City officials on Tuesday hailed the expansion of a fare-free bus pilot, which runs for the next two years on Routes 23, 28 and 29. The three routes wind their way through Dorchester and Mattapan.
Mayor Michelle Wu highlighted the expansion by taking the Route 29 bus to Jamaica Plain’s Jackson Square MBTA station, from the intersection of Blue Hill Avenue and Westview Street in Dorchester.
Efon Elad, who lives on Ames Street, expressed happiness with the pilot.
“I will use the French word ‘incroyable’ to accurately describe it,” he said. “i know I’m going to save a lot of money here because I ride this bus every day. I don’t take the 23 much, but the 29 is my bus.”
The launch came as MBTA officials reviewed early results of a pilot program that initially only included the Route 28 bus. The program boosted Route 28 ridership by more than 20 percent, but only about a third of commuters who participated saved money because of costs they faced elsewhere on the MBTA.
Final evaluation of the fare-free test remains underway, but T staff presented an overview Thursday (Feb. 24) that showed significant effects from allowing riders to get on and off without paying as the agency prepares to launch an expanded two-year pilot program starting next month.
Between the original pilot’s August launch and today, fare-free service led to a 22 percent growth in ridership on the Route 28 bus even when accounting for a system-wide gradual increase in use after a COVID-inflicted drop-off.
About 5 percent of the boost came from people who would have traveled by car if not for the free bus option, and 2 percent would not have happened at all without the pilot program, according to MBTA Assistant General Manager of Policy and Transit Planning Lynsey Heffernan.
The Route 28 bus, which runs from Ruggles Station through parts of Roxbury, Dorchester and Mattapan, handled the additional demand with few hiccups, Heffernan said, describing a “pretty minimal impact” on travel times and reliability.
In fact, she said, the pilot cut down the amount of time Route 28 buses lingered at each station by 20 percent compared to similar routes because riders no longer had to queue up and pay fares to board.
Boston spent about $500,000 on the pilot program, Heffernan said.
Only about a third of Route 28 commuters experienced cash savings themselves, according to Heffernan. During the pilot, 21 percent of riders saved more than $20 per month and another 12 percent saved $20 or less as a result of not needing to pay for the Route 28 bus.
The remaining 66 percent of riders spent as much on T passes as they would have without a fare-free option, Heffernan said, attributing the breakdown to “behavior” rather than financial need because costs still existed for any transfers onto other parts of the MBTA network.
Expanding the pilot to Route 23, Route 28 and Route 29 bus lines free of fares for two years will mean using $8 million in federal funding Boston received to cover the costs including lost fare revenue and, if necessary, expanded service to meet demand.
Heffernan said that because the fare price will change for a period longer than six months, the T will be required to launch an equity analysis at the program’s start and again at its end when ticket costs return to normal.
Wu has helped usher in a new focus on reducing or eliminating the costs that riders face to travel by public transit, and Heffernan said several other municipalities including Cambridge, Brookline, Watertown and Salem have approached the T expressing interest in launching their own fare-free bus programs. Somerville, meanwhile, has discussed distributing transit passes.
“We are certainly open to those conversations. We do worry as a staff that if certain municipalities have resources and others don’t, what does that look like and what is the MBTA’s responsibility in that space?” Heffernan said. “There is a significant amount of staff time to pull these things together, and given some of the data from the evaluation about rider benefits, the staff is curious if this is the best approach here.”
Reporter staff Seth Daniel and Gintautas Dumcius contributed to this report.
