Adjusted fare grid for transit is popular
A fare grid for public transit adjusted according to ability to pay has strong support in the Montreal area. Considering we already give breaks to students and seniors, it’s not a huge stretch to offer similar deals to the unemployed and to people on disability.
Tim S. 08:18 on 2019-04-04 Permalink
I’m a little wary of this idea. I’m all for income redistribution through direct payments which people can then choose to spend as they wish, but I’d rather have the actual products and services be the same price for all as much as possible. I remember going to a movie in the UK, and they had special prices for children, youths, students, seniors, and people on various forms of social assistance – many more categories than we usually have here. Even though I was a student myself at the time, I could see why people who actually had a job might feel as though they were being charged extra for the privilege, and eventually get a little resentful.
Kate 08:59 on 2019-04-04 Permalink
It also raises the question how someone proves their unemployed or disabled status to qualify – and what happens when the person gets a job, or gets past a temporary disability?
Alex 11:52 on 2019-04-04 Permalink
The way that it works in the UK is that if you are claiming employment insurance you are entitled to the reduced fares, and the disabled status works the in the same way, i.e if you are claiming disability benefits. When you start to claim, you get proof of this. Once those benefits expire then so do the reduced fares
Faiz Imam 22:25 on 2019-04-04 Permalink
This all sounds well and good, but at the end of the day this all depends on government funding.
As the article says, if some people start paying less, other people will have to pay more to keep revenues stable.
Given that ARTM won’t want to raise the base price too much, there is only so much they can cut prices for various groups.
We need new operational funding to meaningfully change how we pay for mobility.
For example many municipalities have programs to allow the elderly to have free off-peak transit. But those exist due to the municipalities themselves providing dedicated funding from their budgets to do that.
Basically, as long as the funding model supported by the Provincial government continues, there is really very little the ARTM can do.
Kate 08:52 on 2019-04-05 Permalink
Note that the coverage has only been about wide acceptance for the idea, not impending implementation.