Boston is going from a fare structure little more than three-fifths (if that) what riders currently pay in a long list of cities including New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, Montreal, and Toronto, among others, to a fare structure, by dint of free transfers and a very low differential bus fare, still on average less than the North American norm. While T riders may be up in arms, most major city urbanites would kill to roll back the clock a decade or more to the days when they, too, had a $1.25 fare like the MBTA currently has.

This is what happens when you keep your fare artificially low and refuse to implement regular, incremental fare increases. In Montreal and Toronto, fares rise a nickel or a dime each year, every year, and while I wouldn't call Toronto's system a bargain, no one has to suffer through a one-shot, huge fare increase. Not choice riders, who can simply thumb their nose and drive in any case, and certainly not low-income riders, whose only option otherwise would be to wring their hands and suffer.

Here in Chicago, there were political firestorms when our fare was raised twice in three years to our current variable fare of $1.75 to $2.00. Of course, prior to 2004, the fare hadn't budged from $1.50 since the early 1990s, instilling in rider and politician alike the false assumption that a transit system can run on fumes instead of funds. But you get what you pay for, and while transit should be funded, and well, by the public fisc, it, like all city services, doesn't come free.

Given how low Boston fares are right now, and really have always been, relative to other major North American transit systems, I can understand locals' anger, but can't work up much sympathy. The success of keeping your city's fare artificially low through years of bitching, wrangling, and political arm twisting is always, always paid for down the road in sticker shock at the fare box when those tokens, passes, and farecards finally have to be priced more in keeping with the current decade -- or century -- than with the previous one.

Riders may be looking for someone to blame, but they supported their pols in keeping the fare ridiculously low for two decades. I hate to say it, but in situations like this, the finger of blame points right back to those pointing.

Those pols went beyond what you say in restructuring the MBTA. It suddenly saddled the MBTA with over $5 billion in debt, saying service this and stay in the black. Oh, by the way, if our guesses on sales taxes are right, you just might be able to do it.

The guesses were wrong, but the legislature won't fix it. In effect, the fare hike becomes a commuter tax, passed in stealth.

I think you're too narrow on the whole topic too. I propose the other extreme -- fareless mass transit. We know the health, noise, safety, congestion and commercial benefits of more T and fewer cars. We need to pay for it. We already pay billions nationwide annual to subsidize highways from construction through law enforcement. Let's get real about moving people.

Minus the small truck taxes and the few toll roads, we have totally subsidized highways that encourage car and truck travel. It's transit socialism to our own detriment.

The it's-impossible whining can start immediately, but we need some interest groups and politicians who push such ideas. Otherwise, we'll never get out of the car/pollution/traffic horror.

We need some real vision to solve these issues.

Only a moron would propose fareless mass transit. Studies of fareless mass transit find that it attracts the homeless and crime to transit and that it's not economically sustainable.

The MBTA is not only proposing a fare increase, but also a fare restructuring. In an effort to make the system more equitable, the T is getting rid of fare anomalies, such as exit fares at certain stations and one-way fares on the green line. It also listened to the voice of advocates who have asked for free transfers from subway to bus (and step-up transfers from bus to subway) for years. Anybody taking a linked trip will actually see a decrease in fares, but of course this has to be paid for somehow (an increase in the base fare).

The fare restructuring and increase coincides with the full implementation of the new fare equipment and the introduction of the CharlieCard. The proposed fare structure provides discounts for CharlieCard use as the goal is to get a card into everybody's hand asap.

On fare increases in general, it's a difficult subject and opinions diverge based on people's philosophy. Some see transit as a public good more than anything else and want it highly subsidized, others prefer that users pay a larger percentage of the cost. They're both valid opinions and in the end we have to balance those two in order to fund a viable public and sustainable transit system.

I agree with Mike that Boston is now paying the piper. Predictable and gradual increases would certainly be more acceptable and a better way of coping with inflationary costs. My real complaint is that there doesn’t seem to be a plan to cope with the T’s crushing debt load and to finance its expansion plans to boot. (Of course that isn’t stopping them from implementing those plans.) When the legislature imposed “forward funding,” it left the T to clean up its own mess without much in the way of resources to do it – a rare example of tough love from the Mass legislature. I suppose the hope was that the T would be forced to bring its costs in line with what it could afford. Unfortunately, that doesn’t seem to be the order of the day, despite their proclaimed efforts at cost cutting. I have real doubts about that particular bureaucracy ability to reform itself.

I hardly think that fareless is the way to go. While I think that public transit is a valuable public service, I don’t see it as so essential that everyone is entitled to it for free. (Even the Swedes pay for their transit!) In the past few years, the T has increased ads in the stations and on the trains in an effort to capture more revenue, but they clearly could do more on that front. We all spend a lot of time on the platforms waiting – talk about a captive audience. I would gladly ride in trains covered top to bottom and see the stations plastered over, if it would help sort out this mess.

Leaving aside Dharm's childish affront (one must wonder what sort of upbringing he had), ebs' points are well taken.

I can't give up on the fareless idea though. I see no reason not to start with an ideal and see how workable it might be. Our former governor Mike Dukakis likes the idea, but is much more an incrementalist. He thinks the legislature might go for a $1 fare and subsidize the rest. He's with me in saying we need to do whatever necessary right now to increase riders.

We need to stop pretending that we don't subsidize nearly all the highway and road costs. Doing this also promotes exactly what we say we don't want -- that car and truck-heavy world of pollution, congestion, fossil fuel consumption.

We need to study the total costs, including the health, time, lifestyle, as well as direct economic ones. If we find out as it would seem without a pile of numbers that the costs of a fully subsidized mass transit system are considerably less than all those of the car-centric cities, the direction would be plain. A free or very low-cost mass transit, including commuter rail, would not be a luxury.

Then if the aim would be a fareless system and more subways and buses for increased ridership, we could design the system to match. Any security and scheduling issues would be key...and much easier to handle without the overhead of the current system.

Getting out of hell is much more desirable than trying to lower the temperature a few degrees.

What makes you think that free mass transit makes sense? Firstly, public transit is not free in any major city in the US. One major place where it is free (the fareless square in Portland, OR) is considering ending it because it attracts the homeless and criminals onto public transit.

We can hardly afford to run the service we have now (hence the need for fare increases or service cuts) so why will we be able to afford free public transit. Secondly, the economics of public transit are counterintuitive. The more people you have in general the greater the loss. That is if transit is near capacity now during peak hours, if you make it free then you need to operate more service to accomodate the riders. Since most agencies use all their usable fleet during peak periods this means it may be necassery to go out and buy new buses and train cars as well as upgrading their supporting infrastructure (depots, yards, electric traction supply, station platforms, etc..).

As long as we live in a low tax country, the challenge is to operate more efficiently. Remember, unless funded by a dedicated tax every additional dollar for pulic transit is one less dollar for education, healthcare, parks, etc..

Dont' get me wrong I'm for public transit, but in the low density sprawl environments which surround most major cities public transit is not viable without unreasonable subsidies. That's why I'm for focusing development around transit stations and stops. Ultimately, the way to get people into transit is to make teh alternative (driving alone) more expensive. In that regard, Japan is the model. All modes typically recover all of their costs (including transit in larger cities), and while it's expensive to take public transit it's also expensive to drive.

Hidden costs and debt are no less real. If auto and truck drivers had to pay the full costs of highways -- without the extra burden from pollution and ill health, every road would have tolls or state taxes would be several times what they are now. From the Eisenhower days and even before, we as a nation and several states have accepted that we pay billions annually to subsidize the roads that let us travel and move our goods from dock or factory to warehouse and store. We pay it and reap the benefits in subsidized food and other goods. The costs are huge and real, but hidden.

Several Europe and Asian countries have awesome intercity train system. Yet in each country and region, the governments recognized the broad significance of having these. They paid for the infrastructure. Only then did they say keep the costs below this or that level and make sure your fares pay for this percentage of costs.

In contrast, adding the $5.2 billion in debt to the MBTA (28% of its budget by its count), the legislature virtually guaranteed failure. All of the economic stars would have had to align perfectly to begin reducing that debt.

We need both extremes here. First, we must have the vision to define our ideal mass-transit system to fit the current and foreseeable conditions. Our oil dependence, pollution and health issues, road congestion and so forth should make this pretty easy. The vision should not say, "Oh, gee, how can we take this broken, unprofitable system and tweak it to make it barely workable."

That's the primary drive for the call for a fareless MBTA.

The could not be a more perfect set of pressures that would promise greater ridership and fewer cars for our cities. We need innovation and farseeing solutions. The current proposals from the MBTA board virtually ensure fewer riders, more cars, and higher per-ride costs.

In the end, removing the debt, putting better managers in charge of the MBTA, reducing fares to $1 for the subway, and giving the MBTA a fair chance at meeting its costs may the enough. I want us to start with that ideal and fareless system on the table.

The General Court made a huge boner in forward funding. As we are demanding that they fix it, we should be looking beyond patch, patch, patch.

I'll try to gather the supporting data as I get to it -- spun my way, of course. I can be like Lightnin' Hopkins saying, "I don't understand why people don't understand the way I do."

Meanwhile, we've been having other discussion on my rant here and here.

Dharm, I agree that transit-oriented development makes a lot of sense. There is certainly enough demand out there - and the state is offering a variety of incentives for developers. As a developer, I think that's great - as a taxpayer, I'm not so sure.

As for the fareless concept, I'm still not on board. I already give the State of Massachusetts more of my paycheck than I would like. And I don't really think that you can make a 1:1 comparison between the highway system and rail transit since the highway system is used for so much more than commuting and is so critical to the nation's economy. The subway just isn't that critical.

I do agree though that the MBTA is fighting an uphill battle and that they need some new problem solving if they are to succeed. The debt has to be dealt with, although I don't see how the State can just make it go away. Even though no one seems to have noticed, the money really isn't growing on trees around here.

The highway system analogy fails for one reason. To use the highway system, you have to have a car. The government doesn't provide a car for you--you pay for it out of pocket. By arguing that, because we subsidize the highway system, we should have free transit neglects that fact. A fare argument would be that the government should provide the transit infrastructure (tunnels/bridges/rails/etc) and you are required to provide the car, by paying your fare and "renting" a car each time you ride. If we're going to argue for fareless transit, you have to argue for government-provided cars for everyone, too.

That doesn't mean I think the government shouldn't invest more in transit -- it certain should, significantly more -- but that transit riders do still have to pay their "fare" share. (Pun intended).

I can see the argument for fareless transit for certain populations -- school children, disabled individuals -- however.

"Renting" the mass transit space per use is certainly logical. However, we are still have the intent and benefits from dramatically increasing intercity and intracity mass transit.

I'll see if I can find some numbers, assuming it has been studied from that angle. I suspect strongly that whole societal benefits would far exceed the costs of fully subsidized transit.

It is the emotional issue set for legislators and taxpayers that impedes even discussing this. If they in fact see that the reduced pollution, increased health and life span, plus the quality-of-life benefits outweigh the dollar costs, wouldn't that tip this?

What if our streets and highways carrying one-third the present traffic produce all those benefits, plus bringing more shoppers and tourists to pleasant and livable areas? What if we save that 6,000 or whatever the current figure is of highway deaths and the many times that of mangled humans from car wrecks? What if our cancer rates from vehicular pollution (and the associated costs) plummet? And what if we can reduce our petroleum consumption to levels that we can produce domestically?

I don't have figures on those. Pity, because that's surely what it would take for a major attitude and funding shift like this.