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Albuquerque adopts free bus policy
If only San Diego would follow suit
Cheapest ticket in town — but it could be cheaper!
A lot of my friends know that I prefer to catch the bus instead of driving a car. Slower? A little. Cheaper? Way. Provides more time to work on your interview questions ahead of time? Absolutely. And you can look out the window at water and trees and the sky and life on the street — vastly preferable to just following someone else’s brake lights trundling along the concrete wasteway ahead of you. And less lonely? You better believe it! I’ve gotten some of my best interviews right in the back seat of the Number 30 bus.
On top of that, I reckon that over the last 20 years, these buses and trolleys have saved me and Mother Earth (based on a solo 20-mile commute) 20 lbs of CO-2 emissions per day, 100 lbs per 5-day week, or let’s say 5000 lbs per year. Take that to 20 years, and you arrive at 100,000 lbs of CO2 that, hey, I have personally saved from entering our world. I feel pretty good about that — along with all fellow-bus-riders, of course.
But let’s just have a Rosa Parks moment here: riding the bus isn’t just about saving Mother Earth, or saving on gas fill-ups. It’s also about social and economic equity. People in the lower economic trenches cannot afford those shiny carros that cost, on average, $35K. And that, according to Google, is for used wheels. Plus, to run that automobile, the average Californian can be out as much as $1000 a month. Whereas I’m finding that $40 usually covers my Pronto Pass, and includes a lot of Downtown to La Jolla or Escondido or Oceanside trips — even, once or twice, all the way to LA. Deal! If you got the time, save your dime!
An Albuquerque bus. The whole bus network is free for passengers.
Still, yes, this latest idea I’m hearing tell of is a little bit of a shocker: free public transportation for all? Jes’ hop on the bus, Gus, you don’t need to discuss much. Just drop off the key, Lee, and get yourself free. Free public transportation would give you way more than fifty ways to leave your lover… And Albuquerque, New Mexico, has bitten the bullet and gone ahead and done it. Thrown away the en-tire fare apparatus, and upped its ridership around 50 percent in the process — which, post-Covid, is remarkable. Get on, get off, often as you want. Gratis.
OK, Albuquerque has only one million citizens. San Diego County has triple that. But the Albuquerquians — Ablequerquers? — have pulled an initiative that makes them the largest city in the U.S. to adopt totally free public transportation (although others, like Washington, D.C. and NYC, are making noises about hitching themselves to this wagon). Whatever, suddenly, since November 9, 2023, any Albuquerqueño can go anywhere without paying a dime. The practice of paying for the monthly bus commutes to work is gone. Concerts, doctors’ appointments, getting to school, access to green space, ways out of food-desert ’burbs to supermarkets — all that became easier, especially for the working poor, citizens who live on the urban and economic edge. They’re the people who had been telling social workers for the longest time that the hardest thing in their lives was getting around — to work, to food, to church, to job interviews — because they didn’t have a car. The car was the elephant in the room. They told the organization Together For Brothers (T4B) that it was the single hardest thing about life in Albuquerque. Then one day, in a 2017 strategy session, T4B was wondering aloud how to deal with this problem when a high school student named Jacob spoke out.
“Why don’t we just make public transportation free for everybody?”
It took a while for people to realize this wasn’t a joke — and could maybe even be taken seriously.
Within a month, T4B had embraced the idea. Yes, it took six years’ worth of lobbying from then, but they finally got a pilot program approved. And it was a success. Ridership increased by just under 50 percent. By the end of 2023, the city voted to make free transportation permanent in Albuquerque. Some called it another Rosa Parks Day!
But could it work here in San Diego? Who’d pay for it? (Though I sometimes wonder if behind the practical arguments, there looms the fear in some circles that a vaguely “socialist” idea — free stuff for poor people — may actually succeed all too well.
A year into the program in Albuquerque, things are going well: the machinery required to form a freely interlocking city has become lubricated. The flows of both people and traffic have gotten better. More people get to work more easily, with funds liberated for other calls on their money, such as groceries.
“This would be beautiful to have in San Diego,” says Kurt, a fellow-passenger waiting with me at 12th and Imperial. “So many more of my friends would use these buses and trolleys. Right now, if you get caught on the trolley without a ticket, it’s $25, or up to a couple of C-notes in traffic court.” Makes you think: how many administrative costs would be saved by not having to nickel and dime people on every ride?
Another bonus: life suddenly becomes easier for bus drivers. They could concentrate on driving. Gone, gone, the stress of getting passengers to pay, of dealing with people who become violent because they don’t have the right amount for the fare machine. Everybody I talk to says they need this to happen. “I think that’d be great,” says Daniel, a 901 bus driver. “I feel like dealing with people would just be so much quicker. For everyone to just get on and off, it would above all save a lot of time.”
Except — fly in the ointment — who would pick up the tab for the lost revenues? “Right now, MTS is not considering a fare-free system,” says Mark Olson of our Metropolitan Transit System. “Twenty-five percent of our budget, or about $112 million, comes from fare payments. So to go totally-fare-free would require significant cuts in service. In Albuquerque, three percent [of their expenses] were supported by fares, prior to allowing the free rides. So there’s a pretty significant gap between [what they gave up for] their model and the model that we have.”
Yes, Olson concedes, a significant number of San Diego riders are very low-income. “[But] having fare revenue is very important to our agency. We are looking at a very large budget deficit in the coming couple of years, and that needs to be managed. The cost of doing business has grown substantially, and fare revenue is still reeling from pandemic-era losses that we experienced with ridership. So far, we have been able to bridge that gap with state and federal grant money that we’ve received. But fiscal year ’27 is when that’s anticipated to run out. We’ve generally kept fares fairly low [with specials for seniors, etc.]. A standard adult pass is $2.50, which we believe is affordable. And we really depend on fare revenue to make our budget work and keep our service levels high. So MTS is not considering a free fare model at this time. The budget deficit is really our priority at this time.”
So sigh. Let’s not hold our breath right now. At least not until decision-makers start seeing transit like they see libraries and fire departments: as essential to the fabric of our society.
Here's something you might be interested in.
Albuquerque adopts free bus policy
If only San Diego would follow suit
Albuquerque adopts free bus policy
If only San Diego would follow suit
Cheapest ticket in town — but it could be cheaper!
A lot of my friends know that I prefer to catch the bus instead of driving a car. Slower? A little. Cheaper? Way. Provides more time to work on your interview questions ahead of time? Absolutely. And you can look out the window at water and trees and the sky and life on the street — vastly preferable to just following someone else’s brake lights trundling along the concrete wasteway ahead of you. And less lonely? You better believe it! I’ve gotten some of my best interviews right in the back seat of the Number 30 bus.
On top of that, I reckon that over the last 20 years, these buses and trolleys have saved me and Mother Earth (based on a solo 20-mile commute) 20 lbs of CO-2 emissions per day, 100 lbs per 5-day week, or let’s say 5000 lbs per year. Take that to 20 years, and you arrive at 100,000 lbs of CO2 that, hey, I have personally saved from entering our world. I feel pretty good about that — along with all fellow-bus-riders, of course.
But let’s just have a Rosa Parks moment here: riding the bus isn’t just about saving Mother Earth, or saving on gas fill-ups. It’s also about social and economic equity. People in the lower economic trenches cannot afford those shiny carros that cost, on average, $35K. And that, according to Google, is for used wheels. Plus, to run that automobile, the average Californian can be out as much as $1000 a month. Whereas I’m finding that $40 usually covers my Pronto Pass, and includes a lot of Downtown to La Jolla or Escondido or Oceanside trips — even, once or twice, all the way to LA. Deal! If you got the time, save your dime!
An Albuquerque bus. The whole bus network is free for passengers.
Still, yes, this latest idea I’m hearing tell of is a little bit of a shocker: free public transportation for all? Jes’ hop on the bus, Gus, you don’t need to discuss much. Just drop off the key, Lee, and get yourself free. Free public transportation would give you way more than fifty ways to leave your lover… And Albuquerque, New Mexico, has bitten the bullet and gone ahead and done it. Thrown away the en-tire fare apparatus, and upped its ridership around 50 percent in the process — which, post-Covid, is remarkable. Get on, get off, often as you want. Gratis.
OK, Albuquerque has only one million citizens. San Diego County has triple that. But the Albuquerquians — Ablequerquers? — have pulled an initiative that makes them the largest city in the U.S. to adopt totally free public transportation (although others, like Washington, D.C. and NYC, are making noises about hitching themselves to this wagon). Whatever, suddenly, since November 9, 2023, any Albuquerqueño can go anywhere without paying a dime. The practice of paying for the monthly bus commutes to work is gone. Concerts, doctors’ appointments, getting to school, access to green space, ways out of food-desert ’burbs to supermarkets — all that became easier, especially for the working poor, citizens who live on the urban and economic edge. They’re the people who had been telling social workers for the longest time that the hardest thing in their lives was getting around — to work, to food, to church, to job interviews — because they didn’t have a car. The car was the elephant in the room. They told the organization Together For Brothers (T4B) that it was the single hardest thing about life in Albuquerque. Then one day, in a 2017 strategy session, T4B was wondering aloud how to deal with this problem when a high school student named Jacob spoke out.
“Why don’t we just make public transportation free for everybody?”
It took a while for people to realize this wasn’t a joke — and could maybe even be taken seriously.
Within a month, T4B had embraced the idea. Yes, it took six years’ worth of lobbying from then, but they finally got a pilot program approved. And it was a success. Ridership increased by just under 50 percent. By the end of 2023, the city voted to make free transportation permanent in Albuquerque. Some called it another Rosa Parks Day!
But could it work here in San Diego? Who’d pay for it? (Though I sometimes wonder if behind the practical arguments, there looms the fear in some circles that a vaguely “socialist” idea — free stuff for poor people — may actually succeed all too well.
A year into the program in Albuquerque, things are going well: the machinery required to form a freely interlocking city has become lubricated. The flows of both people and traffic have gotten better. More people get to work more easily, with funds liberated for other calls on their money, such as groceries.
“This would be beautiful to have in San Diego,” says Kurt, a fellow-passenger waiting with me at 12th and Imperial. “So many more of my friends would use these buses and trolleys. Right now, if you get caught on the trolley without a ticket, it’s $25, or up to a couple of C-notes in traffic court.” Makes you think: how many administrative costs would be saved by not having to nickel and dime people on every ride?
Another bonus: life suddenly becomes easier for bus drivers. They could concentrate on driving. Gone, gone, the stress of getting passengers to pay, of dealing with people who become violent because they don’t have the right amount for the fare machine. Everybody I talk to says they need this to happen. “I think that’d be great,” says Daniel, a 901 bus driver. “I feel like dealing with people would just be so much quicker. For everyone to just get on and off, it would above all save a lot of time.”
Except — fly in the ointment — who would pick up the tab for the lost revenues? “Right now, MTS is not considering a fare-free system,” says Mark Olson of our Metropolitan Transit System. “Twenty-five percent of our budget, or about $112 million, comes from fare payments. So to go totally-fare-free would require significant cuts in service. In Albuquerque, three percent [of their expenses] were supported by fares, prior to allowing the free rides. So there’s a pretty significant gap between [what they gave up for] their model and the model that we have.”
Yes, Olson concedes, a significant number of San Diego riders are very low-income. “[But] having fare revenue is very important to our agency. We are looking at a very large budget deficit in the coming couple of years, and that needs to be managed. The cost of doing business has grown substantially, and fare revenue is still reeling from pandemic-era losses that we experienced with ridership. So far, we have been able to bridge that gap with state and federal grant money that we’ve received. But fiscal year ’27 is when that’s anticipated to run out. We’ve generally kept fares fairly low [with specials for seniors, etc.]. A standard adult pass is $2.50, which we believe is affordable. And we really depend on fare revenue to make our budget work and keep our service levels high. So MTS is not considering a free fare model at this time. The budget deficit is really our priority at this time.”
So sigh. Let’s not hold our breath right now. At least not until decision-makers start seeing transit like they see libraries and fire departments: as essential to the fabric of our society.
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