At Any Cost? The hidden costs of charging for public transport

Today’s piece by Alex Berthelsen of Planka.nu, Sweden’s largest public transport NGO, is part of World Streets wide-open international brainstorming series on “free public transport”. The most recent article in this series appeared here last week under the title “Why Free Public Transport is a bad idea“, inviting our readers to share their critical thoughts on this important, contentious but ultimately quite subtile subject. The flood gates immediately opened and within days we heard a variety of responses, negative and positive, from thirty readers logging in from more than a dozen different countries. You can access their comments and all the articles in this series via http://worldstreets.wordpress.com/category/free-public-transport/.  And as always your critical comments and suggestions are welcome here.

Why Free Public Transport is a bad idea?!? (v. 1.1)

There are a number of proponents around the world for the idea that public transport should be free. And if we here at World Streets have some thoughts of our own on the subject, we also think it is always very important to check out both sides of the issues. Just below, you will find four short statements setting out arguments against FPT, and we are interested in hearing from our readers and colleagues around the world both (a) their comments on these criticisms and (b) yet other critical views. In later issues we will look at this from more positive sides, but with the intention of developing a range of views and recommendations on this important topic. Today however, we want to hear from you about the downside. Let’s have a look at what we have thus far (and please do take the time to review the comments just below which enrich this first draft considerably):

W/S Open Dialogue: Should public transport be free? (v. 1.0)

World Streets is pleased to announce publication in the weeks ahead of  a series of articles and other media to introduce and investigate this idea in-depth in these pages.  We would ask our readers to bear in mind that there is a great deal more to this approach than may at first meet the eye. So let’s see what we get when we stretch our minds together on this perhaps surprisingly important and, we believe, ultimately practical sustainable city concept.

In support of free public transport

I believe that the following arguments can be given in support of the general concept of free transport.

1. It eliminates delays while drivers collect fares. Even when passengers just have to show a pass or swipe an Oystercard that still takes significant time. It is noticeable that motorists often complain when their cars are held up behind buses which are boarding passengers. Why then should bus passengers accept these same delays without complaint ?

Rarely are road tolls allowed to lead to the same level of delays as bus fare collection almost always does.

2. It rebalances the transport system when compared with the fact that the roads are free to motorists for the reasons above.

3. It reduces the total cost of operating the transport system. The cost of running the extra buses and trains needed to carry the extra passengers must
surely, in the longer term, be less than the cost of running the cars whose users would be attracted by free transport — even with systems like carsharing.

4. As a result of this, no net levies are required to support free transport. The money taken out of taxpayers’ pockets, whether by congestion charges, land
value taxes, payroll taxes of what have you, returns straight back in the form of saved fares.

Incidentally I read the comments on Irwin Kellner’s article and was disgusted by the general attitude of most of them. In particular the statement that homeless people would be able to keep warm by riding in buses and this was a reason to oppose the idea. Surely it’s a benefit ? If street people are a public nuisance let’s spend some money to keep them off the streets. In the UK I remember becoming aware of the problem of street people only after a few years of Mrs Thatcher in power. I strongly suspect that many of the relevant people never use public transport anyway and their reference to street people owes more to prejudice than to personal experience. Or maybe they have come across that notorious Vancouver advertisement and believe what it says.

Simon Norton
Cambridge UK