Coronavirus showed how broken public transport funding is — here’s how we fix it
Sustainable options
Reliable and affordable public transport is essential to address climate change and improve social equity, but it needs sustainable sources of funding. Most of us don’t know exactly how our bus or train rides are paid for. It usually involves a mix of fare revenue, commercial taxes, tolls, and contributions from regional or national government. The mix differs a lot between cities, as shown in the charts below which lay out the operating revenue sources for New York, Paris and London.
Rescue packagesandbailoutshelped to bridge funding gaps during lockdown, but the pandemic is showing major flaws in the way that cities fund transit. Reliance on income from fares and a lack of funding almost immediately caused service cuts, at the exact time when public transport was an essential service for key workers to travel to and from work.
COVID-19 also interrupted a boom in sustainable mobility. Lisbon saw a17% increasein public transport passengers after introducing a €40 (£36.20) monthly pass in 2019. Paris expanded its cycle network by 300km and saw a54% increasein cycling in 2019 alone, with5% fewercar trips than in 2010. Even in New Zealand, one of the most car-dependent countries in the world, infrastructure upgrades saw the number of rail trips taken in Aucklandincrease by 72%in five years.
However, this boom didn’t benefit everyone. In cities across North America and the UK with social housing shortages and market-driven housing systems, public transport improvementsfuelled gentrification, which in turn can displaceworking class,Black and minority ethnicityresidents.
There is an opportunity to go beyond short-term rescue packages to make permanent changes to transit funding, to address social inequalities and catalyse the shift to just and sustainable mobility.
Social impacts
In a post-COVID world, public transport isn’t dead, but it must adapt. Social distancing may haveled to more driving, although this is not inevitable and depends on whether citiesprotect more road spacefor walking, cycling and public transport. People are travelling less as firms shift to flexible working, students are learning online and more people are opting towalk or cyclein cities worldwide.
However, it is possible to return to previous levels of public transport use, by encouraging different travel modes for those who travelled by car before the pandemic. Public transport is still critical for cutting carbon emissions, as well as an essential public service.
If public transport isn’t financially sustainable with existing funding models, we must question the alternative. Is it sustainable to allow a large-scale shift back to private vehicles? The social cost of inadequate or unaffordable public transport is clear. Research ontransport povertyshows how unaffordable public transport or dependence on car ownership is a barrier for low-income households to get to work or toaccess healthcare services.
Changing the model
To make sure public transport has sustainable funding in the coming years, the mix of funding from different sources and levels of government must change.
First, a decent baseline level of services must be guaranteed. Service cuts create huge social costs, but this is inevitable if funding relies heavily on fare revenue. Stable revenues like property taxes and commercial income can support this baseline. As local and regional governments must run balanced budgets, central government support is also an essential stopgap to prevent service cuts.
Second, affordable fares, or evenfree transit, helps to retain higher levels of use, and improve accessibility to jobs, education and public services for low-income residents. High fare increases put a burden on low-income households that often don’t have an alternative.
Lastly, we can make better use of funding for public transport by engaging with people who rely on transit to get around the city. Public transport cannot improve social equity without understanding the needs of everyone from office commuters to shift workers, Black, indigenous, and minority ethnicities – including parents, children, disabled and senior citizens. This is under threat if funding is not sustainable after COVID-19.
This article is republished fromThe ConversationbyJenny McArthur, Lecturer in Urban Infrastructure and Policy,UCL;Emilia Smeds, Researcher in Urban Governance and Mobility,UCL, andRosalie Singerman Ray, Postdoctoral Research Associate in Transportation Technology and Society,University of Connecticutunder a Creative Commons license. Read theoriginal article.
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