines (I think the 66 and the 1 came up) was because those run through other communities, but that she and her people were in contact with officials in those communities. So if Cambridge and Brookline sign up, well, there's at least one more route they could work on.
Instead of free buses,
I'd prefer frequent buses.
You could pay most people to ride and they still wouldn't use a bus that runs every 30, 40, or 60 minutes.
Anyone who can't afford the $1.70 should get a free T pass for the whole system. We all would benefit much more if this grant went to running buses more often.
Well...
I pointed out to Mayor Wu directly that the Route 29 currently operates its LOWEST level of service since being created in June 1917. Free bus service shall certainly be a boon for many folks; but consider the person who is trying to get from Callender Street to Walnut Avenue on a Saturday afternoon or Sunday evening...
Sunday service was abolished decades ago and only limited Saturday service {to wit: Saturday nights ONLY} is presently operated. The MBTA logic c. 1987-1992 was that the then-new Route 28 would become the core trunk line in the area. The Route 29 Franklin Field Projects trips are the final vestiges of Routes 150 and 151; these routes were specifically created by the T in the late 1970s to offer seniors a safer option to reach Mattapan and Egleston Squares. {There had been a flurry of hold-ups and purse-snatchings as elders walked along Stratton and Ames Streets to reach the Route 29 stops along Blue Hill Avenue.}
So. Shall the City of Boston become hamstrung when it {very justifiably} tries to demand increased Route 29 service? Shall Steve The GM and Betsy "Check The Box" Taylor say "no dice, you get what you paid for" as the latent need for additional Route 29 goes unmet?
To speak generally about MBTA fares and fare collection for a moment...
Yesterday I noticed the woman boarding ahead of me tendered two notes for her bus fare. The T kept her thirty cents! Perhaps in lieu of a "low-income fare" with its attendant bureaucratic hot mess of administration we, the riding public, could and ought demand a fare DECREASE. Let's get our three dimes back!
Ask the T just how many "extra dimes" it has kept betwixt January 31, 2020 and February 28, 2022!
You get a CharlieTicket as
You get a CharlieTicket as change if it's at least 50 cents.
For decades, buses were exact fare only, no change provided. The T is a bit unusual in offering this feature. Some agencies don't accept bills either.
And the 30 cents is only an issue because the cash fare was DECREASED to $1.70, from $2, when they got rid of the cash/CharlieTicket surcharge.
Not much you can do with that CharlieTicket anymore
If it has a magstripe, you can't feed it into the new fare machines, which by now I think are in all T stations. So there's no way to add value to it to bring it up to the bare minimum of $1.70 that would make it usable on another bus.
I'm pretty sure you can use
I'm pretty sure you can use the change ticket on your next bus ride, and pay the remaining amount in cash.