THE RECENT DEBATES around the merits or otherwise of free public transport are welcome.
In over 100 cities and regions around the world FFPT (Fare Free Public Transport) is a reality. In many other places, campaigns demanding it or experiments with it are increasing.
The astonishing thing in this debate for many of us, has been the trenchant opposition from the Green Party to the measure – a policy which is widely supported among other Green parties and environmental groups in other countries is opposed here.
Minister Eamon Ryan’s dismissal of it on the grounds of giving rise to “unnecessary trips” is telling, while other representatives have questioned its impact on reducing car use or costs.
All have sought to use an Ernst and Young report as the definitive word on the issue.
Firstly, the dichotomy between providing better more frequent public transport and free public transport is a dichotomy only in the heads of those opposing free public transport. It’s a false narrative and one that neither I nor others who advocate free and frequent public transport have ever raised. We need both.
We need better, more frequent and efficient public transport in rural and urban areas and we need to make it free. Unfortunately, we are doing neither and the much-touted improvements promised to date barely scratch the surface of the revolution we need in public transport.
One supporter of the report told us that the €590 million in fares foregone could buy nearly 800 buses. True. But the Greens and Government have no plans to buy 800 buses next year. Just as they have no plans to provide free public transport.
The idea that this is a bad use of funds or that it should be counterposed to other needed measures is to fundamentally misunderstand the benefits it could yield and the need for radical climate action in the face of this crisis.
While much PR is spent on promised future Dart, Luas and rail projects, which are welcome, the bus will remain the workhorse of our public transport system and its increased capacity and reach is key in any hope of getting motorists out of cars.
The Busconnects scheme for Dublin promises at the end of its life a boost of just 200 buses across the city. The combined total fleet operating in Dublin now has only recently reached the same levels we had in 2009 when the last Green Party Transport Minister cut hundreds from the fleet as an austerity measure.
In areas like Ballyfermot, the changes the NTA have introduced have seen an actual worsening of the service. It’s certainly true that people in lower Ballyfermot will not be enticed to move out of their cars if the service was free, because they don’t really have a service anymore. The old 79 route has been scrapped and replaced with an hourly bus that rarely shows up on time.
The experience is not unusual across the city. In rural areas, of course, there is little to connect many villages, towns and cities. The much-lauded recent increases in rural local links, while welcome, do nothing to reverse the thousands of lost departures implemented by Bus Éireann over the last decade as they withdrew from many small villages and towns.
Much of this was forced on them by the NTA licensing private for-profit operators or from cuts by the central government.
Generally, I take E&Y reports with a large pinch of salt: the big four accountancy firms are relied upon frequently by state agencies and government bodies to deliver a report which confirms the states preferred policy.
The reports suggestion that FFPT will result in increased anti-social activity and result in just a 1% decline in car usage. I believe both conclusions are flawed and designed to kill off the debate on the merits of FFPT. How many people leave cars at home or reduce their car usage depends on how you implement FFPT.
It is true that the experience in other regions and cities is that FFPT does not in itself result in a mass exodus from private cars. Although the numbers in Tallin, Dunkirk and other cities are certainly higher than 1%. It depends largely on what you do at the same time in terms of capacity, frequency and crucially connectivity.
The best results tend to be accompanied by increased connectivity to wider areas and regions as well as increase frequency and reliability. We didn’t really need one the big four accountancy firms to tell us that.
But what E&Y, the NTA and a cohort of Green and professionals miss is the real benefits that FFPT would have on wider issues and climate actions. Even a 1% reduction in car usage could mean hundreds of millions less in kilometres driven by cars, millions of tonnes less in oil and diesel and emissions, cleaner air in cities and towns, increased social inclusion and real benefits for lower paid workers, students, and marginalised groups.
In fact, many of the campaigns for FFPT have been waged precisely for these benefits. But climate is also key, and therefore it is so profoundly disappointing that the Greens don’t get it.
This government is failing to reduce emission across all sectors.
Transport accounted for 34% of energy related CO2 emissions in 2021, according to the SEAI.
They are a part of a global failure with terrifying consequences. More Co2 than ever in human history was emitted last year – some 30 years after the Kyoto Protocol.
In the face of an obvious and worsening climate crisis, we have seen a massive backlash from fossil fuel interests, a boom in gas production and profits and an increase in the ideas of climate denial and scepticism.
Many ordinary people see green polices as a litany of carbon taxes, congestion charges and unaffordable demands for lifestyle changes and are completely alienated from them and from climate action.
To date, reliance on market mechanisms, private investment decisions, carbon trading and taxes have failed abysmally. Reliance on neoliberal economic thinking will not stop climate chaos here or globally.
FFPT has the potential to change this debate and build a powerful constituency around climate action.
Many of the things we need to do to tackle climate can benefit, not punish ordinary people. Switching to public transport and connecting communities and regions is one.
Making it free could say to people that, like warmer healthier homes, the work needed can make most people’s lives measurably better.
The enthusiasm I have seen for this measure from students, lower paid workers and hard-pressed families makes its potential as a climate measure enormous.
If we do this right, we can convince much more than 1% of car users to switch to a convenient and reliable mass transit option.
The opposition to it is reminiscent of the same economic conservative arguments against free education or free healthcare.
One day people will wonder how any progressive or climate concerned person could have opposed it or relied on a flawed consultancy report to rubbish it.
Bríd Smith is a People Before Profit TD for Dublin South Central.
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