With soaring ridership levels, Worcester considers another year of fare-free transit

Passengers boarded a WRTA bus at Union Station, where bus rides have been fare-free since Spring 2020.Matthew J. Lee/Globe Staff

WORCESTER — It’s hard to remember a time when bus riders in Worcester had to wait in line to board, slowly stepping through the bus’ front door one by one as each person tapped their pass or inserted change into the fare box.

On a recent afternoon, riders quickly entered the Route 31 bus at Hub Center outside downtown’s Union Station through both the front and back doors, passing by where the fare box once stood on the way to their seats.

Four years ago, at the beginning of the pandemic, the second-largest city in New England eliminated fares on its public transit system, joined by others around the country. Since then, the Worcester Regional Transit Authority has transformed itself from an agency struggling to attract riders to one that has soared past its pre-pandemic ridership level.

Now, the WRTA Advisory Board is planning to vote this month on whether to nix fares for a fifth year, making it one of the largest, longest-running fare-free programs in the country.

Proponents of fare-free bus service in Worcester say it has helped more people better access medical services and job opportunities by bus; they’d like to see fares eliminated permanently. But, although the agency appears to have enough funding to cover the WRTA’s operating budget for the upcoming fiscal year, the federal money from special one-time pandemic funding and state money from a fare-free grant program closing that gap are dwindling, raising concerns about how to keep the program going.

“We’re all wondering, how much longer can we count on this?” said Adam Thielker, 72, at a recent meeting of fare-free advocates in Worcester. “Coming in every year [to advocate for] this is just a grind, it takes up so much of our energy which we could be putting towards making the bus system actually operate better, rather than just simply continuing with what we’ve got.”

Before the pandemic in fiscal year 2019, ridership had been declining after the WRTA increased fares and cut service in 2017 to cover its budget gap.

Fare revenue has never come close to covering the cost of operating the agency’s bus and paratransit service in Worcester and 36 surrounding communities in Central Massachusetts. Across the nation, public transit ridership has long been heavily subsidized by government funding.

The WRTA’s fare revenue totaled about $3 million in fiscal year 2019 and covered just about nine percent of the WRTA’s operating expenses. The WRTA relies on money from municipalities in its service area, the state, and the federal government to make up the shortfall. The agency estimated that it was spending as much as $850,000 per year on fare collection equipment, maintenance, and staff, according to a 2019 report by the Worcester Regional Research Bureau, a public policy research organization. When that’s factored in, fare collection only covered about seven percent of the WRTA’s operating budget.

As the state’s regional transit authorities have struggled to attract riders since the pandemic, Worcester has bucked the trend. Ridership across all 15 agencies in fiscal year 2023 was still about 22 percent below pre-pandemic levels, according to MassDOT. But in Worcester, last year’s ridership exceeded its pre-pandemic level by about 30 percent, one of only three RTAs that had more riders last year than before the pandemic. One of the other two, Merrimack Valley Transit, is also fare-free.

Riders who depend on the WRTA to get around, the local chamber of commerce, some of the city’s largest employers, and Worcester’s state legislators agree that the benefits of eliminating fares far outweigh the cost of the lost fare revenue.

“This was a win-win for us,” said Alex Guardiola, vice president of public affairs and public policy at the Worcester Regional Chamber of Commerce. “Folks can get to work for free, they don’t have to choose between the food they have to purchase and the actual cost of ridership to get to work.”

WRTA buses stopped in front of City Hall.Matthew J. Lee/Globe Staff

Guardiola serves on a task force created by Governor Maura Healey this year to determine how to fund transportation in Massachusetts, as public transit agencies lack enough money to cover their operating expenses in coming years. The state’s largest transit agency, the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority, is facing a budget gap of about $628 million come July.

For years, transit advocates have pushed the Legislature and governor to create funding sources that would allow public transit agencies to close their budget gaps and plan for improvements to service and infrastructure. In the past, the Legislature created commissions and explored congestion pricing, increasing fees for Uber and Lyft, and tying the gas tax to inflation, but no funding solution has made it across the finish line into law.

In Worcester, the median household income is about $62,000, according to the most recent US Census figures, far below the median household income in Massachusetts of about $95,000.

State Senator Robyn Kennedy, who represents parts of Worcester, called fare-free public transit a “no-brainer.”

“This is a win win win,” she said. “It benefits our residents in the region, it benefits our employers, it benefits our economy, it benefits our environment. Rarely is there an issue where there is an all around benefit in such a way.”

And, fare-free rides, combined with more frequent service, could attract more people to use buses, helping to relieve congestion on roads and lower tailpipe carbon emissions that contribute to climate change.

A poll of 500 residents of Worcester and surrounding communities in late February and early March performed by MassINC and funded by the Barr Foundation, which supports fare-free transit, found that 54 percent of respondents said they strongly support continuing fare-free service for the WRTA.

State Senator Robyn Kennedy of Worcester spoke during a round table meeting of supporters who want to make all WRTA buses free for a fifth year. Matthew J. Lee/Globe Staff

The WRTA Advisory Board, which sets the agency’s policies, signaled at a recent meeting that it agreed. The WRTA still has about $23 million in federal pandemic relief funding available, according to a presentation from the agency. To cover fare-free service in the current fiscal year, the WRTA used about $3 million of its federal pandemic relief funds and about $2 million from a MassDOT grant program funded by new “millionaire’s tax” money, a 4 percent surtax on people with incomes over $1 million that Massachusetts voters approved in 2022.

The board meets again on April 18 to vote on the budget for the fiscal year that starts in July, when the current fare-free service is scheduled to end.

For riders who have come to rely on the fare-free service, the stakes are high.

“I’m a veteran, and I definitely need the RTA to get from A to B,” said Michael Dodds at a recent meeting of fare-free advocates. “I need this, I really need to have the free transportation.”