Bus Riders Union of Austin, Texas | El Sindicato de Pasajeros

By Justin Ward
Austin Chronicle, Naked City Section
Thursday, April 24, 2008

The Bus Riders Union of Austin, formed last year to advocate for mass-transit users, called on Capital Metro Tuesday to return to a free-fare system. Such a move would be a complete turnaround for the agency, which declared last fall that it intended to double fares – a plan put on hold after widespread protests. The proposal argues that eliminating fares would cost Capital Metro a negligible amount of revenue, a small price to pay in exchange for the net benefit to the environment and the efficiency of the system. According to the report, fares account for about 3.3% of total revenue after the costs of fare-box maintenance and accounting are factored in; nearly 78% of the agency's revenue is derived from sales tax. If fares were eliminated, the report suggests, ridership would increase (alleviating traffic congestion, the city's greatest source of pollution), and bus-boarding would be streamlined (making the system faster). The report also identifies some areas where waste could be cut to make up for the lost fares, such as the bloated marketing budget, a fleet of fuel-inefficient supervisor sport utility vehicles and sedans, and $31 million budgeted for "services," which include paying consultants for jobs that could be done in-house. Cap Metro briefly flirted with the idea of a fare-free system in 1989-90, but agency officials say the plan was killed because it didn't produce a significant increase in riders. See the full report at www.busatx.org. - Justin Ward