Sabin Suggests: Free Bus Rides Forever

What if the current three-month CT Transit bus-fare holiday went on … forever?

Downtown/East Rock Alder Eli Sabin has raised that question, and thrown his support behind that outcome, with a newly submitted resolution that calls on the state to make riding the bus free for Connecticut residents, permanently.

That proposed resolution was listed as a communication in the most recent full Board of Alders meeting agenda. 

The item has now been referred to the City Services and Environmental Policy (CSEP) committee for a public hearing, and could return to the full city legislature for a final debate and vote in the coming months. 

If approved, the resolution would not in and of itself permanently scrap the $1.75 fare for riding the city bus. That’s because the city bus system is run not by the city, but by the Connecticut Department of Transportation (CTDOT).

Instead, if approved, Sabin’s resolution would have the Board of Alders formally call ​“on the Governor and the Legislature of the State of Connecticut to make the elimination of local bus fares permanent for Connecticut residents.” (See the full text of the resolution below.)

Sabin’s resolution therefore urges alders, state legislators, the governor, New Haven residents, city bus riders, and anyone else who may be listening to permanently extend the state’s current suspension of public bus fares from April 1 to June 30, which the governor and state legislature put in place in parallel with a 25-cent cut to the state excise tax on gasoline. (The budget that Gov. Lamont and legislative leaders agreed to on Thursday would extend that gas tax cut through Dec. 1.)

Sabin is also seeking to bring New Haven into a larger statewide and national conversation about the pros and cons of free city bus service, at a time when Hartford is debating a similar resolution, and Kansas City and Boston have already rolled out such programs, to varying extents.

In an interview with the Independent, Sabin said he has proposed this resolution to ​“start more of a conversation about the bus system” and how to improve it amidst ongoing efforts to fund the recommendations in the Move New Haven transit study.

“It’s as much about a conversation as anything else,” he said.

Nevertheless, Sabin said he does think it would be a good idea to scrap bus fares — and argued the Board of Alders should seriously consider passing this resolution and urging the state to do just that.

“I think that, from an economic equity perspective, it makes a lot of sense,” said Sabin, who — as a second-term downtown alder and first-term representative for Ward 7, is currently pushing a Downtown for All plan focused on boosting housing density and transit infrastructure investments in the city center. 

“We want to see public transit be successful,” he added. ​“That’s very important for our economy, for reducing air pollution and greenhouse gases. The idea of having the bus be free longer term is about making it easier to use the bus.”

Sabin’s resolution describes ​“pay-per-use fees for transportation, such as bus fares and highway tolls” as ​“regressive taxes that disproportionately affect the poorest residents.” 

Because ​“the biggest group of folks who use the bus in New Haven” are ​“working folks,” he told the Independent, those who stand to benefit the most from free bus fares are exactly those who can least afford to pay a couple dollars for each ride.

What about the costs to the state’s already cash-trapped public transportation system that would result from removing bus fares? Could free bus service make the system even more dysfunctional than it already is?

“The amount of money that is being raised through fares is not that much” in comparison to the rest of the state’s transportation budget, Sabin said. ​“The main thing is: We need to see a bigger investment in public transit at the state level. 

“I think that one idea of having the bus be free is, if you expand the number of people who use the bus, maybe you create a bigger constituency for investments in public transit.”

“We haven’t seen those investments over the last few decades,” he concluded, ​“and I think that it may be time to try something new to get more people using the bus and build a bigger constituency for public transit.”

With that said, Sabin continued, the goal of this resolution and free-fare push is to have a more affordable and better functioning bus system. If permanently suspending bus fares would result in less and worse service, he said, he would not be in support of it.

Lemar: Financial, Political Hurdles For "Undeniably Right" Proposal

New Haven State Rep. Roland Lemar, a former East Rock alder who now chairs the state legislature’s Transportation Committee, told the Independent that permanent free bus service for all Connecticut residents is ​“undeniably” the right long-term prescription for boosting public transit use in Connecticut.

“We need to get people out of cars,” he said during a Thursday morning phone interview. ​“We need to remove carbon from the atmosphere. We need to orient our transportation around moving far more people far more efficiently” than the current state-managed highway system currently allows. 

Making buses free to ride permanently would help accomplish all of those goals.

That said … making bus rides free for all Connecticut residents faces a difficult set of near-term political and financial hurdles.

Lemar said that the current three-month hiatus on bus fares, which he negotiated directly with the governor for, will cost the state’s transportation system roughly $3 million per month.

Since the state is flush with federal aid right now, Connecticut — and other states and municipalities — can more freely experiment with free transit and use federal funds to backstop those costs. That federal aid won’t always be available, he added.

“And we are up against that [state] budget cap at all times.”

He added that Connecticut, and other states and municipalities across the nation, have plenty of federal funding right now to help backstop experiments in fare-free public transit. That federal aid won’t always be available

An added wrinkle, Lemar said, is that city buses are controlled — and funded — entirely by the state. There is no local match to keep city buses running. Which is a good thing for city budgets, he said, but which also means that cities have less say over the operations of the local public transit system.

Lemar said he has a host of other public transit priorities he’s working on this budget cycle. Those include electrifying the state’s bus fleet, providing more electric vehicle charging stations at the municipal level, and funding various safe-streets efforts. (Some of those priorities seem within closer reach, now that the state Senate has approved a state clean air bill.)

For now, Lemar added, he doesn’t see an immediate political path forward for funding permanently free buses.

“It’s hard,” Lemar said, ​“because it’s undeniably the right answer.”

In the short term, he said, he and other state legislators and public transportation advocates will be closely tracking the impact of Connecticut’s three-month experiment in free bus fares, as well as similar experiments in Boston and elsewhere.

It’s ​“not going to give us truly great data” because ​“no one’s going to make a long-term housing choice or not purchase a car because of three months of free buses,” Lemar said about the current three-month fare holiday. That type of long-term transportation behavioral change will likely come about only if the state guarantees a ​“much-longer horizon” for free bus service.

But for now, he encouraged Sabin and other free-bus advocates to keep making the case and encouraging everyone they can to consider and explore that option.

DOT: $43M Hole That Would Need To Be Filled

Asked for the state DOT’s take on Sabin’s free-bus-fare proposal, DOT Deputy Commissioner (and New Haven resident) Garrett Eucalitto said in an email comment:

“Over the past few years, the Lamont administration and the General Assembly has increased investment in bus transit in the greater New Haven area. This investment is demonstrated not only by increasing hours of service on major routes, but also through helping riders during a pandemic and inflationary period with fare-free bus service in 2020 – 21, and the second quarter of 2022. Governor Lamont’s budget proposal also includes a continuation of the previous fare-free Weekend Wheels program in the summer of 2022, and the DOT’s capital plan also includes nearly $100 million to complete the Move New Haven project, which would necessitate a future increase in operational funding to support the envisioned bus rapid transit operation.

“Unlike in other states where municipal and county governments support a significant portion of public transit expenses, Connecticut’s state government is solely responsible for transit expenses in our major cities. Bus fares accounted for $43 million in revenue in 2019. Elimination of all fares would necessitate finding alternative revenue or appropriations to support operations, or a reduction in services to reduce costs by a comparable level.”

See below for the full text of Sabin’s proposed resolution.

RESOLUTION OF THE NEW HAVEN BOARD OF CALLING ON THE GOVERNOR AND THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF CONNECTICUT TO MAKE THE ELIMINATION OF LOCAL BUS FARES PERMANENT FOR CONNECTICUT RESIDENTS.

WHEREAS: the Governor of the State of Connecticut has suspended local fares on buses operated by CT Transit for three months in response to rising inflation and gas prices; and

WHEREAS: buses are an essential mode of transportation for working and middle class families, young people, and folks who can’t afford or don’t want to own a car, many of whom live in the city of New Haven; and

WHEREAS: New Haven has one of the fastest growing percentages of households without cars in the nation; and

WHEREAS: research has shown that pay-per-use fees for transportation, such as bus fares and highway tolls, are regressive taxes that disproportionately affect the poorest residents; and

WHEREAS: the estimated cost of making bus travel free for three months is $8.1 million, a small fraction of annual infrastructure spending by the Connecticut Department of Transportation every year; and

WHEREAS: a study of the impact of making bus rides free in Kansas City, Missouri in 2020 found that ridership increased, overall regional greenhouse gas emissions decreased, jobs were created, and economic output for the region was increased as a direct result of the elimination of fares;

NOW THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED BY THE NEW HAVEN BOARD OF ALDERS that the Board of Alders of the City of New Haven calls on the Governor and the Legislature of the State of Connecticut to make the elimination of local bus fares permanent for Connecticut residents.