Bus Fares

After Detroit eliminated its fee to transfer between DDOT and SMART buses. Advocates in Pennsylvania want Philadelphia to be next.

May 2, 2019 - PlanPhilly

A new plan will phase out cash fare payments on buses and trolleys, but many of the details are still up in the air.

March 6, 2019 - The Boston Globe

Joining Chicago, Cincinnati, Denver, and Kansas City, Seattle now offers reduced bus fares to low-income residents. Some worry the program entrenches class differences and doesn't truly aid social mobility.

May 14, 2015 - Governing

The mass protests that have swept through Brazilian cities over the past week where sparked by planned bus fare increases, but quickly expanded to encompass a variety of complaints. Will the protests end now that fares have been lowered?

June 20, 2013 - WNYC: Transportation Nation

Jean-Francois Mayet, the mayor of Châteauroux, introduced free ridership in a bid to turn around his town's failing transit system. Eleven years later, total ridership has increased 208 percent. Henry Grabar examines whether free transit is scalable.

October 31, 2012 - The Atlantic Cities

Is there a difference between the two most common fare structures in public transit?

October 23, 2010 - TheCityFix

A couple of weeks ago, I was on a bus in Chicago and noticed something that I had not noticed before- that how you paid to get on the bus affected how long you took to get on the bus.  People who flashed monthly passes boarded in a few seconds.  People who put in dollar bills got on a lot more slowly, as they fumbled for the right number of bills.  People who had to pay change took longer still.  So to speed buses’ on-time performance (pun intended) transit agencies should encourage the former and discourage the latter.

August 13, 2010 - Michael Lewyn

New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg recently announced an idea to speed up buses in Manhattan by eliminating crosstown bus fares.

August 5, 2009 - The New York Times