Montreal City Weblog

Kate 08:49 on 2024-04-27 Permalink Reply  

• Chris 10:39 on 2024-04-27 Permalink

  At a cost of $40 million per year.

• dhomas 11:06 on 2024-04-27 Permalink

  My mother-in-law registered for the free transit and is loving it. She would rarely take transit in the past, but now likes to get use out of her new Opus. It’s working to incentivize her, in any case.

  I wonder if it ACTUALLY costs $40M (even though so far, it has only cost the city $17.5M, as per the article). I mean, they can easily track this since the Opus cards are registered. The data is available for every transaction that is not billed. But more than that, is it really lost revenue? Take the example of my mother-in-law. She never would have taken public transit if it wasn’t free. So, the STM aren’t losing any revenue; they never would have gotten it in the first place.

  I’m happy they are doing it and I’m happy to subsidize public transit with an extra $40M. But I’m also a stickler for detailed data. I’d like to see after a year if the “lost” revenue actually adds up to $40M. That’s over 10.5M individual tickets at 3.75$/ticket.

• Kate 11:26 on 2024-04-27 Permalink

  Some of the social benefits are real but hard to put a pricetag on. If free transit means more older people are getting out of the house, staying more active, socializing more, this means lower health care costs for them over time, an important factor given our aging population. But you can’t meter it.

• jeather 12:29 on 2024-04-27 Permalink

  I would bet some of it is lost revenue — people who would have paid for transit now using it for free (especially combined with free transit for kids, so they can bring their grandkids places), but I suspect some is just added usage in off-peak times.

• Ephraim 13:19 on 2024-04-27 Permalink

  I wonder how much it has saved in insurance payments and could we get the SAAQ to add money in to it as a way to keep some of these drivers off the road?

• Uatu 14:55 on 2024-04-27 Permalink

  Yes a lot of these folks are unable to drive so taking public transit to doctor appointments etc. might even save the health care system from unnecessary er visits

• SMD 16:44 on 2024-04-27 Permalink

  My 65+ neighbour called me yesterday to tell me that thanks to her free bus pass she’s going downtown for walks three times a week now; it is doing her a world of good.

• Chris 17:24 on 2024-04-27 Permalink

  Yup, all good points/stories. But transit money is not infinite and there are tradeoffs. That $40 million could also buy about 40 new buses, which in 4 years would replace the 155 buses they are retiring.

• dhomas 17:46 on 2024-04-27 Permalink

  So, it’s the City of Montreal providing those extra $40M. My point is that I don’t think it actually costs $40M to provide this service. This is $40M the STM would not have gotten otherwise and would never have gone towards new buses. The STM is coming out ahead on this one, I would say.

• Blork 20:21 on 2024-04-27 Permalink

  The $40 million has to be almost entirely opportunity cost. What other costs could there be, besides a small setup for registering users or whatever? If 34,000 people swapped their $97 a month Opus cards for the free one it would add up to about $40 million. But are these real numbers? How many of those 34,000 are swapping a paid card for a free one, versus taking a free card instead of not using the system at all? Plus, given that many (most?) 65+ people are retired, how many buy a monthly pass anyway, instead of just individual fares for occasional use?

  I suspect that $40 million is a number that showed up in a report somewhere as some kind of projection and people have run with it and made it “truth.”

  Even if it’s realistic, it’s still opportunity cost and not cash layout, so it’s not a true “cost” in terms of “expense.” And given that public transit is supposed to be a public good and not a for-profit enterprise, opportunity cost should not weigh heavily in the discussion or decision process.

• Uatu 12:34 on 2024-04-28 Permalink

  Just say that public transport will help save the French language and culture since there’s apparently no problem with allocating 603million dollars for that lol