Ayanna Pressley

There are many reasons why I believe in fare-free public transit: It encourages more people to ride buses and trains; it makes the boarding process more efficient; and it eliminates the need to worry about fare evasion. It’s also an opportunity for governments to directly improve the daily lives of the people they serve and provide a frequent, tangible return on the taxes people pay.

So when I saw the recent report released by Senator Ed Markey and Representative Ayanna Pressley promoting their Freedom to Move Act, which proposes funding to make public transit fare-free nationwide, I was intrigued.

“Massachusetts has shown that fare-free transit can lower costs, increase ridership, and strengthen service when it is backed by sustained public investment,” the report says, referring to the successful fare-free programs that have been tried in Massachusetts. “The Freedom to Move Act would give communities across the country the resources to achieve the same results.”

Get The Gavel

A weekly SCOTUS explainer newsletter by columnist Kimberly Atkins Stohr.

Enter Email

But as good as that sounds — and as much as I like the idea of fare-free transit — it’s not the right time to focus on eliminating transit fares nationally. Indeed, there’s an obvious political problem with Markey and Pressley’s plan. They’ve introduced the Freedom to Move Act at least four times, and it still hasn’t become law. And with President Trump in the White House and a Republican-controlled Congress, the odds of it going anywhere this time are close to none.

Their plan, in other words, is DOA. But it doesn’t have to be.

Much of the focus of the report Markey and Pressley released is on the potential benefits of free transit. But the reality is that none of the major transit agencies in the country are anywhere close to ready to waive their fares, because they’re still falling short on delivering fast, frequent, and reliable service. It’s true that reducing or eliminating fares would encourage people to choose riding public transit over driving cars, but what good is a free trip if it doesn’t get you to where you need to be in a reasonable amount of time?

So what if instead of promoting this as a fare-free transit plan — something that Republicans are reflexively against — Markey and Pressley sell it as an infrastructure investment plan? After all, it wasn’t that long ago that some Republicans joined Democrats in passing a major infrastructure bill that President Biden signed into law, and that included a historic investment in public transportation.

Moreover, Trump himself has been interested in spending money on transportation projects and has been involved in efforts to renovate Penn Station in New York and Dulles Airport outside Washington, D.C. Sure, he has ulterior motives, like potentially slapping his name on these major transportation hubs, but if he’s looking for legacy projects, Democrats could try to persuade him to focus on improving public transportation, much as President Eisenhower championed the interstate highway system.

Markey and Pressley’s plan, in any case, is not solely about delivering fare-free transit. The Freedom to Move Act “would not force fare-free service on any community,” their report says. “Instead, it would make a historic investment in transit operations and give communities the resources to eliminate fares, expand service, or do both.”

And that’s precisely what the two lawmakers get right in their plan: The key to improving public transit in the United States is to invest not just in capital improvement projects but in subsidizing transit agencies’ overall operating costs as well.

Since the Reagan administration, the federal government has largely been averse to subsidizing transit operating costs, mostly directing federal dollars to help fund capital improvements like track renovations and building streetcars that go nowhere. But billions of dollars of COVID-era relief funds marked a shift in how federal money was spent. Those funds massively subsidized transit agencies’ operating costs to make up for lost fare revenue, and several agencies — most notably, the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority — showed just how much those subsidies did to help improve service and reduce costs for riders.

The plan that Markey and Pressley propose would essentially be an expansion of those relief funds. Injecting $25 billion into transit agencies’ budgets would go a long way toward improving the quality of service for riders. It could allow transit agencies to acquire new buses and trains, hire more drivers and operators, and increase frequency and reliability across their systems.

So Markey and Pressley should forget about promoting fare-free transit for now and just focus on getting some Republicans — particularly those few who represent metropolitan areas that heavily rely on public transportation — on board with approving more federal funds to improve transit service. If they can get that far, then they could actually deliver better quality transit in cities nationwide. And if, in some cases, that comes along with free or reduced fares, then that’s just one happy side effect of good legislation.

Abdallah Fayyad can be reached at [email protected]. Follow him @abdallah_fayyad.