Boston and Cambridge eyeing MBTA’s 1 bus for fare-free route

Boston and Cambridge are in talks to make the MBTA’s route 1 bus fare-free, Mayor Michelle Wu stated throughout a WBUR look Monday. 

Talking on “Radio Boston,” Wu stated Boston is on the lookout for methods to broaden its fare-free bus program — which at the moment covers the 23, 28, and 29 bus routes — and is exploring partnerships with different municipalities. 

“We’ve been working very intently with Cambridge,” Wu stated. “The 1 bus is such a well-used route. It additionally will get very a lot slowed down in site visitors, and so it might be certainly one of these examples the place we might doc and present the advantages of individuals having the ability to get on and experience without spending a dime, board on all doorways.” 

She referred to as the bus route, which runs from Harvard Sq. in Cambridge to Nubian Sq. in Roxbury, “a key to the regional financial system.” The 1 bus is among the many MBTA’s hottest routes, Massachusetts Division of Transportation ridership knowledge reveals. 

Boston’s conversations with Cambridge are “in progress,” Wu stated. “We’re not fairly there but, and this might contain the MBTA signing off, as effectively.” 

Cambridge convened a Fare-Free Working Group final 12 months to discover a fare-free bus pilot and is engaged on a pilot program primarily based off of the group’s suggestions, Cambridge Mayor Sumbul Siddiqui advised the Boston Herald in March. Siddiqui confirmed the town is targeted on the 1 bus route, “a key connection between Cambridge and Boston serving a various inhabitants.”

Boston.com has reached out to Cambridge for touch upon its discussions with Boston about eliminating fares on the 1 bus. 

Underneath Boston’s fare-free program, the town appropriated $8 million in federal pandemic aid funds to reimburse the MBTA for misplaced fares over two years. This system has proven some indicators of success on the one-year mark, with ridership on the fare-free routes rising as much as 3 times as quick as the remainder of the MBTA bus system, the town stated in a March report. 

The state Legislature has not put aside direct funding for fare-free transit, although final 12 months’s transportation bond invoice permits the MBTA and Regional Transit Authorities to borrow $6.95 million for fare-free bus pilot applications, The Boston Globe reported. 

On the nationwide degree, Sen. Ed Markey and Rep. Ayanna Pressley reintroduced laws on Monday to make extra buses fare-free by offering $5 billion per 12 months over 5 years to state and native governments contemplating fare-free transit applications.

Wu, who joined Pressley and Markey at a press convention saying the renewed push for the “Freedom to Transfer Act,” stated Boston has achieved operational efficiencies by not accumulating bus fares on some routes.  

“It’s slowing down routes once we are asking individuals to queue up and discover their types of cost and all that,” she advised “Radio Boston” host Tiziana Dearing.

“Transit companies all over the place must rethink how they fund their companies,” Wu stated. “It’s not working, and the bit that comes from bus revenues is only a teeny tiny bit that in reality ought to go to creating it extra environment friendly.”