How can CT’s bus system entice people back?
Commuters: Free rides can be a lifeline ‘if you’re broke’
Ricky Gagne rides the bus from Stamford to Greenwich reliably, even if the commute is far from that. The 311 goes to Port Chester, N.Y. and comes when it wishes, he explained. It’s usually more than a few minutes behind schedule.
But after moving to Connecticut from Maine, he embraces the ritual of ridership, regardless of its quirks.
“In Maine, you kind of had to have a car,” Gagne said while perched under one of the bus shelters next to Stamford’s Old Town Hall. But since relocating halfway down the East Coast, getting to work has become a sans-car ritual. He can slip a few coins into a slot — $1.75 total — in exchange for a ride on Route 1, no car needed.
And as a bonus, Gagne can forgo the change as the state launches into a three month statewide bus fare “holiday” that started Friday.
Gov. Ned Lamont suspended fares on all of the state’s public buses beginning April 1 and running through June 30. Lamont, who announced the news in mid-March, characterized the decision as a response to sky-high gas prices and general inflation. Though gas prices in lower Fairfield County have ticked down after reaching a record high of $4.54 per gallon early in the month, they remain significantly higher than in recent months, according to AAA data.
As of March 31, the average gallon of regular gasoline in the region cost $4.36 — $1.41 more than it did 365 days earlier.
Neither Gagne nor his friends huddled under the bus shelter, taking puffs from cigarettes and passing the time, are directly impacted by the high gas prices. Dave Michael, another bus regular, said that he’s never owned a car.
“I’ve been taking the bus my whole life,” Michael said. “I make it work.” He walks most places, but says he rides the CT Transit system at least once a week. He and Gagne and the other men waiting for a ride agree: a break from fares is a big deal for them financially. Michael added that free fares are an even bigger deal for people with disabilities, or “if you don’t have someone to drive you, if you’re broke,” he said.
Data from the American Public Transportation Association show bus riders tend to have lower incomes than other transit riders and people at large.
According to data from the organization’s 2017 “Who Rides Public Transportation” report, 46 percent of bus riders made less than $25,000 a year in household income. In contrast, 24 percent of Americans in general made less than $25,000 per year, according to Census Bureau data from the report, and 22 percent of rail riders make less than $25,000 annually.
And for many of those people, the bus represents an essential part of their lives and transportation, according to state Department of Transportation Josh Morgan.
“Whether it’s getting people to work, a doctor’s appointment or school, public transit buses are clearly an essential service to the everyday life of many in our state,” he said in a statement. Their 2017 report indicates that half of all bus riders have no alternate vehicle available.
While a partial hope for the fare moratorium program is to provide economic relief for current riders, Morgan said previous free fare periods have resulted in increased transit ridership. The state launched the Weekend Wheels initiative between Memorial Day and Labor Day 2020 as a way to incentivize recreational trips, especially for children.
Free bus fare — more ridership?
Data from American cities is sparse on whether or not free transit increases transit ridership. Free-fare transit experiments in Denver and Austin attempted to use waived fares to encourage less driving, however results suggest that didn’t happen.
“Most new bus trips were diverted from other modes” among low income individuals, according to a study of those experiments. “Very few were newly generated.”
Still, Connecticut isn’t alone in courting free public transit as an option. Michelle Wu has trotted out free public transit programs in her city since becoming Boston’s mayor in January.
Using $8 million in federal dollars, Wu will make three popular bus lines in predominantly Black Boston neighborhoods free for two years. Between the pilot program’s launch in August 2021 and February 2022, a study found that ridership on the impacted bus lines increased by 20 percent.
For more than 30 years, towns near the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill have waived bus fares through their local transit agencies.
Kansas City, Mo., reported — after implementing fare-free rides in 2020 — its bus ridership “decreased less and recovered more quickly during the 2020 pandemic and economic contraction,” something that an independent analysis
loosely tied to the free rides.
Morgan said the state DOT expects the waived fares will coincide with increased bus ridership in the state, but he admits that not all of that is because of the program.
“There are numerous factors that can contribute to increased ridership — free fares, rising gas prices or a return to the workplace,” he wrote. “Whatever the reason, we do expect to see a surge in ridership over the coming months based on our past experiences.”
Morgan added that bus ridership is at “approximately 75 percent of prepandemic ridership levels.”
“Going fare free over the next three months marks an opportunity to welcome riders back to bus service and invite new riders to try public transit buses for the first time,” he said.
Similarly to Morgan, Connecticut Association for Community Transportation Executive Director Mary Tomolonius said she sees the pilot as a chance to introduce more people to the bus.
“This is an exciting opportunity for Connecticut residents to try riding the bus during the three-month suspension of fares as well as providing the regular bus riders a ‘holiday’ from those fares,” she wrote in an email. “Bus transportation is just part of a balanced multi-modal system to get people to jobs, schools, work, medical appointments, grocery shopping and other daily activities.”