Free Metro: Bill King Responds
Good to see Bill King keeping the discussion going on his Free Metro proposal. King drops by the comments of my second post on the idea and it warrants some promotion, so here ya go ...
Greg,
I want to let you and readers know that my free-fare proposal was not made flippantly. There are a number of free-fare studies in the transit literature. Most are ambivalent as to the probable benefits. These studies rely on standard elasticity models that projects a 3-4% change for every 10% change in the fare amount. Thus, those articles conclude that eliminating the fares will result in a 30-40% increase. I also had HGAC run its sensitivity model which came out in the mid-20s and had TTI and Bob Stein at Rice check my numbers. San Francisco shows increases of about 50% on its free-fare days. All of the ridership numbers for Metro came directly from them.I have copies of the internal reviews that Austin did after there roughly 15-month experiment in 1990-1991. Their internal report shows a 76% increase in ridership during that period. It also shows a 200% increase security incidents in the initial months. By the end of the free-fare trial, the security incidents were down to about 20% more than the pre-free-fare period and actually lower on a per rider basis. I talked to several individuals familiar with this attempt and they indicated that had Capitol Metro better anticipated the security issues, they would not have been such a serious problem.
Austin discontinued the service based on several factors. One of the principal reasons was that while the program increased ridership, it did not bring many new riders to the system. That is, the increase was mostly from existing customers using the buses more frequently. Since one of Capitol Metro's principal motives was acquiring new riders, they did not consider the experiment a success. This combined with bad publicity from the early security problems and financial pressures convinced its board to start charging fares again.
It seems less significant to me if the increase in ridership comes from existing riders or new riders. Either way it is one less car on the road. I think it is also critical to note that at that time Capitol Metro did not offer a suburban-oriented Park & Ride system as does Metro. The models seem to suggest that most of the increased ridership (and congestion relief) would come on these lines. It also seems unlikely that these lines would have the kind of security issues that Austin's primarily inner city bus service had.
I have a lot of respect for Rad and read his column regularly. However, this is a subject that I have been studying for months.
As I said in the editorial, we clearly do not know exactly how this would play out. It might be a boon or a boondoggle. But we won't know unless we try.
Bill King
I appreciate the comment. There's still several good reasons Sallee mentioned that might deflate the idea that aren't covered here (namely, the stake of federal funding). And I should add that I'm not necessarily in agreement that we won't know if it's a boon or a boondoggle unless we try it. We might want a few more inquisitive minds studying the topic in more detail. We may not know with certainty, but we might at least have a clearer idea how it might turn out.
UPDATE: Still more Bill King in the comments herein ...
Greg,
I am certainly not an expert on the federal funding process, but at its simplest level the projects are ranked on the projected ridership versus the cost of the feds. To that extent, the fact that Metro could project greater ridership from free service might even improve our chances.
But the real issue, and one of my principal motivations for wanting to try something else, is that it is becoming increasing doubtful that Houston will every get any federal funds. One knowledge source told me that we currently rank 38th out of 52 applications. Last year about 8 were funded.
I am tired of being held hostage by the federal funding process and want to find some solutions that give us contro over our own destiny.
Bill King
There's a major logical flaw in the rebuttal above from Bill King:
"It seems less significant to me if the increase in ridership comes from existing riders or new riders. Either way it is one less car on the road."
No, it's not. The free-fare experiment attracted essentially zero car-owning new riders, as noted elsewhere. The ridership that increased was from previously transit-dependent patrons who now could ride as much as they wanted for free - meaning they could just ride more often (rather than planning a few errands on the same trip, for instance); but in neither case (fare or fareless) were they going to drive a car, because they essentially didn't HAVE cars.
Living in Houston in an era where gas prices are going thru the roof, I am seeing alot of new faces in the bus and metro stops. I have been in Houston for over 7 years and I have never seen this many people and this kind of crowdness in the bus stops before.
I favor a fare free public transportation system although I am not using it but I would benefit from it by less traffic, congestion and air pollution. I understand that the city might lose $54MM/yr because of the fares but I believe this will be easily offset by the cost savings by public with less oil consumption, less utilization of the pavedways and less pollution and cost reduction of owning a car. City of Houston should give this a try.
Austin might have failed back in 1990 but don't forget that Houston-Metro ridership is breaking records due to lower income people's lost desire to commute with a car. It will be a perfect time to introduce fare free public transportation system in Houston.