BOSTON MAYOR Michelle Wu’s appointee to the MBTA board of directors pushed back against a transit authority presentation on Wednesday that steered the agency toward launching a half-price fare for low-income passengers instead of the free fare concept favored by the mayor.
The T’s presentation on low-income fares was similar to ones delivered many times in the past, focusing largely on the benefits for roughly 60,000 people between the ages of 26 and 64 earning less than 200 percent of the federal poverty level. That approach has the backing of MBTA management and Gov. Maura Healey, who allotted $5 million in this year’s state budget to help the T gear up to introduce a low-income fare.
But Mary Skelton Roberts, whom Wu appointed to the board in late September, demonstrated where the mayor may try to exert her influence on MBTA policy. Roberts urged Steven Povich, the T’s senior director of fare policy and analysis, to go back and do more research.
“I would really like to see how much this is going to cost to do that versus just making the fares free,” Roberts said. “We need to compare apples to apples.”
Roberts brought up the T’s new automated fare collection system, which is way over budget and way behind schedule. She suggested the cost of collecting and administering fares should be cast in a broader context, allowing policy makers to decide whether collecting them is truly worth it.
Povich noted six of the 10 largest transit authorities in the country and 19 of the top 50 offer low-income fares. He described low-income fares as a “relatively proven widespread approach” that over five years would boost the number of MBTA trips taken by those eligible for the low-income fare by 25 to 30 percent. By contrast, he described fare-free service as a ”nascent policy” adopted mostly by a number of communities in Massachusetts for bus service.
Povich said eliminating fares on the Blue Line during the two-month closure of the Sumner Tunnel this summer boosted ridership a modest 7 percent on weekdays and 13 percent on weekends. He said ridership on the northern portions of the Orange Line, where fares were not eliminated during the tunnel shutdown, went up 4 percent weekdays and 23 percent on weekends.
Wu is having the city pick up the tab for a two-year experiment offering free buses on three MBTA bus routes. Povich said ridership on those lines is up roughly 20 percent, but he noted only about 2 percent of the riders switched to the bus and stopped driving. The rest of the new riders came from other T transportation modes (subway, commuter rail, etc.) or migrated from walking and biking. Povich noted that bus ridership in Worcester with fares eliminated has increased 50 percent.
Roberts said just looking at ridership isn’t enough. She asked for a more detailed analysis comparing the savings of doing away with fares to the loss of actual income. Fares currently represent 16 percent of the T’s revenue, or about $418 million. Pre-COVID that number was around $700 million.
Roberts also said she wanted more details on the cost of hiring a community partner to process applications for the low-income fare and verify the rider’s income eligibility. A single person with income of $29,160 and a family of four with income less than $60,000 would qualify. Povich said the process would be convenient, with online applications taking about five minutes to complete. He said cards would be mailed to the rider in a week.
Roberts didn’t like the T’s approach. “Having people register doesn’t feel like a dignified way,” she said. “We talk about making public transit dignified for people. We talk about giving them an experience that feels like a delight to use. And somehow asking them to verify doesn’t quite do that.”
Wu’s designee to the MBTA board said the goal is to get people out of cars as they commute to Boston. “I don’t understand how we could subsidize people that don’t need money to get Teslas and electric vehicles and we’re nickel and diming the low-income residents. We’ve got to do better,” she said.
Roberts said fare revenue is unlikely to grow significantly in the future and the T needs to start looking at new revenue sources. “I want to push us to come up with a really different funding mechanism that enables us to fund our transit and not on the backs of low-income people, students, the disabled, and the elderly. I just don’t think it’s viable long term,” Roberts said.
The T already offers half-priced fares to students, the disabled, and the elderly. Fares are eliminated for blind people.