What Really Happens When a City Makes Its Transit System Free?, Atlantic Cities, October 26, 2012

Something to think about. . . It probably wouldn't work in the WDC metro area--too much demand and too little capacity, especially in Metrorail.  It might work locally with a hugely expanded Fairfax Connector.  Then again, this article is about France.  Nonetheless, while we frequently get the argument that transit users should pay the full costs of transit (an eminently logical if narrowly focused perspective given the various benefits of getting autos off of roads), this article provides a real counterpoint by describing an effort to move precisely in the opposite direction. 

Here are some excerpts to entice you to read the full article here.

When Jean-Francois Mayet became mayor of Châteauroux in 2001, the town’s transit system was descending into irrelevance. Each of Châteauroux’s 49,000 inhabitants took the bus, on average, 21 times per year, well below the 38 per annum average for small French cities.

Mayet, a member of France’s socialist party, did what few mayors confronted with a struggling mass transit system would do: he made the whole thing free.

Ever since, the otherwise ordinary French town has become a canary in the coal mine of transportation policy, closely watched by the dozens of other municipalities in various stages of free transit experiments. . .

. . . But Châteauroux didn’t just test the viability of eliminating fares as a social experiment; it used free rides to save its mass transit system. In 2002, ridership had already increased 81 percent.

There were growing pains: the number of slashed or tagged seats grew from a dozen in 2001 to 118 in 2002. Drivers complained that passengers treated the bus like a personal car, expecting to be dropped off at their doorsteps.

But overall, the project has been considered a success. . .

. . . as it turns out, the change nearly paid for itself. . . By slightly increasing the transit tax on big local businesses while eliminating the costs of printing, ticket-punching technology and the human infrastructure of ticket sales, the city turned a profit on the transit system in ’03, ’04, ’05, and ’07. Since ’08, returns have not been as positive, though the report attributes that to a shift in control from the city to the region. . . .

One of Châteauroux’s imitators also released a report this year: Aubagne, a metro area of 100,000 spread around 12 towns to the west of Marseille. This being France, the city’s mayor teamed up with a philosopher to write a book on the experiment, entitled, in part, Liberté, égalité, gratuité.

Aubagne has had a free transit system since 2009, when the city raised the transport tax on large businesses from .6 to 1.8 percent. In terms of persons served, it is one of the largest free-transit projects in the world. Since transit fares were abolished in 2009, ridership has increased 170 percent – a gain in three years that is already approaching the eleven-year mark from Châteauroux. The authors told TerraEco that 99 percent of residents are happy with the new policy. Traffic congestion is down 10 percent [PDF, French].