The case for free bus fares in North Carolina cities

Ask yourself: how likely are you to take the bus to work, or to the grocery store?

If you don’t have the luxury of owning a car, the odds you use public transportation are probably a lot higher.

For low-income residents of North Carolina’s largest cities, public transportation is a lifeline. It provides essential access to work, school, health care and other basic needs.

That doesn’t mean it’s cheap. For someone earning a comfortable salary, spending a dollar or two on a one-way trip might sound like a steal. But for those struggling to make ends meet, fares amount to a significantly higher proportion of their income — and they add up when you have to catch a ride every day. In Charlotte, someone earning roughly $45,000 per year will spend 25% of their income on transportation, according to the Center for Neighborhood Technology’s Housing and Transportation Affordability Index. Often, residents end up spending the majority of their income on housing and transportation costs.

But what if that transportation was free?

It’s an idea that U.S. cities have begun experimenting with in recent years, particularly as many transit agencies decided to temporarily suspend fares amid the pandemic. (Charlotte suspended fares for just a few months in early 2020, but Triangle passengers can continue to ride fare-free through June 2022.)

Numbers show that the most disadvantaged residents are typically the ones who use public transportation the most. Take Charlotte, for example, where roughly 13,000 households do not have access to a car. The vast majority of those households are low-income and people of color. Meanwhile, 78% of the city’s bus ridership is African American, and 47% of passengers make less than $25,000 per year, according to an October 2020 report from the mayor’s Charlotte MOVES Task Force.

North Carolina cities should recognize fare-free transit as a tool for fighting inequality. Studies have shown that affordable, accessible public transportation is a particularly strong predictor of social mobility — areas with insufficient access to transportation have the highest unemployment rates and the lowest incomes. One study from the JTL Urban Mobility Lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology found that low-income individuals who received a fare subsidy took about 30% more trips on public transit than those who did not receive the subsidy. They also took more trips to health care and social services.

Of course, the biggest obstacle to fare-free transit is the question of how to pay for it. Luckily, Raleigh and Charlotte have a successful model close to home: Chapel Hill’s transit system has operated fare-free for nearly 20 years.

“Whether you have zero dollars in your pocket or a hundred dollars in your pocket, if you’re at the bus stop, we’re gonna stop, we’re gonna pick you up and we’re gonna take you where you need to go,” Chapel Hill Transit Director Brian Litchfield said.

While transportation costs remain a significant expenditure for passengers, fare revenues only account for a minor percentage of overall public transit revenue in cities like Raleigh and Charlotte, where fares account for roughly 8% and 16% of revenue, respectively.

The same was true of Chapel Hill. Before CHT switched to a fare-free model in 2002, fares were only about 12% of its revenue, Litchfield said — so covering that cost was relatively simple. Chapel Hill, Carrboro and UNC-Chapel Hill agreed to share the cost burden through tax revenue and student fees.

But tax revenue isn’t the only solution. The city of Raleigh has used federal COVID relief funds to absorb the cost of temporarily suspending fares. And more money could be on the way, thanks to President Joe Biden’s Build Back Better framework, which allocates more than $1.75 trillion in social spending. The bill contains nearly $10 billion in grants to enhance mobility options, including the provision of fare-free or reduced-fare service.

Cities like Raleigh and Charlotte should explore the option of permanent, fare-free bus service. Transportation shouldn’t be a luxury — it’s a basic need. It’s time to start treating it like one.