If the goal is to expand ridership, the questions increase again. The city estimates a 25-percent jump in use if DATA drops its fees from $1 for a one-way ride or $2 for an all-day pass.
But what kind of riders would hop on?
A 2002 study from the Center for Urban Transportation Research reviewed several large transit systems and concluded that free transit works pretty well for cities that want to attract more students and elderly riders.
Those groups are already riding at free or reduced cost, and represent 15 to 20 percent of DATA’s users.
Low-income workers might offer a bigger pool of riders, which council members and Mayor Bill Bell support.
“I daresay a fare-free system will facilitate the ability of people without transportation to get to jobs,” Bell said. He’s almost certainly right.
But if the goal is to serve the larger Durham community by reducing the number of wheels on the road — and, consequently, emissions, car accidents, gridlock and wear and tear on local streets — the council might think twice.
The same study concluded that the new riders attracted to fare-free transit are “not the choice riders the transit systems were seeking to lure out of automobiles in order to decrease traffic congestion and air pollution.”
In other words, a free bus ride doesn’t automatically attract an economically diverse ridership.
And we need those riders. It’s not pretty, but it’s a fact that there is little political or electoral will to fund systems that serve only the poorest of residents.
An influx of new riders, particularly professionals that the study dubs “choice” riders, could spur improvements — which, in true chicken-or-egg fashion, might be needed to lure those professionals to try buses in the first place.
Transit analysts note that, beyond high-density urban areas, professionals avoid mass transit unless they have incentives like $5-per-gallon gasoline or, as in Chapel Hill, limited parking and urban design that emphasizes pedestrian and bike traffic over private vehicles.
Research Triangle Park and Duke certainly have a strong contingent of environmentally conscious workers who might prefer a greener commute, but the sprawling design of RTP’s campuses presents some challenges.
The other, and much bigger challenge, is cost.
The city estimates that it would take $2.8 million per year to shift to a free model. With a projected $13 million budget deficit for the next fiscal year, the Durham City Council’s timing for this conversation is less than exquisite, as Councilman Eugene Brown acknowledged.
Brown said the council can’t lose sight of the difference between “niceties and what’s truly necessary,” particularly when considering a citywide property tax increase.
He’s right: This is not the time to go fare-free, but not just because of the budget.
When Durham makes this change — and we should — it should be the end point of a long-term plan to gradually shift our infrastructure away from the car-based model and opens all of the city’s resources to foot, bike and bus traffic.
When Chapel Hill shifted to a free transit system, it had strong financial backing from the University of North Carolina, and the town had already changed its infrastructure to make public transit an increasingly attractive option, with or without fares.
If we want to follow that example, we should start by adding sidewalks and bike lanes to bus stops, add new stops and new routes, and try a fare-free pilot program on specific routes to downtown, the Duke University and Duke Medical Center campuses and RTP.
It won’t be cheap and it won’t be easy, which makes it even more important that we take a wise approach.
Sorry, Mom. That means a lot more questions.
