Alon Levy on Service Improvements

Now, obviously, transit policy can have multiple goals. But there are trade-offs; as the transit researcher Alon Levy put it, ‘If there is money to make service free, there is money to spend on service improvements.’ In D.C., free bus service is expected to cost $43 million in 2024 and increase slightly each year thereafter. For comparison, expanding service for about a dozen lines to include night service costs roughly $8.5 million. And of course, taxpayers are still paying for the bus; it’s just not happening at the farebox. Perhaps most important, making the bus free might exacerbate the very issues that frustrate bus riders, potentially making transit less reliable, less frequent, and maybe even less safe.