On April Fools’ Day a year ago, the state of Connecticut put the farebox back to work on city buses after a year of free rides paid for with federal grants.
Free city buses were an effective and potentially life-saving measure during the COVID-19 pandemic to protect bus operators and essential workers riding the bus from the close contact (remember six feet?) of fare-paying interactions.
A couple amazing things happened that fly in the face of most people’s expectations for city buses, the lowest priority investment for state transportation among the primary modes of car, rail and bus. First, buses sped up because people could jump on using both the front and back doors. There were no waits while riders negotiated the fare box with the bus operators. Then, more people started riding the bus. A lot more. Ridership took a dive in the early pandemic months, but free fares helped bring people back. In some cities like Stamford, ridership even eclipsed pre-pandemic numbers.
The state hasn’t released complete 2022-2023 ridership data requested by transit advocates, but we do know from slides presented at a December 2023 meeting of the newly configured Public Transportation Council that there were 2.5 million rides taken on state-owned city buses in Hartford, Stamford and New Haven in March 2023, the last month of fare-free buses. The first month the farebox went back on the job, April 2023, ridership dropped 25 percent to 1.9 million rides in those three cities.
[RELATED: CTTransit’s free bus rides ended, but riders are pushing for a voice]
A coalition of nonprofit organizations and transit advocates worked to convince Gov. Ned Lamont and the Connecticut General Assembly that the price of free buses for a year, about the same as one new interchange on a congested Connecticut interstate, was a good investment. Estimates in the range of $35 million to $45 million were cited as the cost of free fares for one year, compared with the total operations cost of around $250 million for CTtransit buses.
The pushback was powerful and united.
Transportation Committee leadership in the Connecticut General Assembly said in hearings last year that the price of bus fares — $1.75 for a two-hour adult pass — doesn’t keep people from riding the bus. They flatly refused to move a bill calling for state funding for fare free buses.
Commentators claimed free bus fares were enabling freeloaders and “homeless” people looking for shelter from hot and cold weather, or drug dealers who saw CTfastrak buses as a place out of the public eye to do business. Lamont and the Department of Transportation hid behind an equity study and said the federal government wouldn’t “let” them fund free bus fares — even with state money. There is currently a surplus of more than $220 million available in the Special Transportation Fund. The fund pays for debt service for construction bonds, DOT operations (including rail and bus) and DMV operations. It’s generated by wholesale and retail gas taxes and a share of sales tax receipts.
Free bus fares helped our most economically vulnerable neighbors get to school and extracurricular programs, work, medical appointments, cultural activities, church, etc. At my organization, the Center for Latino Progress in downtown Hartford, high school kids coming to our afterschool programs that teach them work skills, civic participation, how to build and repair bikes and food justice/gardening had a year when they didn’t have to worry about coming up with a few bucks for bus fare — or begging for bus passes we paid for from our operating budget.
There are never enough bus passes. Attendance dropped for our programs when free bus fares ended. Superintendents of urban school districts noticed the same drop in attendance.
So we are grateful to legislators like Rep. Jeff Currey, Sen. Doug McCrory, Sen. Billie Miller, Rep. Jason Rojas and Sen. Saud Anwar who have stepped up to support HB5213, which would provide support to at-risk and disconnected high school students. One of the most important supports in HB52123 is Section 7, which would provide free city bus rides to urban school students two hours before school and four hours after school.
Rep. Currey is co-chair of the Education Committee and he met with high school students in Hartford who told him the end of free bus fares was devastating to their ability to participate in school programs. Many students could no longer stay after school for academic support, clubs or attend programs at non-profits like the Center for Latino Progress because they had to catch the yellow school bus home. CTtransit buses had been a ticket to opportunity for many of our youth who needed it most.
HB5213 would cost about $2 million to implement, according to legislative budget analysts. Approximately 2.1 million of the 38 million city bus rides taken in Connecticut in 2023 were by riders under 18. Most of those were urban students. With bulk discounts to school districts and nonprofits, bus passes cost about a buck a ride. If we expanded HB5213 to cover every rider under 18, every day of the year (summers, too), it’s estimated to cost only $3 million in lost farebox revenue.
Principal Sean Tomany and his students at University High School of Science and Engineering in Hartford are the ones who worked with Rep. Currey to support bus funding in HB5213, which now needs support from legislators and the Governor’s office before it can move forward. Akiliah Crawford, a senior at Principal Tomany’s school, told the Education Committee: “A city bus pass isn’t just transportation, it’s opportunity.”
All the programs in the world won’t help struggling or ambitious students if they can’t get to them. This is a small price to pay for a ticket to opportunity for 119,000 at-risk students identified in HB5213. It’s an opportunity all of our kids deserve.
Jay Stange is Transport Hartford Coordinator for the Center for Latino Progress.