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
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.)
And in other places they had light year that gets paid that had effects that were much the same.
Once you are talking about an actual working transportation system and not the occasional line here and there. Where it is actually real then there is a clear scientific question. Lets assume 500M to operate the system:
Should you A: Invest 500M in service improvements every year
Should you B: Invest 500M in giving away free transport
And the science on this is perfectly clear.
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)
I moved from Iowa City to Kansas City after college so I have been spoiled with public transit.
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.
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.
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.
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.
https://www.kgw.com/article/news/health/trimet-max-fentanyl-...
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%
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.
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.
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?
The free fare zone was only included a subset of the city and only applied to certain modes of transportation.
> Smells like income disparity zoning.
Not really. I don’t see why it’s hard to believe that areas with no enforcement are a draw for people who want to e.g. ride a warm train than the areas with enforcement.
> 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?
No? It’s not just crime, it’s harassment, antisocial behavior, and other things that are not strictly crimes but you don’t want to be around. A lot of crimes are crimes of opportunity where someone strikes because they’re in the same place as you and see an opening. The more time they’re in the place, the more opportunities for those crimes.
Isolating people from each other is a really dystopian "solution" to reduce crime and antisocial behavior. Things naturally tend to happen more when people come together – in both good and bad. The good usually outweighs the bad by a wide margin.
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
In any case, cities can engage in value capture for public transportation. Just direct some of the property taxes collected directed to public transit. Even better would be some sort of LVT, ideally but not necessary 100% of the economic rent from land.
In any case, public transit should also engage in value capture on their own property. If they own a train station, they should consider building on top or adjacent to it spaces that they can then rent out to tenants. It's not only efficient but also serve the public and the local economy and making public transit more economical to run due to higher ridership.
Almost every smaller station shows ads on walls, too, and every train carriers ads inside.
I don't see why the subway specifically could not be self-sufficient, or even a profit center. Sadly, this is not so, because of very large expenses, not because of low revenue.
And urban malls and chain stores are frankly often depressing — awkward layouts translated imperfectly from suburban sprawl, along with obviously underpaid and burned out staff.
Many companies in Tokyo prevent their employees from commuting by car (legally commute is covered by workers comp insurance, and many companies do not elect the more expensive car coverage option) - so even in the absence of workers paying for the commute, public transit (or bike/walk) would be the only realistic option.
Like airports in America. We should pursue a similar path for our rail stations and, frankly, ensure they are heading toward locations that are walkable and connected.