18 ms·

French city of Dunkirk tests out free transport

250 points by UglyToad 7y ago

dawhizkid 7y ago
I was surprised to find that Miami Beach has free trolleys and Hollywood (CA) has a free nighttime (weekend?) shuttle as well here in the US.
- Ididntdothis 7y ago
  Mainly in tourist areas. Yosemite valley has feee shuttles too.
- karthikb 7y ago
  Emeryville does as well, primarily during commute hours.
- reaperducer 7y ago
  Seattle used to have free transit downtown. I'm not sure how much of it was about moving people around, and how much was just to move people around faster by not requiring them to go through the payment process. The free rides are over now. Literally. When I lived in Seattle, and outside Seattle, I was always impressed that Sound Transit lived up to its mandate as a transit agency, and not a revenue source. Its mission was to move people around. To that end, if you didn't have any money (forgot your wallet, too drunk to remember where you left your Orca card, too poor to pay, etc...) the bus drivers would give you zero hassle and let you board. In contrast, I can't count the number of times I've seen clearly poor people kicked off of the buses in Chicago because they couldn't afford to pay. That just seems wrong. There should be some sort of income line below which you are entitled to free public transit.
  - xyzzyz 7y ago
    The free rides are over now. Literally. Yes, Seattle discontinued its mobile homeless shelter program.
    - journalctl 7y ago
      And now their homelessness problem is over?
      - xyzzyz 7y ago
        No, but now you can actually take a bus to downtown and not inhale piss vapors.
    - saagarjha 7y ago
      Was this actually an issue?
      - throwaway1777 7y ago
        It was definitely common for homeless and mentally ill people to be on the free ride buses, but I don’t know if I’d say it was a primary reason it was cancelled. Seemed more about costs.
  - seanmcdirmid 7y ago
    Do you mean Sound Transit (inter-city/county bus service) or Metro (king county)? I can’t imagine sound transit buses being that lenient at all, metro buses on the other hand could be. Downtown Seattle has gone down hill since the 90s/00s. It used to be a nice place to shop and do stuff, but the last time I was downtown there was hardly anything to do beyond tourist traps. I guess a lot of this is amazon destroying in person retail, ironically enough.
- earthboundkid 7y ago
  Baltimore and DC have free buses called "circulators". There was a story that the buses are losing money but would lose more money if they charged because they're getting grants for being free and have ads which would be worth less with lower ridership.
  - mattkrause 7y ago
    Interesting, since they used to charge! I suspect they also make some of the money "back" from people taking the bus to/from a Metro (subway) stop, where you now have to buy a ticket since you no longer have a transfer.
- WrtCdEvrydy 7y ago
  Yeah, downtown has the metro mover... you can move between most of the downtown area without a car.
mrtweetyhack 7y ago
Every 10 minutes? That's not saving any environment.
xiaodai 7y ago
It's a free ferry to get the British tourist back home.
randomerr 7y ago
For tourist location it work. Government gets the money back in sales and other taxes. But in other cities it will be money pit with no possible way to recoup the cost. It can never work in rural areas because there isn't a dense enough population.
- galago 7y ago
  There are small towns like Corvallis, Oregon that do this because there's a need for transport around the university. The rest of the ridership might be mainly disabled/elderly who wouldn't pay much anyway. So the cost of administering a ticketing system isn't worth the revenue. Basically systems that don't have working commuters. https://www.corvallisoregon.gov/cts https://www.corvallisoregon.gov/cts
  - geomark 7y ago
    Is there no cost to administer whatever system is used to pay for the transportation system?
- mikeash 7y ago
  They can’t recoup the cost of roads but that doesn’t stop them from building and maintaining a ton of them. Public services don’t have to pay for themselves directly.
  - agumonkey 7y ago
    It may even attract more people to live there.
- opportune 7y ago
  I think in rural areas there is still a benefit in running shuttles between towns. For example running an hourly shuttle between two towns of 1k-5k 20mi apart
- jobigoud 7y ago
  Dunkerque isn't exactly a tourist location! At least for French people. It's in the north of the north so it has worse weather than most places (the North is notorious for its rain and cold compared to other places, everything is grey.). Every French person will tend to go south to their hometown when going on vacation. > it will be money pit This is not a given at all. You have to consider the cost of enforcing the payment system. If transport is free you don't have to maintain the turnstiles and gates, employ verification agents, create cards, print tickets, etc. It's not clear at all that fares are covering this cost by themselves. Public transport is already greatly subsidized and already free or cheap for large parts of the population (elderly, disabled, unemployed, students, children).
readhn 7y ago
What if NYC made all public transport free for NYC residents? Would the only cars left on the road be Ubers/Lyfts and tourist taxis? As it is price to own a car in NYC is very expensive: $150ish insurance, $500ish parking, and lets say for a $300/lease thats almost ~$1K/month. Free good public transport system would drive many to car-free life.
- rco8786 7y ago
  I’m not against free public transit. But you’re vastly mistaken about NYC. People who own cars in the city do so because public transit doesn’t serve their needs. Not because it’s too expensive.
  - readhn 7y ago
    would 1000$ a month be a good enough incentive to drop car use to minimum then?
    - rco8786 7y ago
      I feel like you’re still missing the point. People pay $1000/month or more because the public transit system doesn’t go where they need to go OR they’re wealthy enough that it doesn’t matter. I’m not seeing where the $1000/mo incentive you’re describing is coming from? An unlimited MTA card is $127. Nobody is paying for a car if the subway serves their needs.
      - bureaucrat 7y ago
        Or would rather spend $1000 to not rub and be rubbed against strangers.
        rco8786 7y ago
        NYC is not the place for you if you don't want to be in close proximity to other people, as a general rule.
    - 7y ago
foota 7y ago
I would gladly pay a large high-income tax to get an amazing transit system. Something like a 5% tax on income between 100 and 200k would probably do it.
- enz 7y ago
  For Dunkirk, I believe the shops, restaurants,... now pay more tax to sustain the free transports. It’s better than taxing individuals because everybody wins: residents have more money to spend, shops pay more taxes but they now have more customers who are now richer.
  - Mirioron 7y ago
    But that also means higher prices in the shops and restaurants. This makes markets outside of the city more competitive. Eg order from Amazon instead of buying from a local store.
    - ProZsolt 7y ago
      Not necessary. If you can sell more stuff, then you can make the same profit with lower profit margin per item.
    - falsedan 7y ago
      yeah I'm going to buy a quiche lorraine off amazon and serve it to my date
- opportune 7y ago
  Yeah, I think this would not be a bad solution. Public transit, once it’s built with sufficient coverage, is a lot cheaper and more effective than private transport. I think it would also make sense to fund it via land value taxes since usually land captures a lot of the value that public transportation generates
  - xyzzyz 7y ago
    Public transit, once it’s built with sufficient coverage, is a lot cheaper and more effective than private transport. What makes you believe so? The better coverage public system has, the less effective it is. At very low coverage, where you cover only a handful of popular routes, it is indeed much cheaper than private SOV transport. At the other extreme, where you have a regular bus coming every hour to every house in very sparsely populated area, it wil obviously be very expensive and inefficient. Thus, somewhere between these two extremes, there must be a break even point. Public transit can be definitely be cheaper and more effective, but it isn’t always automatically so.
Aaronstotle 7y ago
This is great, looking forward to seeing what will happen in the next year and how it affects residents/businesses.
toyg 7y ago
What was old is new again. Plenty of European towns and cities tried schemes like this in the late '60s/early '70s. Most of them eventually floundered under financial pressures. In my UK area, a selected few bus routes are currently free; they are the first item on the chopping block at every spending review, and it takes effort to defend them. Schoolbuses here have just been downsized to save some money. This is not meant to discount the effort - better public transport helps everyone, even people who don't use it (by reducing congestion). I'm just skeptical that it will last, without a serious acceptance that something else will have to give in the local budget, or taxes will have to go up.
- hedvig 7y ago
  >they are the first item on the chopping block at every spending review That wouldn't be because the existence of these programs is absolutely antithetical to a certain side in politics, would it?
- NeedMoreTea 7y ago
  Note, those financial pressures were entirely imposed. If the UK hadn't been forced to become so centralised - both politically and financially, perhaps some UK cities and towns could be trying these things. The ridiculous thing in the UK case is the Tory reforms permitted London transport to keep their subsidy, but elsewhere must survive without. The one place not needing subsidy should be London. Even with the return of trams, the regional public transport networks are a fraction of what they once were, and nearly all routes are markedly more than London prices. Yet the need is very clearly there.
  - toyg 7y ago
    I was actually looking at Italy, but I agree with you that the UK situation outside London is particularly shocking.
    - NeedMoreTea 7y ago
      Ah, having mentioned UK in part, I thought the whole was UK related. A similar attitude has infected many places since the 80s, it's just the UK and US have repeatedly led that charge.
lancefisher 7y ago
In Missoula our bus system has been free for the last 4 years. I love it. It’s a simple way to help those that need it most, and it makes mass transit easier and faster for everyone. A combination of government and local businesses fund it. https://missoulian.com/news/local/mountain-line-bus-rides-to-remain-zero-fare-through-at/article_cd7521e3-9d86-5667-9792-530461209751.html https://missoulian.com/news/local/mountain-line-bus-rides-to...
dgzl 7y ago
My college town's (~60k people) bus system was free for everyone to use, paid for by an extra charge on the water bill. The biggest benefit of course is not having to pay, but a close second was the time savings from not having to fiddle with money. The system ran a lot smoother because of this. I would say this extra tax is a good thing, and I'm not at all a fan of taxes.
- xwolfi 7y ago
  Why ? Taxes are great when they are fair, well spent, and seriously monitored, both for corruption abuse and undue/unbearable increase. Paying the bus or a tax is the same thing for you if it's well done, but then as you said: it's more convenient, when you're in trouble one month you'll still be able to use the transport, tourists benefit from it, and last but not least, crazy poor people can have a chance to move around freely...
  - dgzl 7y ago
    > Taxes are great when they are fair, well spent, and seriously monitored Which rarely happens in my opinion.
  - jstanley 7y ago
    > Why ? Because you don't get to decide whether you think it's worth it or not. If the bus is too expensive, you can walk, or cycle, or use a car, or just not go on the journey. If the tax is too expensive, you have no recourse, you have to pay it anyway. And "if the tax is too expensive then write to your local politician" is not an answer. Even if I'm the only person in the world who thinks the bus is too expensive, I still have the option not to use the bus. But if I'm the only person in the world who thinks the tax is too expensive, too bad, I just have to pay it.
    - gwd 7y ago
      > Even if I'm the only person in the world who thinks the bus is too expensive, I still have the option not to use the bus. But if I'm the only person in the world who thinks the tax is too expensive, too bad, I just have to pay it. And the reason is that you accrue benefits of a free bus system even if you never ride the bus. For instance, if you choose to drive, you'll have a lot less traffic and more parking available, and probably for a cheaper price, because the other people will be riding the bus. Better bus systems means more mobility for poorer workers, which means better quality employees in the shops you see downtown. By making it easier for poor people to get jobs, it makes it less likely for people to fall off the edge and become homeless, meaning fewer homeless people in your downtown area; which in turn means lower cost for police, health, and social services, which means lower crime / better service for you. Now, maybe you don't care about those benefits, or maybe you don't think your taxes will achieve all those benefits. But if most of the people in your city do think that, then it's fair for them to expect you to pay your share.
mvillar 7y ago
I live in a city that is about the same size as Dunkirk and would like this to be implemented (even though I walk to most places). I see this freeing parking places in the centre and that really would help with the dying local commerce in the zone.
rixed 7y ago
Although in this and other cases the free bus plan is chiefly motivated by the need to fight poverty (remember that the yellow vest movement started over a fuel price raise), its larger long term benefit might rather be to overthrow cars reign in cities. From this angle, there is an important detail that I haven't seen mentioned in the article or the comments: to be really useful in a post-car environment and allow residents to reach any A from any B without a personal 1-ton-of-steel individual vehicle, public transports must be designed to transport not only pedestrians but their bikes too. In Amsterdam for instance, most trains/trams/busses would have a dedicated place where to put bikes (coaches would have special bike holder at the front for instance, while most trains/trams would have a dedicated large lobby in some wagons). There, most large trips would naturally be completed by a combination of bike + public transport + bike, making it not only possible but normal to go anywhere without a car. There, it is not cost free though (and in some cases, such as trains, you'd have to pay a little extra for your bike); still, being able to bring your bike might help to reduce overall price (and time) as it may avoids to have to transfer to a non-free public transport for some leg of the trip.
- batmansmk 7y ago
  Prices of transportation are already bottom low. Saving $80 more a month is not enough of an incentive imo, especially when you already pay for an extra 200 or 300 for having the privilege to drive a car. Those decisions just raise pollution by induction: my transport is cheaper, so I take it more. It does not convert people over. A bit like giving free moviepass: it doesn't impact Netflix bottom line, but people who used to go to the movies go more often while paying less.
  - scrollaway 7y ago
    Not enough of an incentive for who? 80$/month is like a quarter of what a lot of people get when they're unemployed over here in Western Europe. It makes a massive amount of difference. Those people don't have cars. But more infrastructure for the non-cars means gradually, cars make less and less sense to own. Again, Western Europe. These are countries where the cities are fine to live and work in without a vehicle.
sittingnut 7y ago
nothing is really free. there is a cost, to someone or something, and there is also an opportunity cost of alternatives use of resources.
teslaberry 7y ago
Been waiting for this for years. Meanwhile nyc is taking a backwards step towards congestion pricing. The path forwards ia full.of solutions that scale not policy by tax extractions
HNLurker2 7y ago
My city has already free transport for students.
anigbrowl 7y ago
If you want this where you live and people are telling you it costs too much ask them to itemize the cost of the fare gathering machinery, all the accounting and cash handling/data processing, the cost of enforcement etc., and then subtract all that from the budget. Don't listen to any other arguments until they come back with numbers. Oftentimes when you ask a difficult question people try to move onto an easier one, but don't let them. It'll help you grind down the opposition much faster.
- geomark 7y ago
  To be fair you must balance it against the costs to administer paying for the "free" service, i.e. cost of collections via taxes or whatever, allocation of resources via some contingent of petty bureaucrats, disbursement via whatever system of adminstrators that are required to keep the books, and enforcement to guard against cronyism, cooking the books and other sorts of corruption.
  - snovv_crash 7y ago
    But you already have all of that, since public transport is usually subsidized to some degree.
    - xwolfi 7y ago
      Oh but you know it all change when a new lump comes in: a new office of collection must be created, temptation to use it to fund something else must be constantly fought, and 2 years later everyone even forgot why this tax was in in the first place. The tax is nice to try, but what's best for laws like that is to remember they are trials, and we should be honest in accepting it's more expensive for everyone to pay a cheap tax than paying more for each transport, however weird it sounds at first.
    - lostlogin 7y ago
      ‘Private’ vehicles are subsidised too. You get a a road paved to where you’re going. You get maintenance, bridges, tunnels, intersections, signs, policing, courts, ambulances, fire trucks, lighting, parking (when free). Cars are a massive transfer of public land to private usage. The cost of this needs to be factored in too.
alfiedotwtf 7y ago
Melbourne’s CBD (downtown) has been free for a few years. Damn it’s so convenient to travel around now without checking ticket credit
- toomanybeersies 7y ago
  The free tram zone isn't that large though, it's maybe a 15-20 minute walk from one end to the other. What annoys me with Melbourne's public transport is that people taking short trips essentially subsidise those taking longer trips. It costs me almost $5 to go one stop on the train from Richmond to Flinders St, a 5 minute trip. It's also the same price for me to take a train all the way to Sandringham, which is 45 minutes.
  - yitchelle 7y ago
    Maybe I have been away from Melbourne for too long, but isn't the free tram ride just a circle line around the perimeter of the CBD? I remembered it as a way of improving the tourism in city.
    - alfiedotwtf 7y ago
      It used to be just the brown tram doing a circle. Now it’s all trams within the CBD and extends the 86 down the end of Docklands
  - alfiedotwtf 7y ago
    That’s true. But when you have to travel across the city multiple times a day for meetings, it’s so convenient. Yeah, I hear you on the short trips. I just wish the state would take over Metro and Yarra and provide all of them for free
- sho 7y ago
  Melbourne's system is great and honestly makes the city just that much more attractive. I know people who live, work and play inside the loop and they basically never leave - wouldn't even think of owning a car. Why would they? That's how it should be. Public transport should simply be considered a public good deliverable free or nearly free by government, like footpaths or parks or Medicare. It should be considered a basic function of society - and if you want to go private, you pay.
bulan222 7y ago
in Indonesia our bus system is still paid
AstralStorm 7y ago
I wonder if it works better when tram or subway is free. Those are faster and cheaper, though not suitable for "spoke" connections.
draugadrotten 7y ago
If transport can be "free", surely other important things like food, education and healthcare can also be "free". I for one welcome our new communist overlords.
- bbddg 7y ago
  Healthcare and education are free in most of the developed world.
- dominicr 7y ago
  I' guessing this is sarcasm as most private transport infrastructure is already "free". Roads, bridges, traffic lights, street lights, some car parks, snow clearing, etc... Even in the US, the majority of education provision is free or subsidised, and 19% of Americans have free or subsidised healthcare. Social democracies believe that our large, common problems should have common solutions which benefit everyone and society as a whole. That's nothing to do with communism.
kerouanton 7y ago
Luxembourg will make public transportation free for everyone in the whole country next summer. That's a great step forward.
- dullgiulio 7y ago
  Also, I'll add the obligatory reference to Tallinn and its free transport for all registered residents.
Pavlos2016 7y ago
That's probably one of the best methods to "attract" people into using public transportation more. In my country the public transportation sucks and we all have cars to more around which causes tremendous troubles.
Slimbo 7y ago
I really dislike cars and they way they dominate our lives and environments. I've talked to local government reps about schemes like this, and the challenge that's always thrown back at me is without pricing, how do you regulate demand? Currently, you normally pay a scaled fee based on distance of journey for public transort. The minimum is quite high, and that prevents you from taking a short trip. With free, how do you stop people using a bus for very short trips meaning you need more vehicles that are then empty for long trips?
- Plyphon_ 7y ago
  This isn't an exact reply to your question but --- In London we have a 'fare hopper' system for the busses. £1.50 and you can take as many trips as you like within an hour. Or you could stay on the bus for the entire day (if you really wanted too) and just go round and round and it would only cost you the initial £1.50. So the cost doesn't scale with your journey time/length, and if you're popping to the shops or somewhere nearish you can often make the return trip within the hour and you only get charged the first £1.50. Very rarely is the distance travelled short enough that £1.50 feels like an over charge or lack of value. I guess my point is, £1.50 isn't quite free - but it is low enough that it encourages use of busses. Once the initial fee is paid, within an hour any extra trips are free. It works brilliantly. The issue of 'how do you discourage short trips' is a non-issue based on my experience of how the busses work in London, imo. It would be an interesting case study to put infront of those who think regulating demand is the blocker here.
  - lostlogin 7y ago
    People have moaned to me about London’s public transport. I thought it was excellent. I used a credit card and if it hit a level of usage where it would have been cheaper to have bought a day pass, it just charged that as a maximum. It was fast, trains and busses were frequent and seemed inexpensive relative to the value I got. I were very impressed.
  - Slimbo 7y ago
    £1.50 is about what it costs me here (the grim north) to go around 3 miles. If you only wanted to go one stop, you wouldn't pay £1.50, but if it was free you might take the bus. This is the response from the bus people when I've discussed it with them, how do you prevent that kind of activity? They can't service one stop riders. I suggested making the stops further apart!
louhike 7y ago
They're not the first in France to do so even if it might be the biggest city to do it.
- glandium 7y ago
  Compiègne, since 1975. Not sure it's the first, but it's the oldest I know of.
pzmarzly 7y ago
I live in a city that has free bus transport since 2014. The buses come to my nearest stop only once a hour or so, so there still are many commercial carriers, and I pay more times than I don't. But the change has definitely made me consider going by bus much more often. I'd say that free transport, parks and free (usually outdoor) gyms are one of the largest QoL (quality of life) improvements that cities can do.
zczc 7y ago
Tallinn (bigger city than Dunkirk) has free public transport since 2013, and since 2018 it expanded to the whole Estonia https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2018/06/estonia-is-making-public-transport-free/ https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2018/06/estonia-is-making-pub...
- marksomnian 7y ago
  Luxembourg has had it for people aged under 20 for a few years now, and next year it's becoming free for everyone: https://www.mobiliteit.lu/se-deplacer/titres-de-transport/gratuite-des-transports#gratuite-partir-du-1er-mars-2020 https://www.mobiliteit.lu/se-deplacer/titres-de-transport/gr... [in French]
- benfradet 7y ago
  Even in France, it's nothing new, my home town has had free buses since 2002. And the article states "Styling itself as a “laboratory” of free transport, Dunkirk has attracted an “incessant” stream of visitors intrigued at whether it could work in their cities, says Delevoye.". That's just poor journalism.
- annahall87 7y ago
  Pardon me, the site you linked timed out. Is it only free for residents or also for people who're visiting?
  - zczc 7y ago
    It's free for registered residents only
    - annahall87 7y ago
      Thanks! Everything else would have surprised me.
  - niiisiis 7y ago
    In Tallinn it is only free for residents.
jayalpha 7y ago
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/dec/05/luxembourg-to-become-first-country-to-make-all-public-transport-free https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/dec/05/luxembourg-to-...
scotty79 7y ago
If you have car insurance and driving licence you should have free public transport. I'm guessing everybody will benefit from you taking the bus instead of the car more that they have to pay to sponsor your bus ride. And if you don't have a car then you should have free public transport just because it's a just thing to do when you are paying for the free public transport for rich car owners.
swarnie_ 7y ago
Are they offering British people a free ferry ride across the channel with a return journey in 3 years?
southerntofu 7y ago
I'm surprised nobody mentioned the racist reasons the french government refuses to implement free transports nationwide. It would save them a lot of money, but the police would loose its main source of catching undocumented people. In big cities, the police uses ticket control as an excuse to arrest migrants. The process goes like: 1. stop all black people (only those) at the exit of the metro 2. ask for ticket 3. if they don't have a ticket, ask for ID 4. if they don't have ID, take them away for ID check / deportation. So why check for transport tickets, you may ask? Because stopping all black people on the streets would be obvious illegal discrimination. The ticket is the legal justification for the ID check. Here's a press article from over a decade ago about those police raids (french language): https://www.nouvelobs.com/rue89/rue89-nos-vies-connectees/20071221.RUE2631/sans-papiers-un-collectif-contre-les-rafles-du-metro.html https://www.nouvelobs.com/rue89/rue89-nos-vies-connectees/20...
maelito 7y ago
It would cost 3 billion euros per year to make all public transport free in France.
turk73 7y ago
Nothing is free. People who pay taxes pay for it.
timwaagh 7y ago
why would i ride my bike in Duinkerken when the bus is free. how does this help the environment? i get that cars arent great, but i very much doubt this is an optimal solution.
- simonsarris 7y ago
  Most people ride bikes because they do not have to wait for a bus, and they go places that the busses do not go. I do not think much of the calculus there is about cost. For this reason you see people put their bikes on the bus rack and use both.
- s_dev 7y ago
  There are other benefits to cycling that aren't just helping the envoirnment that you won't get a from a bus e.g. excercise. Also a bus works according to a schdule and route -- your bike doesn't.
xtiansimon 7y ago
I’ve been thinking about this for a while. I ride NICE bus here on LI, NY (a dumpster fire of a bus service/management, but that’s another story). We have two lines that terminate in my town, and within 5 blocks of the start is a big hill. Not feeling like paying 2.75 for the ride up the hill, I imagined how great the PR would be if NICE could make rides within the city free. (No clue how you would manage that situation—get on for in-town, but stay for extra miles. But it’s my imagination, so whatevers). When I lived in SF, once in a while I’d hop on the Cable Cars for a free ride. My town has a $2/free-senior citizen bus, too. But it runs only a few trips a day, and it’s a one-way circuit. Free in-town public transport is a big idea I wish was realistic for more places.

250 points by UglyToad 7y ago

I was surprised to find that Miami Beach has free trolleys and Hollywood (CA) has a free nighttime (weekend?) shuttle as well here in the US.

Ididntdothis 7y ago
Mainly in tourist areas. Yosemite valley has feee shuttles too.
karthikb 7y ago
Emeryville does as well, primarily during commute hours.
reaperducer 7y ago
Seattle used to have free transit downtown. I'm not sure how much of it was about moving people around, and how much was just to move people around faster by not requiring them to go through the payment process. The free rides are over now. Literally. When I lived in Seattle, and outside Seattle, I was always impressed that Sound Transit lived up to its mandate as a transit agency, and not a revenue source. Its mission was to move people around. To that end, if you didn't have any money (forgot your wallet, too drunk to remember where you left your Orca card, too poor to pay, etc...) the bus drivers would give you zero hassle and let you board. In contrast, I can't count the number of times I've seen clearly poor people kicked off of the buses in Chicago because they couldn't afford to pay. That just seems wrong. There should be some sort of income line below which you are entitled to free public transit.
- xyzzyz 7y ago
  The free rides are over now. Literally. Yes, Seattle discontinued its mobile homeless shelter program.
  - journalctl 7y ago
    And now their homelessness problem is over?
    - xyzzyz 7y ago
      No, but now you can actually take a bus to downtown and not inhale piss vapors.
  - saagarjha 7y ago
    Was this actually an issue?
    - throwaway1777 7y ago
      It was definitely common for homeless and mentally ill people to be on the free ride buses, but I don’t know if I’d say it was a primary reason it was cancelled. Seemed more about costs.
- seanmcdirmid 7y ago
  Do you mean Sound Transit (inter-city/county bus service) or Metro (king county)? I can’t imagine sound transit buses being that lenient at all, metro buses on the other hand could be. Downtown Seattle has gone down hill since the 90s/00s. It used to be a nice place to shop and do stuff, but the last time I was downtown there was hardly anything to do beyond tourist traps. I guess a lot of this is amazon destroying in person retail, ironically enough.
earthboundkid 7y ago
Baltimore and DC have free buses called "circulators". There was a story that the buses are losing money but would lose more money if they charged because they're getting grants for being free and have ads which would be worth less with lower ridership.
- mattkrause 7y ago
  Interesting, since they used to charge! I suspect they also make some of the money "back" from people taking the bus to/from a Metro (subway) stop, where you now have to buy a ticket since you no longer have a transfer.
WrtCdEvrydy 7y ago
Yeah, downtown has the metro mover... you can move between most of the downtown area without a car.

mrtweetyhack 7y ago

Every 10 minutes? That's not saving any environment.

xiaodai 7y ago

It's a free ferry to get the British tourist back home.

randomerr 7y ago

For tourist location it work. Government gets the money back in sales and other taxes. But in other cities it will be money pit with no possible way to recoup the cost. It can never work in rural areas because there isn't a dense enough population.

galago 7y ago
There are small towns like Corvallis, Oregon that do this because there's a need for transport around the university. The rest of the ridership might be mainly disabled/elderly who wouldn't pay much anyway. So the cost of administering a ticketing system isn't worth the revenue. Basically systems that don't have working commuters. https://www.corvallisoregon.gov/cts https://www.corvallisoregon.gov/cts
- geomark 7y ago
  Is there no cost to administer whatever system is used to pay for the transportation system?
mikeash 7y ago
They can’t recoup the cost of roads but that doesn’t stop them from building and maintaining a ton of them. Public services don’t have to pay for themselves directly.
- agumonkey 7y ago
  It may even attract more people to live there.
opportune 7y ago
I think in rural areas there is still a benefit in running shuttles between towns. For example running an hourly shuttle between two towns of 1k-5k 20mi apart
jobigoud 7y ago
Dunkerque isn't exactly a tourist location! At least for French people. It's in the north of the north so it has worse weather than most places (the North is notorious for its rain and cold compared to other places, everything is grey.). Every French person will tend to go south to their hometown when going on vacation. > it will be money pit This is not a given at all. You have to consider the cost of enforcing the payment system. If transport is free you don't have to maintain the turnstiles and gates, employ verification agents, create cards, print tickets, etc. It's not clear at all that fares are covering this cost by themselves. Public transport is already greatly subsidized and already free or cheap for large parts of the population (elderly, disabled, unemployed, students, children).

readhn 7y ago

What if NYC made all public transport free for NYC residents? Would the only cars left on the road be Ubers/Lyfts and tourist taxis? As it is price to own a car in NYC is very expensive: $150ish insurance, $500ish parking, and lets say for a $300/lease thats almost ~$1K/month. Free good public transport system would drive many to car-free life.

rco8786 7y ago
I’m not against free public transit. But you’re vastly mistaken about NYC. People who own cars in the city do so because public transit doesn’t serve their needs. Not because it’s too expensive.
- readhn 7y ago
  would 1000$ a month be a good enough incentive to drop car use to minimum then?
  - rco8786 7y ago
    I feel like you’re still missing the point. People pay $1000/month or more because the public transit system doesn’t go where they need to go OR they’re wealthy enough that it doesn’t matter. I’m not seeing where the $1000/mo incentive you’re describing is coming from? An unlimited MTA card is $127. Nobody is paying for a car if the subway serves their needs.
    - bureaucrat 7y ago
      Or would rather spend $1000 to not rub and be rubbed against strangers.
      - rco8786 7y ago
        NYC is not the place for you if you don't want to be in close proximity to other people, as a general rule.
  - 7y ago

foota 7y ago

I would gladly pay a large high-income tax to get an amazing transit system. Something like a 5% tax on income between 100 and 200k would probably do it.

enz 7y ago
For Dunkirk, I believe the shops, restaurants,... now pay more tax to sustain the free transports. It’s better than taxing individuals because everybody wins: residents have more money to spend, shops pay more taxes but they now have more customers who are now richer.
- Mirioron 7y ago
  But that also means higher prices in the shops and restaurants. This makes markets outside of the city more competitive. Eg order from Amazon instead of buying from a local store.
  - ProZsolt 7y ago
    Not necessary. If you can sell more stuff, then you can make the same profit with lower profit margin per item.
  - falsedan 7y ago
    yeah I'm going to buy a quiche lorraine off amazon and serve it to my date
opportune 7y ago
Yeah, I think this would not be a bad solution. Public transit, once it’s built with sufficient coverage, is a lot cheaper and more effective than private transport. I think it would also make sense to fund it via land value taxes since usually land captures a lot of the value that public transportation generates
- xyzzyz 7y ago
  Public transit, once it’s built with sufficient coverage, is a lot cheaper and more effective than private transport. What makes you believe so? The better coverage public system has, the less effective it is. At very low coverage, where you cover only a handful of popular routes, it is indeed much cheaper than private SOV transport. At the other extreme, where you have a regular bus coming every hour to every house in very sparsely populated area, it wil obviously be very expensive and inefficient. Thus, somewhere between these two extremes, there must be a break even point. Public transit can be definitely be cheaper and more effective, but it isn’t always automatically so.

Aaronstotle 7y ago

This is great, looking forward to seeing what will happen in the next year and how it affects residents/businesses.

toyg 7y ago

What was old is new again. Plenty of European towns and cities tried schemes like this in the late '60s/early '70s. Most of them eventually floundered under financial pressures. In my UK area, a selected few bus routes are currently free; they are the first item on the chopping block at every spending review, and it takes effort to defend them. Schoolbuses here have just been downsized to save some money. This is not meant to discount the effort - better public transport helps everyone, even people who don't use it (by reducing congestion). I'm just skeptical that it will last, without a serious acceptance that something else will have to give in the local budget, or taxes will have to go up.

hedvig 7y ago
>they are the first item on the chopping block at every spending review That wouldn't be because the existence of these programs is absolutely antithetical to a certain side in politics, would it?
NeedMoreTea 7y ago
Note, those financial pressures were entirely imposed. If the UK hadn't been forced to become so centralised - both politically and financially, perhaps some UK cities and towns could be trying these things. The ridiculous thing in the UK case is the Tory reforms permitted London transport to keep their subsidy, but elsewhere must survive without. The one place not needing subsidy should be London. Even with the return of trams, the regional public transport networks are a fraction of what they once were, and nearly all routes are markedly more than London prices. Yet the need is very clearly there.
- toyg 7y ago
  I was actually looking at Italy, but I agree with you that the UK situation outside London is particularly shocking.
  - NeedMoreTea 7y ago
    Ah, having mentioned UK in part, I thought the whole was UK related. A similar attitude has infected many places since the 80s, it's just the UK and US have repeatedly led that charge.

lancefisher 7y ago

In Missoula our bus system has been free for the last 4 years. I love it. It’s a simple way to help those that need it most, and it makes mass transit easier and faster for everyone. A combination of government and local businesses fund it. https://missoulian.com/news/local/mountain-line-bus-rides-to-remain-zero-fare-through-at/article_cd7521e3-9d86-5667-9792-530461209751.html https://missoulian.com/news/local/mountain-line-bus-rides-to...

dgzl 7y ago

My college town's (~60k people) bus system was free for everyone to use, paid for by an extra charge on the water bill. The biggest benefit of course is not having to pay, but a close second was the time savings from not having to fiddle with money. The system ran a lot smoother because of this. I would say this extra tax is a good thing, and I'm not at all a fan of taxes.

xwolfi 7y ago
Why ? Taxes are great when they are fair, well spent, and seriously monitored, both for corruption abuse and undue/unbearable increase. Paying the bus or a tax is the same thing for you if it's well done, but then as you said: it's more convenient, when you're in trouble one month you'll still be able to use the transport, tourists benefit from it, and last but not least, crazy poor people can have a chance to move around freely...
- dgzl 7y ago
  > Taxes are great when they are fair, well spent, and seriously monitored Which rarely happens in my opinion.
- jstanley 7y ago
  > Why ? Because you don't get to decide whether you think it's worth it or not. If the bus is too expensive, you can walk, or cycle, or use a car, or just not go on the journey. If the tax is too expensive, you have no recourse, you have to pay it anyway. And "if the tax is too expensive then write to your local politician" is not an answer. Even if I'm the only person in the world who thinks the bus is too expensive, I still have the option not to use the bus. But if I'm the only person in the world who thinks the tax is too expensive, too bad, I just have to pay it.
  - gwd 7y ago
    > Even if I'm the only person in the world who thinks the bus is too expensive, I still have the option not to use the bus. But if I'm the only person in the world who thinks the tax is too expensive, too bad, I just have to pay it. And the reason is that you accrue benefits of a free bus system even if you never ride the bus. For instance, if you choose to drive, you'll have a lot less traffic and more parking available, and probably for a cheaper price, because the other people will be riding the bus. Better bus systems means more mobility for poorer workers, which means better quality employees in the shops you see downtown. By making it easier for poor people to get jobs, it makes it less likely for people to fall off the edge and become homeless, meaning fewer homeless people in your downtown area; which in turn means lower cost for police, health, and social services, which means lower crime / better service for you. Now, maybe you don't care about those benefits, or maybe you don't think your taxes will achieve all those benefits. But if most of the people in your city do think that, then it's fair for them to expect you to pay your share.

mvillar 7y ago

I live in a city that is about the same size as Dunkirk and would like this to be implemented (even though I walk to most places). I see this freeing parking places in the centre and that really would help with the dying local commerce in the zone.

rixed 7y ago

Although in this and other cases the free bus plan is chiefly motivated by the need to fight poverty (remember that the yellow vest movement started over a fuel price raise), its larger long term benefit might rather be to overthrow cars reign in cities. From this angle, there is an important detail that I haven't seen mentioned in the article or the comments: to be really useful in a post-car environment and allow residents to reach any A from any B without a personal 1-ton-of-steel individual vehicle, public transports must be designed to transport not only pedestrians but their bikes too. In Amsterdam for instance, most trains/trams/busses would have a dedicated place where to put bikes (coaches would have special bike holder at the front for instance, while most trains/trams would have a dedicated large lobby in some wagons). There, most large trips would naturally be completed by a combination of bike + public transport + bike, making it not only possible but normal to go anywhere without a car. There, it is not cost free though (and in some cases, such as trains, you'd have to pay a little extra for your bike); still, being able to bring your bike might help to reduce overall price (and time) as it may avoids to have to transfer to a non-free public transport for some leg of the trip.

batmansmk 7y ago
Prices of transportation are already bottom low. Saving $80 more a month is not enough of an incentive imo, especially when you already pay for an extra 200 or 300 for having the privilege to drive a car. Those decisions just raise pollution by induction: my transport is cheaper, so I take it more. It does not convert people over. A bit like giving free moviepass: it doesn't impact Netflix bottom line, but people who used to go to the movies go more often while paying less.
- scrollaway 7y ago
  Not enough of an incentive for who? 80$/month is like a quarter of what a lot of people get when they're unemployed over here in Western Europe. It makes a massive amount of difference. Those people don't have cars. But more infrastructure for the non-cars means gradually, cars make less and less sense to own. Again, Western Europe. These are countries where the cities are fine to live and work in without a vehicle.

sittingnut 7y ago

nothing is really free. there is a cost, to someone or something, and there is also an opportunity cost of alternatives use of resources.

teslaberry 7y ago

Been waiting for this for years. Meanwhile nyc is taking a backwards step towards congestion pricing. The path forwards ia full.of solutions that scale not policy by tax extractions

HNLurker2 7y ago

My city has already free transport for students.

anigbrowl 7y ago

If you want this where you live and people are telling you it costs too much ask them to itemize the cost of the fare gathering machinery, all the accounting and cash handling/data processing, the cost of enforcement etc., and then subtract all that from the budget. Don't listen to any other arguments until they come back with numbers. Oftentimes when you ask a difficult question people try to move onto an easier one, but don't let them. It'll help you grind down the opposition much faster.

geomark 7y ago
To be fair you must balance it against the costs to administer paying for the "free" service, i.e. cost of collections via taxes or whatever, allocation of resources via some contingent of petty bureaucrats, disbursement via whatever system of adminstrators that are required to keep the books, and enforcement to guard against cronyism, cooking the books and other sorts of corruption.
- snovv_crash 7y ago
  But you already have all of that, since public transport is usually subsidized to some degree.
  - xwolfi 7y ago
    Oh but you know it all change when a new lump comes in: a new office of collection must be created, temptation to use it to fund something else must be constantly fought, and 2 years later everyone even forgot why this tax was in in the first place. The tax is nice to try, but what's best for laws like that is to remember they are trials, and we should be honest in accepting it's more expensive for everyone to pay a cheap tax than paying more for each transport, however weird it sounds at first.
  - lostlogin 7y ago
    ‘Private’ vehicles are subsidised too. You get a a road paved to where you’re going. You get maintenance, bridges, tunnels, intersections, signs, policing, courts, ambulances, fire trucks, lighting, parking (when free). Cars are a massive transfer of public land to private usage. The cost of this needs to be factored in too.

alfiedotwtf 7y ago

Melbourne’s CBD (downtown) has been free for a few years. Damn it’s so convenient to travel around now without checking ticket credit

toomanybeersies 7y ago
The free tram zone isn't that large though, it's maybe a 15-20 minute walk from one end to the other. What annoys me with Melbourne's public transport is that people taking short trips essentially subsidise those taking longer trips. It costs me almost $5 to go one stop on the train from Richmond to Flinders St, a 5 minute trip. It's also the same price for me to take a train all the way to Sandringham, which is 45 minutes.
- yitchelle 7y ago
  Maybe I have been away from Melbourne for too long, but isn't the free tram ride just a circle line around the perimeter of the CBD? I remembered it as a way of improving the tourism in city.
  - alfiedotwtf 7y ago
    It used to be just the brown tram doing a circle. Now it’s all trams within the CBD and extends the 86 down the end of Docklands
- alfiedotwtf 7y ago
  That’s true. But when you have to travel across the city multiple times a day for meetings, it’s so convenient. Yeah, I hear you on the short trips. I just wish the state would take over Metro and Yarra and provide all of them for free
sho 7y ago
Melbourne's system is great and honestly makes the city just that much more attractive. I know people who live, work and play inside the loop and they basically never leave - wouldn't even think of owning a car. Why would they? That's how it should be. Public transport should simply be considered a public good deliverable free or nearly free by government, like footpaths or parks or Medicare. It should be considered a basic function of society - and if you want to go private, you pay.

bulan222 7y ago

in Indonesia our bus system is still paid

AstralStorm 7y ago

I wonder if it works better when tram or subway is free. Those are faster and cheaper, though not suitable for "spoke" connections.

draugadrotten 7y ago

If transport can be "free", surely other important things like food, education and healthcare can also be "free". I for one welcome our new communist overlords.

bbddg 7y ago
Healthcare and education are free in most of the developed world.
dominicr 7y ago
I' guessing this is sarcasm as most private transport infrastructure is already "free". Roads, bridges, traffic lights, street lights, some car parks, snow clearing, etc... Even in the US, the majority of education provision is free or subsidised, and 19% of Americans have free or subsidised healthcare. Social democracies believe that our large, common problems should have common solutions which benefit everyone and society as a whole. That's nothing to do with communism.

kerouanton 7y ago

Luxembourg will make public transportation free for everyone in the whole country next summer. That's a great step forward.

dullgiulio 7y ago
Also, I'll add the obligatory reference to Tallinn and its free transport for all registered residents.

Pavlos2016 7y ago

That's probably one of the best methods to "attract" people into using public transportation more. In my country the public transportation sucks and we all have cars to more around which causes tremendous troubles.

Slimbo 7y ago

I really dislike cars and they way they dominate our lives and environments. I've talked to local government reps about schemes like this, and the challenge that's always thrown back at me is without pricing, how do you regulate demand? Currently, you normally pay a scaled fee based on distance of journey for public transort. The minimum is quite high, and that prevents you from taking a short trip. With free, how do you stop people using a bus for very short trips meaning you need more vehicles that are then empty for long trips?

Plyphon_ 7y ago
This isn't an exact reply to your question but --- In London we have a 'fare hopper' system for the busses. £1.50 and you can take as many trips as you like within an hour. Or you could stay on the bus for the entire day (if you really wanted too) and just go round and round and it would only cost you the initial £1.50. So the cost doesn't scale with your journey time/length, and if you're popping to the shops or somewhere nearish you can often make the return trip within the hour and you only get charged the first £1.50. Very rarely is the distance travelled short enough that £1.50 feels like an over charge or lack of value. I guess my point is, £1.50 isn't quite free - but it is low enough that it encourages use of busses. Once the initial fee is paid, within an hour any extra trips are free. It works brilliantly. The issue of 'how do you discourage short trips' is a non-issue based on my experience of how the busses work in London, imo. It would be an interesting case study to put infront of those who think regulating demand is the blocker here.
- lostlogin 7y ago
  People have moaned to me about London’s public transport. I thought it was excellent. I used a credit card and if it hit a level of usage where it would have been cheaper to have bought a day pass, it just charged that as a maximum. It was fast, trains and busses were frequent and seemed inexpensive relative to the value I got. I were very impressed.
- Slimbo 7y ago
  £1.50 is about what it costs me here (the grim north) to go around 3 miles. If you only wanted to go one stop, you wouldn't pay £1.50, but if it was free you might take the bus. This is the response from the bus people when I've discussed it with them, how do you prevent that kind of activity? They can't service one stop riders. I suggested making the stops further apart!

louhike 7y ago

They're not the first in France to do so even if it might be the biggest city to do it.

glandium 7y ago
Compiègne, since 1975. Not sure it's the first, but it's the oldest I know of.

pzmarzly 7y ago

I live in a city that has free bus transport since 2014. The buses come to my nearest stop only once a hour or so, so there still are many commercial carriers, and I pay more times than I don't. But the change has definitely made me consider going by bus much more often. I'd say that free transport, parks and free (usually outdoor) gyms are one of the largest QoL (quality of life) improvements that cities can do.

zczc 7y ago

Tallinn (bigger city than Dunkirk) has free public transport since 2013, and since 2018 it expanded to the whole Estonia https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2018/06/estonia-is-making-public-transport-free/ https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2018/06/estonia-is-making-pub...

marksomnian 7y ago
Luxembourg has had it for people aged under 20 for a few years now, and next year it's becoming free for everyone: https://www.mobiliteit.lu/se-deplacer/titres-de-transport/gratuite-des-transports#gratuite-partir-du-1er-mars-2020 https://www.mobiliteit.lu/se-deplacer/titres-de-transport/gr... [in French]
benfradet 7y ago
Even in France, it's nothing new, my home town has had free buses since 2002. And the article states "Styling itself as a “laboratory” of free transport, Dunkirk has attracted an “incessant” stream of visitors intrigued at whether it could work in their cities, says Delevoye.". That's just poor journalism.
annahall87 7y ago
Pardon me, the site you linked timed out. Is it only free for residents or also for people who're visiting?
- zczc 7y ago
  It's free for registered residents only
  - annahall87 7y ago
    Thanks! Everything else would have surprised me.
- niiisiis 7y ago
  In Tallinn it is only free for residents.

jayalpha 7y ago

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/dec/05/luxembourg-to-become-first-country-to-make-all-public-transport-free https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/dec/05/luxembourg-to-...

scotty79 7y ago

If you have car insurance and driving licence you should have free public transport. I'm guessing everybody will benefit from you taking the bus instead of the car more that they have to pay to sponsor your bus ride. And if you don't have a car then you should have free public transport just because it's a just thing to do when you are paying for the free public transport for rich car owners.

swarnie_ 7y ago

Are they offering British people a free ferry ride across the channel with a return journey in 3 years?

southerntofu 7y ago

I'm surprised nobody mentioned the racist reasons the french government refuses to implement free transports nationwide. It would save them a lot of money, but the police would loose its main source of catching undocumented people. In big cities, the police uses ticket control as an excuse to arrest migrants. The process goes like: 1. stop all black people (only those) at the exit of the metro 2. ask for ticket 3. if they don't have a ticket, ask for ID 4. if they don't have ID, take them away for ID check / deportation. So why check for transport tickets, you may ask? Because stopping all black people on the streets would be obvious illegal discrimination. The ticket is the legal justification for the ID check. Here's a press article from over a decade ago about those police raids (french language): https://www.nouvelobs.com/rue89/rue89-nos-vies-connectees/20071221.RUE2631/sans-papiers-un-collectif-contre-les-rafles-du-metro.html https://www.nouvelobs.com/rue89/rue89-nos-vies-connectees/20...

maelito 7y ago

It would cost 3 billion euros per year to make all public transport free in France.

turk73 7y ago

Nothing is free. People who pay taxes pay for it.

timwaagh 7y ago

why would i ride my bike in Duinkerken when the bus is free. how does this help the environment? i get that cars arent great, but i very much doubt this is an optimal solution.

simonsarris 7y ago
Most people ride bikes because they do not have to wait for a bus, and they go places that the busses do not go. I do not think much of the calculus there is about cost. For this reason you see people put their bikes on the bus rack and use both.
s_dev 7y ago
There are other benefits to cycling that aren't just helping the envoirnment that you won't get a from a bus e.g. excercise. Also a bus works according to a schdule and route -- your bike doesn't.

xtiansimon 7y ago

I’ve been thinking about this for a while. I ride NICE bus here on LI, NY (a dumpster fire of a bus service/management, but that’s another story). We have two lines that terminate in my town, and within 5 blocks of the start is a big hill. Not feeling like paying 2.75 for the ride up the hill, I imagined how great the PR would be if NICE could make rides within the city free. (No clue how you would manage that situation—get on for in-town, but stay for extra miles. But it’s my imagination, so whatevers). When I lived in SF, once in a while I’d hop on the Cable Cars for a free ride. My town has a $2/free-senior citizen bus, too. But it runs only a few trips a day, and it’s a one-way circuit. Free in-town public transport is a big idea I wish was realistic for more places.