As promising as the L.A. Metro Fareless System Initiative (FSI) sounded when it started out in 2020, we learned over the next two years that its disadvantages far outweighed its advantages. The major purpose of the initiative was to help reduce the economic impacts of the pandemic on low-income residents of the county. It was also an attempt to increase the transit system's ridership. This move was certainly not sustainable on a long-term basis. The pandemic is over and done, people have been returning to work in droves... and it is not feasible to provide free transit to all of them.
LA Metro seems to still be working on increasing its ridership, as their decision to make all fares free for one day in honor of Clean Air Day on October 5, 2022 appears to indicate. Ara J. Najarian, Glendale Council Member and Metro Board Chair, explained that “if people park their cars and ride Metro on Clean Air Day, we know they’ll see how safe, clean and convenient it is to ride Metro and we hope they’ll make it a daily habit.”
In the 2019 fiscal year alone, LA Metro earned between $250 million and $300 million in revenue from transit fares; this amounted to just 13% of its $1.9 billion operating costs. It left an 87% deficit in the operating cost of the Metro agency in the year 2019. If the agency operated under a huge deficit even in the pre-pandemic times, how would it survive if revenue from transit fares was permanently canceled? Especially when the economic impact of the pandemic on the city’s finances is taken into account?
If Los Angeles Metro proceeded with eliminating fares, it would become the world's largest agency to do so. Metro leaders routinely suggest budget cuts that would carry significant implications for riders. The budget adopted by LA Metro for fiscal year 2021 outlined a 17% service reduction from pre-pandemic levels, with the heaviest cuts coming for buses. They already expected to face a $1.8 billion deficit by mid-2021 due to the impact of the pandemic on the economy. If the free transit concept were to become reality, residents of Los Angeles should expect poor service delivery with delayed transit arrivals and longer travel times.
Residents of Los Angeles should be highly skeptical of free transportation. It is an attempt by the Metro agency to distract the people from the increasingly poor service being delivered under the guise of supporting the community. LA Metro is still looking for opportunities to reduce traffic, but now they are considering implementing congestion traffic pricing. It is clear that the money has to come from somewhere. And if not from fares, where else will they get the funding?
If transit services become free, the residents may assume the poor service delivery is a result of them getting what they paid for, and that they should be grateful for it rather than spearheading much-needed transit improvements. It may lead to residents hiding their complaints about the poor service delivered by the Metro agency just so that they would not take away what little service they were providing, which would save the agency from criticisms and complaints but also thereby prevent any real improvement.
In conclusion, the Los Angeles Metro agency should avoid transitioning to a fare-less system. It's definitely a situation where the pains outweigh the gains.
