Last month, community organizer Jahmal Cole floated a bold proposal: Eliminate all fares for riding the CTA. As the founder of the My Block, My Hood, My City nonprofit, he often leads underprivileged youth on transit field trips to different neighborhoods.
For example, a 2014 study by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration found that U.S. traffic crashes cost $871 billion a year in economic and societal costs. Since the city of Chicago represents about 1/120th of the nation’s population, our share of that loss could be roughly $7.3 billion.
Chicago transit experts and advocates were also skeptical about whether totally free transit could work here. “Due to our city and state budget problems, we are probably the last metropolitan region in the country that should considering this,” said DePaul transportation professor Joe Schwieterman. He added that if the CTA was a free resource, it would create a “tragedy of the commons” scenario where riders would be more likely to abuse the system, amplifying passenger concerns about safety and cleanliness.
You may say I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one. Let’s make the CTA free to ride for everyone, or at least cheaper for low-income Chicagoans. https://t.co/MCKf3Y33OT @Chicago_Reader pic.twitter.com/6jgKiCgaTF
— John Greenfield (@greenfieldjohn) April 2, 2018
Wilson added that it would be “incredibly hard” to measure whether reducing transit fares could pay for itself in terms of lower societal costs. “I would imagine that if CTA or the city was to subsidize fares, it would be more of an investment for the social benefit of Chicagoans, not something where cost is intended to be recovered.”
John Greenfield edits the transportation news website Streetsblog Chicago.
