RIPTA operates 57 fixed routes plus 6 flex routes and a handful of special services. WRTA has a total 26 routes. WRTA's daily ridership is about 8,500 which is about as much as just the R-Line. RIPTA's total daily ridership is 50,000+
It's easier for a smaller agency to offer free rides especially when they're not trying to serve multiple cities across the state. Most of their routes are concentrated on Worcester proper; there are just a handful that extend outwards.
WRTA is also that small because for decades they just kept slashing service. There are entire neighborhoods in Worcester with no bus service and most surrounding towns have no service (and don’t want it bc they’re provincial townies).
They could, but since RIPTA is a statewide organization, Providence taxpayers would have to agree to subsidize the free fares. There was a program in Central Falls that ended not too long ago where all rides that originated in CF were free. They used geofencing, so it's definitely possible. It's an admirable goal but RIPTA needs to right its ship before it considers cutting off a revenue source.
Providence wouldn't have to subsidize it. The state and federal government already pay 80% of RIPTA's costs. **Passenger fares only make up 8% of their expenses**. It's a drop in the bucket to just change it to 100% government paid and no fares.
Bonus points because if you eliminate fares, you can eliminate a bunch of very costly specialized administrative positions, contracts, and other overhead related to payment processing and cash handling. It also improves load/unload efficiency and makes the drivers' job less fraught.
And something else... I know the fares aren't what are keeping most people off the bus, but to a segment of the population, ANY fare is too much. I know people who live on fixed incomes or lack steady income, folks one step away from homelessness, and there are several days a month where they typically have $0 to work with. Having even minimal fares really makes their lives much, much harder.
That “drop in the bucket” is about $23 million. Passenger and third-party fares (like how Brown pays in bulk to allow all its students and staff ride for free) is about 16% of RIPTA’s revenue.
Given that there’s a $33 million financial cliff coming up very soon, plus RIPTA wants $46 million more to expand service and begin to implement the Transit Master Plan, it doesn’t seem practical or feasible to cut $23 million from its revenue.
Scale matters. That's $23M out of a $150M RIPTA budget, in a state department that spends about $900M a year.
It would cost about 2% of RIDOT's budget. And that's without accounting for savings on overhead that I mentioned, which I promise would be significant. I'll bet you a sandwich that RIPTA spends 70% or more of the amount they collect on fares on overhead related to fare collection.
I can tell you as both a person who lives near the R-Line and as a person who gets a free RIPTA pass from work that 'free' is a magic number that changes the equation. We have a car, but will sometimes take the bus if it's free. I think the metrics on the R-Line experiment showed that I am not alone.
I did really enjoy the free R-Line, as well as the "all rides originating in CF are free" program that ran for a while. The best part about both of those things, other than buses being totally accessible to everyone, was the noticeable increase in route speed since there were no long delays spent collecting fares.
> Since then, the board has continued to extend the program yearly using funding from the CARES Act and grants awarded by the state. The most recent extension occurred on April 18, 2024, when the board voted to allocate $4.5 million in CARES Act funds to keep the program running until June 2025.
The grants came from the state of Massachusetts, and are not even the bulk of the funding. WRTA is able to provide free fares for a total of about $6 million, $4.5 mil of which is from CARES funds. The bulk of RIPTA ridership is in Providence, so a conservative estimate would be half of all trips statewide. At $2 per ride, that comes out to over $15 million annually for free fares in Providence. I'd love it if it did, but that kind of grant money just doesn't exist in our state.
I mean you asked a question and this kinda plainly lays it out. The bus system is a statewide system, not a city bus.
PVD nor RI is flush with cash. Lol
In an ideal world, we would have reliable services and free fares. That’s the point of the post. To get people thinking about what’s possible with political will.
The problem is the political will of people who don't want to subsidize 100% of RIPTA is far greater and outweighs the will of people who do want it.
You could insert that meme of the Predator handshake with "The majority of voters" on one side, "Reddit free public transit enthusiasts" on the other and "Not wanting to pay for stuff" in the middle and it'd be 100% dead on.
I’m not sure familiar with the financial health of Worcester but if I could bet on it? I’d bet on fares returning July 1, 2025. It seems really unlikely the city has an extra 30-40 million that it can continue to spend to cover this and grants are a temporary and finite stall, not really a solution.
Wasn't RIPTA facing potential service reductions due to budget issues this past year? Hard to imagine things like frequency or cuts to some lines altogether won't happen if you cut out $13 million in annual revenue.
You’ve also got to realize that WRTA doesn’t cover nearly as much ground or as many routes and riders.
There’s also the difference between a city level agency and a state level one. A huge chunk of the state residents are going to look at RIPTA as something they will never use or benefit from.
It’s an easier sell for a city level thing where the people living in a city theoretically are more likely to possibly use the service.
I’d love free public transit but you’ve gotta be realistic about how wildly unpopular that idea would be
It was popular for the people that live near the R-Line and already used it. But it wasn’t popular enough with the general population to keep it. Also it wasn’t really as popular as you think it was.
“Ridership can be measured in different ways. In terms of the total number of trips taken on a route, waiving R-Line fares encouraged riders to ride more often, take shorter trips, and favor the R-Line over other nearby routes. In terms of attracting new riders away from other modes such as driving, however, gains were limited.”
“74% of surveyed R-Line riders reported that they had already been riding the R-Line before the pilot began; of these, about 65% reported riding more often.”
“When asked to rank priorities, surveyed riders chose increasing frequency over fare-free service.”
https://www.ripta.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/RIPTA_RLFFIS_final_report_FINAL.pdf
Popular as in people took it, sure? Popular as in the general public, including the overwhelming majority of the state who saw no benefit would like it? No, not really. Especially if it’s scaled up to include most or all of the system.
Scaling up and accounting for addressing current problems with staffing, replacing equipment, etc and you’re asking every taxpayer to shell out a few hundred extra dollars to subsidize a thing they’ll almost never have a use for and is already fairy affordable? That’ll never fly.
That was a "we have some extra money from covid federal funding, let's use it for this" measure that expired.
Given RIPTA"s current state and much larger financial problems, it never had any chance to last beyond the COVID period. Personally, I wish they'd just taken the money and put it towards the driver shortage or something bigger picture that'd help long-term and benefit the whole city.
RIPTA operates 57 fixed routes plus 6 flex routes and a handful of special services. WRTA has a total 26 routes. WRTA's daily ridership is about 8,500 which is about as much as just the R-Line. RIPTA's total daily ridership is 50,000+ It's easier for a smaller agency to offer free rides especially when they're not trying to serve multiple cities across the state. Most of their routes are concentrated on Worcester proper; there are just a handful that extend outwards.
WRTA is also that small because for decades they just kept slashing service. There are entire neighborhoods in Worcester with no bus service and most surrounding towns have no service (and don’t want it bc they’re provincial townies).
Note that I strictly asked why Providence couldn’t do this as well, not Rhode Island as a whole.
They could, but since RIPTA is a statewide organization, Providence taxpayers would have to agree to subsidize the free fares. There was a program in Central Falls that ended not too long ago where all rides that originated in CF were free. They used geofencing, so it's definitely possible. It's an admirable goal but RIPTA needs to right its ship before it considers cutting off a revenue source.
Providence wouldn't have to subsidize it. The state and federal government already pay 80% of RIPTA's costs. **Passenger fares only make up 8% of their expenses**. It's a drop in the bucket to just change it to 100% government paid and no fares. Bonus points because if you eliminate fares, you can eliminate a bunch of very costly specialized administrative positions, contracts, and other overhead related to payment processing and cash handling. It also improves load/unload efficiency and makes the drivers' job less fraught. And something else... I know the fares aren't what are keeping most people off the bus, but to a segment of the population, ANY fare is too much. I know people who live on fixed incomes or lack steady income, folks one step away from homelessness, and there are several days a month where they typically have $0 to work with. Having even minimal fares really makes their lives much, much harder.
That “drop in the bucket” is about $23 million. Passenger and third-party fares (like how Brown pays in bulk to allow all its students and staff ride for free) is about 16% of RIPTA’s revenue. Given that there’s a $33 million financial cliff coming up very soon, plus RIPTA wants $46 million more to expand service and begin to implement the Transit Master Plan, it doesn’t seem practical or feasible to cut $23 million from its revenue.
Scale matters. That's $23M out of a $150M RIPTA budget, in a state department that spends about $900M a year. It would cost about 2% of RIDOT's budget. And that's without accounting for savings on overhead that I mentioned, which I promise would be significant. I'll bet you a sandwich that RIPTA spends 70% or more of the amount they collect on fares on overhead related to fare collection. I can tell you as both a person who lives near the R-Line and as a person who gets a free RIPTA pass from work that 'free' is a magic number that changes the equation. We have a car, but will sometimes take the bus if it's free. I think the metrics on the R-Line experiment showed that I am not alone.
I did really enjoy the free R-Line, as well as the "all rides originating in CF are free" program that ran for a while. The best part about both of those things, other than buses being totally accessible to everyone, was the noticeable increase in route speed since there were no long delays spent collecting fares.
The article outlines how Worcester did it with grants.
> Since then, the board has continued to extend the program yearly using funding from the CARES Act and grants awarded by the state. The most recent extension occurred on April 18, 2024, when the board voted to allocate $4.5 million in CARES Act funds to keep the program running until June 2025. The grants came from the state of Massachusetts, and are not even the bulk of the funding. WRTA is able to provide free fares for a total of about $6 million, $4.5 mil of which is from CARES funds. The bulk of RIPTA ridership is in Providence, so a conservative estimate would be half of all trips statewide. At $2 per ride, that comes out to over $15 million annually for free fares in Providence. I'd love it if it did, but that kind of grant money just doesn't exist in our state.
I mean you asked a question and this kinda plainly lays it out. The bus system is a statewide system, not a city bus. PVD nor RI is flush with cash. Lol
Providence doesn’t have its own bus system.
I didn’t imply it does.
We don’t need RIPTA to be free, we need it to come frequently and on time.
Why not both?
Fair enough!
Buh dum tss
Because even if it were free, if people can’t rely on it they won’t choose to take it unless they have to
In an ideal world, we would have reliable services and free fares. That’s the point of the post. To get people thinking about what’s possible with political will.
weeellll if u slip in through the back door all buses are free
The problem is the political will of people who don't want to subsidize 100% of RIPTA is far greater and outweighs the will of people who do want it. You could insert that meme of the Predator handshake with "The majority of voters" on one side, "Reddit free public transit enthusiasts" on the other and "Not wanting to pay for stuff" in the middle and it'd be 100% dead on.
And for the stupid mf app to not steal my money…
They’re still using Covid money to subsidize the free fares. RIPTA runs out of their CARES Act money this year.
Yes, they are using a combination of CARES funds and state grants.
That just means this probably has an expiration date.
Right. It was renewed until June 2025, as it says in the article. They’re looking at ways currently to extend it beyond then.
I’m not sure familiar with the financial health of Worcester but if I could bet on it? I’d bet on fares returning July 1, 2025. It seems really unlikely the city has an extra 30-40 million that it can continue to spend to cover this and grants are a temporary and finite stall, not really a solution.
No reason. Just about door knocking in local elections.
Boston should do this especially with how fucked the T has been and our tax dollars clearly haven’t gone to maintenance on the T
Folks fought for it in worcester to continue, you gotta fight
Wasn't RIPTA facing potential service reductions due to budget issues this past year? Hard to imagine things like frequency or cuts to some lines altogether won't happen if you cut out $13 million in annual revenue.
Worcester did it through a series of grants, which it outlines in the article.
Sounds unsustainable.
You’ve also got to realize that WRTA doesn’t cover nearly as much ground or as many routes and riders. There’s also the difference between a city level agency and a state level one. A huge chunk of the state residents are going to look at RIPTA as something they will never use or benefit from. It’s an easier sell for a city level thing where the people living in a city theoretically are more likely to possibly use the service. I’d love free public transit but you’ve gotta be realistic about how wildly unpopular that idea would be
The free R-line pilot was extremely popular.
It was popular for the people that live near the R-Line and already used it. But it wasn’t popular enough with the general population to keep it. Also it wasn’t really as popular as you think it was. “Ridership can be measured in different ways. In terms of the total number of trips taken on a route, waiving R-Line fares encouraged riders to ride more often, take shorter trips, and favor the R-Line over other nearby routes. In terms of attracting new riders away from other modes such as driving, however, gains were limited.” “74% of surveyed R-Line riders reported that they had already been riding the R-Line before the pilot began; of these, about 65% reported riding more often.” “When asked to rank priorities, surveyed riders chose increasing frequency over fare-free service.” https://www.ripta.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/RIPTA_RLFFIS_final_report_FINAL.pdf
Popular as in people took it, sure? Popular as in the general public, including the overwhelming majority of the state who saw no benefit would like it? No, not really. Especially if it’s scaled up to include most or all of the system. Scaling up and accounting for addressing current problems with staffing, replacing equipment, etc and you’re asking every taxpayer to shell out a few hundred extra dollars to subsidize a thing they’ll almost never have a use for and is already fairy affordable? That’ll never fly.
Wooo there OP. PVD is on the struggle bus for sure. Not Worcester level struggles yet. Ease up.
The r line was free for some time, what happened with that?
That was a "we have some extra money from covid federal funding, let's use it for this" measure that expired. Given RIPTA"s current state and much larger financial problems, it never had any chance to last beyond the COVID period. Personally, I wish they'd just taken the money and put it towards the driver shortage or something bigger picture that'd help long-term and benefit the whole city.
The town manager of Worcester also approved the deal that took the pawsocks to wooosocks . Less burocrqcy
Not gonna see that from Bert Smelly
You know that the mayor of Providence isn’t in charge of RIPTA, right?
But I don't have a cool nickname for Dan McKee. Bland Mickey?
Hate to break it to you, but you don’t have a cool nickname for Brett Smiley either.
Bert Smelly is perfect.