6 ms·

In Brisbane, Australia they run a 6-month trial to make all public transport trips to be 50c (that includes buses, metro, ferries). It was so successful and wid

by id00 10mo ago

In Brisbane, Australia they run a 6-month trial to make all public transport trips to be 50c (that includes buses, metro, ferries). It was so successful and widely loved that it was a no-brainier for it to be extended indefinitely

II2II 10mo ago
The real benefits come from eliminating fares. While I have never lived in a place with free transit, I have lived in places where it was possible to board trains without passing through fare gates and certain busses through the rear exit. It is amazing how much faster boarding is. They probably face some lost fares, but the benefit of faster travel times outweigh the cost. I also think that those criticizing free fares are disingenuous. None of those cities had problems with (insert stereotypical undesirable group) using public transit. If anything, there were fewer issues because everyone was more inclined to behave since there were more eyes on the trains and busses. EDIT: it's also worth noting that collecting money costs money. That's especially noticeable when upgrading to (or to new) electronic fare systems, but it's also true when using things like tickets and cash. It probably doesn't mean such in the cities I've lived in ($3+ fares), but I'll bet it accounts for a lot more in cities that charge $0.50 or $1 fares.
- wat10000 10mo ago
  In most systems, fares just about cover the cost of collecting fares. They contribute little if anything to operating expenses. Their effect is to limit usage. That could be desirable, but usually not.
  - IncreasePosts 10mo ago
    I've tried to calculate this for the New York City Metro, but they spend about $1 billion per year collecting $5 billion per year, out of a budget of $20 billion per year. Year so they would need to make up about $4 billion per year if they were to eliminate fare collection, or increase the budget by 20%. In my mind it would be a no-brainer for all the benefits you would get from free service, but 20% increase in cost is not an easy sell - especially when a lot of people paying tax on it never go to NYC
    - bardak 10mo ago
      While we should never expect public transit to be self funding removing fares removes the ability for transit funds to scale with ridership, there is a reason that farebox ratios are correlated with ridership.
      - II2II 10mo ago
        Sure, yet it also established a double standard. In my neck of the woods, most busses operate on municipal roads. Municipal roads are funded by municipal taxes, and the municipality does not have the right to charge fuel taxes. The revenue that they collect from drivers is from parking and parking permits in a tiny fraction of the city, as well as property taxes on the low value land used for parking lots. City council would face a bloodbath if they tried to increase revenues for road maintenance directly from road users. Never mind asking those users cover the cost of appropriating land and new road construction, which is being driven by the excessive use of vehicles that are occupied by one or two people. Yet transit users are typically expected to fund about half of transit operations. If they're lucky, the provincial or federal government will throw some money their way for new busses.
        rootusrootus 10mo ago
        It's hard to draw a direct comparison because people who never drive still benefit significantly from the existence of the roads. It might be possible to drill down far enough so that it was charged directly to every use case for the road, but I bet it would end up in about the same place in the end but with a lot more bureaucracy.
        wat10000 10mo ago
        People who never use public transit still benefit from its existence too.
        edm0nd 10mo ago
        same for libraries and home owners paying their millage taxes
- deleted 10mo ago
  [deleted]
- mixmastamyk 10mo ago
  I’ve lived in civilized places, but uncivilized is probably more common: https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2023-03-14/horror-the-deadly-use-of-drugs-on-metro-trains https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2023-03-14/horror-t...
  - noduerme 10mo ago
    Here in Portland, riders can get high just by licking the windows. https://www.kgw.com/article/news/health/trimet-max-fentanyl-meth-testing-public-drug-smoking-study/283-c254b781-a891-4f96-abb3-5f1e62552202 https://www.kgw.com/article/news/health/trimet-max-fentanyl-...
  - runako 10mo ago
    It's shockingly easy to scare some people away from public transit. Same city, private transport: https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2025-08-13/carjacking-pursuit https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2025-08-13/carjacki... Personally, I would rather be on a bus with someone high on drugs than be carjacked at gunpoint.
    - mixmastamyk 10mo ago
      [dead]
- Aurornis 10mo ago
  > I also think that those criticizing free fares are disingenuous. None of those cities had problems with (insert stereotypical undesirable group) using public transit. I’ve lived in two cities with free fare zones: Subsections of public transport where no fares are collected, but if you want to go outside of the zone you need to buy a ticket. The free fare zones were far more likely to have people causing problems. It’s not just “undesirable groups”. It’s people stealing your stuff if you aren’t paying attention, stalking women, creating messes, or just harassing people who want to be left alone. Then you’d leave the free fare zone and see almost none of that. It was night and day different. This was within the same city, same mode of transport. The only difference was that one vehicle had someone maybe checking your fare 1/10 times and writing a ticket if you didn’t have it, while the other you were guaranteed not to encounter anyone checking tickets and could ride as long as you wanted. I don’t think it’s fair to dismiss anyone concerned about this. Unless you have sufficient enforcement to go along with it and the enforcers are empowered to deal with people who are causing problems, having free fares can be a real problem. It was nice to not have to deal with ticket purchases when going to a sporting event or meeting up with friends at a bar, but this was mostly before apps came along anyway. I don’t go out as much now that I’m older but using the apps to buy tickets is trivially easy. Even the tickets by stations will accept tap to pay from phones making it much more convenient than my younger days.
  - komali2 10mo ago
    > It’s not just “undesirable groups”. It’s people stealing your stuff if you aren’t paying attention, stalking women, creating messes, or just harassing people who want to be left alone. This seems to be a symptom, not a cause. The free zone, let me guess, more densely populated, city center area, and the not free zone, a bit less urban? Smells like income disparity zoning. I mean if you think about, doesn't it seem a bit off to suggest that the prevalence of crime would be affected by whether a bus is free or not? My instinct is to get further into why there's crime happening at all, on or off bus. Why does it happen there, and not e.g. here in Taipei? Or other places with tons of public transit going on and very low crime, like Japan? The PRC?
    - Aurornis 10mo ago
- dwd 10mo ago
  When you have the electronic ticketing system already in place like Brisbane it makes sense to use it to monitor usage, so you can precisely see each journey, and better plan scheduling and expansion. For example, you would be able to see how many people pass through the two CBD stations crossing the North/South divide in the network. The new Cross River Rail expansion for example will be the first line that doesn't pass through Central.
  - protocolture 10mo ago
    Bit of a bugbear of mine, but the cross river rail project is mostly a stopgap. Brisbane really needed standard gauge and double decker trains before it became so built up. We are already at trains per minute capacity for some of the inner city bridges, and duplication in the inner city is highly destructive. If we could increase the capacity of the vehicles themselves we would be way better off. But the cheap/compromise position is to just bypass the problem entirely. Whats worse is that, theres a certain perspective, one of declining CBD use, where cross river rail makes a mountain of sense. But in that case we should be bypassing the CBD with a lot of room for expansion, ie, 8 lines worth of track. But this isnt being done either. >When you have the electronic ticketing system already in place like Brisbane it makes sense to use it to monitor usage This and being able to continue charging fines is why it was left in place 100%
- protocolture 10mo ago
  >The real benefits come from eliminating fares. IIRC the 50 cent fares allow them to still charge ridiculous fines for fare evasion, keeping the Queensland Rail rentacops in business. Most non metro stations only have tap on pillars and no fare gates anyway, and I think the inner city fare gates that still exist are on the list for removal. The 50 cents also allowed them to track the changing usage profile and justify it by the explosion of use. Its basically self reporting that you used the system, and the origin and destination of your trip. Otherwise they would need to install foot traffic counters at train and bus stations and still end up with incomplete data. It wasnt just super popular, it was that the data showed such a dramatic uptick in usage, which carried over to numbers of cars removed from the roads etc. Probably took 5 minutes out of my normal commute, and that's in reduced vehicle traffic, I don't use the system at all except to take my kiddo to the museum on weekends. Benefits tracked to all punters results in an absolutely untouchable policy change.
- mdnahas 10mo ago
  > None of those cities had problems with (insert stereotypical undesirable group) using public transit. Austin. Tried it and rolled it back. It was before my time here but I’ve heard: Homeless camped on the buses. Bored teens hung out on the buses riding nowhere and making trouble. Bus drivers demanded the change back. I’m an economist and YIMBY activist. Only 10% to 15% of the Austin bus system budget comes from fares. (Most is a 1% sales tax.) I’d love to make the buses free. But it has negatives.
nine_zeros 10mo ago
[dead]
dwd 10mo ago
I think the cost saving will be realised by not having to expand the road network as quickly if they convince people to use public transport. The cost of land acquisition/resumption along with the improbability of widening some central bottlenecks like Coronation Drive, the SE Arterial and the hell-hole that is Hale Street. Personally, the $1 commute from the Sunshine Coast has been very good. I occasionally drive in but the Bruce Hwy has been a constant process of widening each section as they barely keep up with the traffic increases. I think what you will see is a lot more people moving out to residential areas north of Brisbane seeking cheaper housing as they can take advantage of the almost free travel. Especially if they eventually build the Rail/Light Rail through South Caloundra to Maroochydore.
JKCalhoun 10mo ago
Kansas City added a single light rail line through downtown and made it, initially, free. It has been so wildly popular, bringing happy Kansas Citians to the restaurants and clubs downtown that the business owners begged KC to keep it free. Still free and I believe they are extending it. I would love to see K.C. bring back some of the jazz nightlife that once charged downtown. (Though it might have been the availability of liquor there during Prohibition too.)
- Mistletoe 10mo ago
  All I see in this thread are people saying it won't work and then people giving examples of it actually working quite well. The scientific method is telling us something here...
  - bluGill 10mo ago
    it could work much better.
    - JKCalhoun 10mo ago
      Don't let perfect be the enemy of good? (Or whatever the saying is.)
      - bluGill 10mo ago
        If this impedes progress in the future is this really good? We already have a good situation with fares, we should make it better - and when you look at the data (as opposed to what people say) it consistently shows that the main reason most people don't use transit more is lack of service and not the cost. Optimizing on cost helps a few really poor people (which everyone against this plan has already said we need some program to just help them), while it does nothing for everyone else who need service. Or to put it a different way, it costs money to run transit. So what if we take the money you are proposing to add to cover the loss of fares and give it to the transit agency but retain fares: they could afford to add more service and I contend that this would do far more for ridership. (assuming we are smart about what service we add)

by id00 10mo ago

II2II 10mo ago

The real benefits come from eliminating fares. While I have never lived in a place with free transit, I have lived in places where it was possible to board trains without passing through fare gates and certain busses through the rear exit. It is amazing how much faster boarding is. They probably face some lost fares, but the benefit of faster travel times outweigh the cost. I also think that those criticizing free fares are disingenuous. None of those cities had problems with (insert stereotypical undesirable group) using public transit. If anything, there were fewer issues because everyone was more inclined to behave since there were more eyes on the trains and busses. EDIT: it's also worth noting that collecting money costs money. That's especially noticeable when upgrading to (or to new) electronic fare systems, but it's also true when using things like tickets and cash. It probably doesn't mean such in the cities I've lived in ($3+ fares), but I'll bet it accounts for a lot more in cities that charge $0.50 or $1 fares.

wat10000 10mo ago
In most systems, fares just about cover the cost of collecting fares. They contribute little if anything to operating expenses. Their effect is to limit usage. That could be desirable, but usually not.
- IncreasePosts 10mo ago
  I've tried to calculate this for the New York City Metro, but they spend about $1 billion per year collecting $5 billion per year, out of a budget of $20 billion per year. Year so they would need to make up about $4 billion per year if they were to eliminate fare collection, or increase the budget by 20%. In my mind it would be a no-brainer for all the benefits you would get from free service, but 20% increase in cost is not an easy sell - especially when a lot of people paying tax on it never go to NYC
  - bardak 10mo ago
    While we should never expect public transit to be self funding removing fares removes the ability for transit funds to scale with ridership, there is a reason that farebox ratios are correlated with ridership.
    - II2II 10mo ago
      Sure, yet it also established a double standard. In my neck of the woods, most busses operate on municipal roads. Municipal roads are funded by municipal taxes, and the municipality does not have the right to charge fuel taxes. The revenue that they collect from drivers is from parking and parking permits in a tiny fraction of the city, as well as property taxes on the low value land used for parking lots. City council would face a bloodbath if they tried to increase revenues for road maintenance directly from road users. Never mind asking those users cover the cost of appropriating land and new road construction, which is being driven by the excessive use of vehicles that are occupied by one or two people. Yet transit users are typically expected to fund about half of transit operations. If they're lucky, the provincial or federal government will throw some money their way for new busses.
      - rootusrootus 10mo ago
        It's hard to draw a direct comparison because people who never drive still benefit significantly from the existence of the roads. It might be possible to drill down far enough so that it was charged directly to every use case for the road, but I bet it would end up in about the same place in the end but with a lot more bureaucracy.
        wat10000 10mo ago
        People who never use public transit still benefit from its existence too.
        edm0nd 10mo ago
        same for libraries and home owners paying their millage taxes
deleted 10mo ago
[deleted]
mixmastamyk 10mo ago
I’ve lived in civilized places, but uncivilized is probably more common: https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2023-03-14/horror-the-deadly-use-of-drugs-on-metro-trains https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2023-03-14/horror-t...
- noduerme 10mo ago
  Here in Portland, riders can get high just by licking the windows. https://www.kgw.com/article/news/health/trimet-max-fentanyl-meth-testing-public-drug-smoking-study/283-c254b781-a891-4f96-abb3-5f1e62552202 https://www.kgw.com/article/news/health/trimet-max-fentanyl-...
- runako 10mo ago
  It's shockingly easy to scare some people away from public transit. Same city, private transport: https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2025-08-13/carjacking-pursuit https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2025-08-13/carjacki... Personally, I would rather be on a bus with someone high on drugs than be carjacked at gunpoint.
  - mixmastamyk 10mo ago
    [dead]
Aurornis 10mo ago
> I also think that those criticizing free fares are disingenuous. None of those cities had problems with (insert stereotypical undesirable group) using public transit. I’ve lived in two cities with free fare zones: Subsections of public transport where no fares are collected, but if you want to go outside of the zone you need to buy a ticket. The free fare zones were far more likely to have people causing problems. It’s not just “undesirable groups”. It’s people stealing your stuff if you aren’t paying attention, stalking women, creating messes, or just harassing people who want to be left alone. Then you’d leave the free fare zone and see almost none of that. It was night and day different. This was within the same city, same mode of transport. The only difference was that one vehicle had someone maybe checking your fare 1/10 times and writing a ticket if you didn’t have it, while the other you were guaranteed not to encounter anyone checking tickets and could ride as long as you wanted. I don’t think it’s fair to dismiss anyone concerned about this. Unless you have sufficient enforcement to go along with it and the enforcers are empowered to deal with people who are causing problems, having free fares can be a real problem. It was nice to not have to deal with ticket purchases when going to a sporting event or meeting up with friends at a bar, but this was mostly before apps came along anyway. I don’t go out as much now that I’m older but using the apps to buy tickets is trivially easy. Even the tickets by stations will accept tap to pay from phones making it much more convenient than my younger days.
- komali2 10mo ago
  > It’s not just “undesirable groups”. It’s people stealing your stuff if you aren’t paying attention, stalking women, creating messes, or just harassing people who want to be left alone. This seems to be a symptom, not a cause. The free zone, let me guess, more densely populated, city center area, and the not free zone, a bit less urban? Smells like income disparity zoning. I mean if you think about, doesn't it seem a bit off to suggest that the prevalence of crime would be affected by whether a bus is free or not? My instinct is to get further into why there's crime happening at all, on or off bus. Why does it happen there, and not e.g. here in Taipei? Or other places with tons of public transit going on and very low crime, like Japan? The PRC?
  - Aurornis 10mo ago
dwd 10mo ago
When you have the electronic ticketing system already in place like Brisbane it makes sense to use it to monitor usage, so you can precisely see each journey, and better plan scheduling and expansion. For example, you would be able to see how many people pass through the two CBD stations crossing the North/South divide in the network. The new Cross River Rail expansion for example will be the first line that doesn't pass through Central.
- protocolture 10mo ago
  Bit of a bugbear of mine, but the cross river rail project is mostly a stopgap. Brisbane really needed standard gauge and double decker trains before it became so built up. We are already at trains per minute capacity for some of the inner city bridges, and duplication in the inner city is highly destructive. If we could increase the capacity of the vehicles themselves we would be way better off. But the cheap/compromise position is to just bypass the problem entirely. Whats worse is that, theres a certain perspective, one of declining CBD use, where cross river rail makes a mountain of sense. But in that case we should be bypassing the CBD with a lot of room for expansion, ie, 8 lines worth of track. But this isnt being done either. >When you have the electronic ticketing system already in place like Brisbane it makes sense to use it to monitor usage This and being able to continue charging fines is why it was left in place 100%
protocolture 10mo ago
>The real benefits come from eliminating fares. IIRC the 50 cent fares allow them to still charge ridiculous fines for fare evasion, keeping the Queensland Rail rentacops in business. Most non metro stations only have tap on pillars and no fare gates anyway, and I think the inner city fare gates that still exist are on the list for removal. The 50 cents also allowed them to track the changing usage profile and justify it by the explosion of use. Its basically self reporting that you used the system, and the origin and destination of your trip. Otherwise they would need to install foot traffic counters at train and bus stations and still end up with incomplete data. It wasnt just super popular, it was that the data showed such a dramatic uptick in usage, which carried over to numbers of cars removed from the roads etc. Probably took 5 minutes out of my normal commute, and that's in reduced vehicle traffic, I don't use the system at all except to take my kiddo to the museum on weekends. Benefits tracked to all punters results in an absolutely untouchable policy change.
mdnahas 10mo ago
> None of those cities had problems with (insert stereotypical undesirable group) using public transit. Austin. Tried it and rolled it back. It was before my time here but I’ve heard: Homeless camped on the buses. Bored teens hung out on the buses riding nowhere and making trouble. Bus drivers demanded the change back. I’m an economist and YIMBY activist. Only 10% to 15% of the Austin bus system budget comes from fares. (Most is a 1% sales tax.) I’d love to make the buses free. But it has negatives.

nine_zeros 10mo ago

[dead]

dwd 10mo ago

I think the cost saving will be realised by not having to expand the road network as quickly if they convince people to use public transport. The cost of land acquisition/resumption along with the improbability of widening some central bottlenecks like Coronation Drive, the SE Arterial and the hell-hole that is Hale Street. Personally, the $1 commute from the Sunshine Coast has been very good. I occasionally drive in but the Bruce Hwy has been a constant process of widening each section as they barely keep up with the traffic increases. I think what you will see is a lot more people moving out to residential areas north of Brisbane seeking cheaper housing as they can take advantage of the almost free travel. Especially if they eventually build the Rail/Light Rail through South Caloundra to Maroochydore.

JKCalhoun 10mo ago

Kansas City added a single light rail line through downtown and made it, initially, free. It has been so wildly popular, bringing happy Kansas Citians to the restaurants and clubs downtown that the business owners begged KC to keep it free. Still free and I believe they are extending it. I would love to see K.C. bring back some of the jazz nightlife that once charged downtown. (Though it might have been the availability of liquor there during Prohibition too.)

Mistletoe 10mo ago
All I see in this thread are people saying it won't work and then people giving examples of it actually working quite well. The scientific method is telling us something here...
- bluGill 10mo ago
  it could work much better.
  - JKCalhoun 10mo ago
    Don't let perfect be the enemy of good? (Or whatever the saying is.)
    - bluGill 10mo ago
      If this impedes progress in the future is this really good? We already have a good situation with fares, we should make it better - and when you look at the data (as opposed to what people say) it consistently shows that the main reason most people don't use transit more is lack of service and not the cost. Optimizing on cost helps a few really poor people (which everyone against this plan has already said we need some program to just help them), while it does nothing for everyone else who need service. Or to put it a different way, it costs money to run transit. So what if we take the money you are proposing to add to cover the loss of fares and give it to the transit agency but retain fares: they could afford to add more service and I contend that this would do far more for ridership. (assuming we are smart about what service we add)