You’ve gotta keep an eye on
our Hartford lawmakers because every now and then they come up with a wacky
proposal that makes no sense, except perhaps for their re-election plans. Case in point, the suggestion
a few years ago by then State Senate President Don Williams
that senior citizens be given free transit rides statewide. He said that they had “earned” it.
(Full disclosure here: I am a tad over 65 and am all-in for my senior
benefits, though I’m not sure how I might have “earned” them simply by my age.)
The Senator’s theory was
that by offering free rides, seniors would flock to the state’s buses and
trains and form an important advocacy group for public transit. Really?
The reason that seniors
don’t ride our buses is not the fares, which already kept low. With a senior discount a bus ride in Stamford
and Bridgeport just 85
cents. There is no
cheaper form of transportation except for calling your son-in-law for a ride to
the mall.
No, I don’t think it’s the
fares that are keeping seniors off our buses:
it’s the service. Our bus service
doesn’t go where they need to go and doesn’t offer the frequency of service
that makes it convenient. Worst of all,
I’m guessing that many seniors don’t feel safe on buses. Reducing the fare to zero will change none of
that.
What about the people that
do take the bus… the working poor, immigrants without cars or drivers’ licenses
and even students? One could argue that
they deserve a price break. Does a
Senior in Greenwich deserve a free ride to Stamford while a low-income Mom in Danbury
or Bridgeport must pay full fare to get to her minimum wage job?
As it stands, bus fares
cover only one third of the cost of each ride.
That means they enjoy a 66% subsidy from taxpayers (compared to a 24%
subsidy on Metro-North). Certainly the
marginal cost of adding additional riders on a less than full bus is pennies,
but giving seniors a freebie probably means that other passengers, or
taxpayers, will pick up the difference.
And while we may have empty
seats on some city buses, the Senator’s proposal would also have included
Metro-North and Shore Line East, where we know we have crowding already.
Commuters from, say, Bridgeport
to Grand Central, pay a one-way fare of $19.50 at rush hour
or $14.75 off-peak. Senior fares (only
good outside of rush-hour) are $9.75, half of the usual one-way fare. That’s quite a bargain.
Now imagine if the Senator’s
bill had passed and a senior, riding free, was vying for a seat on a over-crowded
train filled with paying passengers.
That could make for an interesting conversation.
Clearly, Senator William’s
plan was just not thought through, which is why it was killed in
committee. Or more likely, coming from
the bucolic burgh of Brooklyn CT, he’d rarely ridden Metro-North at rush hour…
something I’d suggest all state lawmakers should do… and didn’t know the implications
of his bill.
I’m all for doing what we
can to encourage everyone to use mass transit, seniors included. But the answers are not in offering a free
ride, but in providing the kind of service they, and all of us, are willing to
pay for.
Reposted with permission of Hearst CT Media
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