I wonder how much it costs to maintain a system to collect fares compared the small portion of funding most transit systems would lose from going fare free.
Beyond that I haven't heard much of it because as I understand it, there isn't much free transit anywhere big.
My claim was based on skimming an article that said fares ranged from about 10 to 50% of funding and I speculated that most probably tended toward 10% since most are small, and small ones depend on federal funding, special purpose taxes (Georgia has a lot of SPLOST[0] projects), and partnerships.
Smaller systems suffer from low ridership and might see more benefit from dropping fares. A full bus and an empty bus cost about as much to run, but a system of full buses is easier to bolster and improve because more people will support it.
And I don't see why this would be connected to behavior on buses and trains. Where is this research? At least for Seattle since everyone wants to focus on it for some reason. News articles for a single city are not research.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special-purpose_local-option_s...
New York MTA has a farebox recovery of about 40-50% in any given year, and few people or organizations could stomach a pay cut of half without serious damage.
It’s worth noting that the MTA is necessary for car drivers as well. Whenever it gets knocked out due to a hurricane and travelers switch to driving, there is gridlock across the entire region and travel comes to a screeching halt.