Opinion | When it comes to public transportation, there is no free ride

D.C. shifted into reverse after a stiff fiscal reality check. A February projection from the city’s chief financial officer showed that city tax revenue was slowing and would not be sufficient to fund the program, whose cost was estimated at $43 million for the first year. On May 4, the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority, the regional transit authority that operates the buses in D.C., Maryland and Virginia, weighed in with its view that the cash-strapped system has higher priorities than free buses for D.C., which could also create administrative headaches unless all three jurisdictions adopted it.

In short, the free bus idea has started to collapse under the weight of its own flawed premises, which were obvious from the moment progressive members of the D.C. Council launched it, and which, with any luck, will doom it not just for a year but for good.

Nevertheless, advocates of free public transit are still at it, in D.C. and elsewhere. A bill in New York state would allow five fare-free bus routes in New York City as a one-year pilot plan. Sen. Edward J. Markey and Rep. Ayanna Pressley, both Massachusetts Democrats, are pushing a bill that would spend $5 billion per year over five years on fare-free public transportation across the country.

Apparently, the case against free buses cannot be stated often enough. The first thing to acknowledge is that proponents are right to be concerned about the burden of transportation costs on low-income workers, and about congestion and carbon emissions. Other points in their favor include the potential efficiency gains, such as lower fare-collection expenses and faster boarding by passengers.

In most situations, however, free buses pose countervailing risks so familiar that there’s even an economic concept named for them. The “Free Rider Problem” occurs when individuals can use a public resource without helping to defray the associated costs — for salaries, maintenance and the like. Unless a third party steps up to pay for what the free riders use, the service provider will eventually go into a financial death spiral, leaving the entire community worse off. Mixed results from free buses in Kansas City, the largest U.S. city to try it so far, suggest that what the economic theory about free-riding predicts, real-world experience will sooner or later confirm. Kansas City’s problems have included unreliable service and seats occupied by homeless people using the buses as a refuge.

The status quo, whereby riders chip in part of the cost — at a rate of $2 a ride in D.C. — and primarily state or local governments subsidize the rest, seems a happy medium between what economics tells us are the only realistic alternatives: turning the system over to a profit-making corporation or funding the entire cost through general tax revenue, in competition with other pressing public needs.

In the latter case, competing needs will likely take precedence, because the majority rules in a democracy and buses serve only a small minority of commuters. Federal spending for free fares looks even less sustainable, politically, in a country where three-quarters of workers drive a car to their jobs and mass-transit usage is concentrated in blue-state metro areas.

As for social justice, free buses for all is a windfall to upper-middle-class bus commuters, like the author of this column, who can easily afford the fare. Why should transit systems leave our money on the table, especially given the political difficulty of getting it from other people — taxpayers — who mostly don’t ride at all?

Riders who are elderly, disabled, low-income or attending school should indeed be supported, but through targeted programs that offer them free or reduced fares. (Footnote: D.C’s decriminalization of fare evasion in 2018 has helped turn paying for the bus into a de facto voluntary exercise already. WMATA estimates that 34 percent of riders do not pay, at a cost of $10 million per year.)

According to research by the TransitCenter, a public transportation advocacy group, zero-fare transit works best in smaller bus systems with low ridership, where it is relatively easy to make up forgone revenue from other sources. In big cities, however, “forgoing all fare revenue would substantially impede the ability to provide service, let alone improve or expand it,” the group found.

It’s worth noting that actual bus riders, including those with annual incomes below $35,000, say that the frequency, safety and reliability of bus service affect their decisions to ride more than the cost of the fare, according to a survey the TransitCenter conducted in seven major U.S. cities.

Politicians can pass all the laws they want, but no one can repeal the first law of economics: There is no free lunch.