This is really valuable insight. I agree if the free service is suboptimal or leads to over-crowding of buses, that could potentially reduce ridership. I guess it’s kind of a juggling act between providing quality service and making it affordable.
I think it would generally improve the quality of life for many of those who use it and increase ridership. The majority of people who currently use these services come from a lower income background. This would increase their quality of life by decreasing their expenses associated with transportation and reallocate it to other necessary expenses.
Increased benefits could come from transitioning drivers to riders, thus decreasing the number of vehicles on the road, in turn making roads safer. Quality of life would potentially be improved by decreasing noise pollution associated with the vehicles that are now off the road. I feel like these benefits are often unaccounted for when performing some cost/ benefit analysis associated with these changes!
SillySycamore OP t1_j6oi01x wrote
Reply to comment by throwsplasticattrees in Thoughts on the viability of zero-fare transit in RI? by SillySycamore
This is really valuable insight. I agree if the free service is suboptimal or leads to over-crowding of buses, that could potentially reduce ridership. I guess it’s kind of a juggling act between providing quality service and making it affordable.