Latest News - see our Blog. July 4, 2008 - ABC News: Penny McLintock Free public transport worth re-considering: Stanhope Chief Minister Jon Stanhope says the ACT Government might consider making bus travel free in Canberra if patronage of the service does not dramatically improve. Mr Stanhope says the Government considered fully subsidising the ACTION bus service in the past but the idea was rejected because of repeated advice showing price was not the main reason for low patronage of the service. April 22, 2008 - Earth Day. Austin, Texas Bus Riders' Union announces Free Public Transit proposal. March 19, 2008 - The Philadelphia Inquirer  Interstate Highway 95 vacant as it is shut down for emergency repairs. The autosprawl system is crumbling under its own weight. With oil-wars not going well, the carbon-auto system has gone to the well too many times. Taxpayers can no longer afford the trillion-dollar subsidy. Now we are stuck with an unsafe, unsustainable, unworkable system.    Ugly, useless, mess - now needs expensive fix. What else is about to fall?   January 11, 2008 - Dana Kozlov CHICAGO (CBS) ― "After months of debate and disagreement, Illinois lawmakers have agreed on a way to fund public transportation. But Gov. Rod Blagojevich has thrown a wrench in those plans by agreeing to the bill, only if seniors, 65 and older, ride for free.... Ideally, Gov. Rod Blagojevich says, everyone should be able to ride public transportation for free." November 25th, 2007 - The Charlotte Observer - "Charlotte's coming-out party for light rail Saturday drew unexpectedly large crowds....Trains rolled into stations with people standing nose to shoulder, often allowing only inches for new passengers to board. Riders waited as long as two hours at the I-485/South Boulevard station for free rides. And the Charlotte Area Transit System began driving rail passengers back to their cars on buses because the lines for return train trips were so long."   October 11th, 2007 - digital journal posted by Bart B. Van Bockstaele. Den Bosch, a city in The Netherlands, will organize free public transportation for everyone in 2008. The government of the province of North-Brabant has decided this today when discussing three public transportation experiments. September 4th, 2007 - Transit Miami. "So there you have it. This is what Miami is up against; this is what America is up against. It goes to show that our federal government is not serious whatsoever about curbing driving demand, pursuing sustainability, or fighting climate change." August 25th, 2007 - Two libertarians advocate free public transit - a "no-brainer" says one. August 23rd, 2007 - Nurture New York's Nature advocates free public transit. August 16th, 2007 - smh.com - TWO-THIRDS of Australians want free travel on buses, trains and ferries, funded from Federal Government surpluses, a nationwide survey says. August 1st, 2007 - Minnesota governor vetoes gas tax. Bridge collapses.       Your tax cuts at work! August 1st, 2007 - Flexcar's low-car diet. 27 takers in Portland. July 26th, 2007 - Alternet publishes Dave Olsen , leading advocate of free public transit. July 16th, 2007 - Philly Car Share offers free transit to customers when they take public transit to a car share. Transit Topics Online. July 5th, 2007 - The Tyee , a British Columbia Newspaper, publishes five part series advocating free public transportation. July 1st, 2007 - Global Investor - Hasselt Celebrates 10 Years of Free Public Transport June 27th, 2007 - Environmental organizations  issue "Call for a moratorium on EU Agrofuel targets and incentives, and on Agroenergy from large-scale monocultures in the EU." Joint Press Release by EcoNexus, Biofuelwatch, Corporate Europe Observatory . June 21st, 2007 - The American Public Transporation Association  announces: "More than 100 public transportation agencies nationwide will be participating in the Second Annual 2007 National Dump the Pump Day on Thursday, June 21.  Sponsored by the American Public Transportation Association (APTA), 2007 National Dump the Pump Day is a public awareness day that emphasizes the environmental benefits of using public transportation." June 7th, 2007 - USA Today reports: "Charlottesville, Va., home of the University of Virginia, is... considering joining a handful of cities in the USA that have eliminated transit fares in hopes of spurring ridership on public transportation and relieving congestion." June 1st, 2007 - Auto-Free New York advocates Free Public Transit. "...In particular the city should move to raise the price for motorists to enter the Manhattan Central Business District, who now for the most part pay nothing to use costly-to-maintain bridges and potholed streets, and to further lower the price for transit use. Just how low can we go? Well, all the way to zero is a possibility!" May 20th, 2007 - We are the news. Free Public Transit advocates, take heart! We are small, but growing. We now have this website to focus our argument. Keep the criticisms and suggestions coming. The corporate trolls are caught off guard. They have no answer to us. How do they explain all the success stories? It is not a pipe dream. Free public transit is up and running in many places right now. Don't be fooled though, there is a lot of profit at stake. The blow-back from entrenched interests will be strong and sustained. We at freepublictransit.org are expecting a long bitter fight. April 30th, 2007 - The Daily Bruin advocates Free Public Transit. "The transportation agency could cut out the cost of purchasing and maintaining the fare collection boxes on buses and do away with collecting and counting fares. In terms of efficiency, buses could stop and go faster, since people could enter and leave the buses without waiting to pay. And bus drivers would be free to focus on actually driving rather than policing the money. On top of that, the extra riders attracted by the free transit would reduce car traffic, thus relieving congestion and curbing pollution." April 14th, 2007 - FreePublicTransit.org is published on the web.   March 6th, 2007 - (03-06) 13:58 PST SAN FRANCISCO sfgate.com -- San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom said today that he has asked the Municipal Transportation Agency to look into the possibility of providing fare-free public transit in the city. ( this article disappeared  6 June 07 )  Copenhagen Post: A research group is looking into whether providing free public transportation would help solve Denmark's traffic problems. In an attempt to control the nation's ever-worsening traffic congestion, the government has assigned a research group, the Danish Board of Technology (DBT), to find viable solutions to the problem, including the possibility of making public transportation free. Carfree Times reports that Hasselt, Belgium, made its bus system free. The mayor rejected plans for a third ring highway, converted one existing ring highway into a pedestrian and bicycle street, and made the buses free. Since then, bus ridership has increased by 800%. This initiative has been so successful in attracting new business to Hasselt that taxes have been cut and the city's debt is down. To celebrate the first anniversary of the changes, the mayor announced free bicycles. Conservative blogger says ok to Free Public Transit: I've often thought about this and glad for this blog comment. If free rapid transit would reduce congestion on Los Angeles streets, yes - of course, I would be in favor of it. Look at the Santa Monica Frwy heading east from 2-7pm every single week day. Or the 405 which is constantly crowded! How many millions of man hours are lost every year sitting in traffic on these two reeways? Where is our subway down Wilshire? Why does it stop at Western? I would prefer to have buses (and rail) free, rather than charge to use freeways, as all that would do would encourage even more usage of surface streets. This is a great idea. Make all public transit free. As a conservative, I hate the idea of higher taxes, but I would gladly pay to get our city moving again. Posted by: hiker | March 07, 2007 at 08:54 AM Edmonton Journal: Public transit should be comprehensive, free. If I cut down tracts of the Whitemud Creek nature reserve, the police would charge me with vandalism. So how does the City of Edmonton get away with it? Sydney, Australia, GreenLeft Online 17 March 2007: The Case for Free Public Transport. To jump start the switch to public transport we have to make it free. That’s what transport authorities have always done when they really need us to use the public system, as in Sydney during the 2000 Olympics....The real cost to NSW of car- and truck-based cities Air pollution: The health cost in Sydney’s greater metropolitan region alone (Sydney, the Illawarra and the Lower Hunter) is anywhere between $1 billion and $8.4 billion per year (depending mainly on the price put on life!), with motor vehicles contributing anything between $496 million and $4.7 billion (NSW Department of Environment and Conservation — DEC). A 2003 Bureau of Transport and Regional Economics (BTRE) study put the figure at about $3.3 billion for Australia (about $1.5 billion for NSW). Road accidents:$3-4 billion per year (based on studies by the BTRE and the Centre for Automotive Safety Research). Traffic congestion: Estimated at around $7.5 billion per year and rising (BTRE). Disposal of waste: Road transport generates used vehicles, used tyres and waste oil. The cost of disposal was estimated in 1995 at between $1.2-4.7 million per year (State of the Environment 1997, NSW DEC). Greenhouse-gas emissions: The transport sector is NSW’s second-largest source of greenhouse gas emissions, around 20% of all energy-related emissions. Road transport accounts for 91.4% of the total (State of the Environment 2006, NSW DEC). Noise pollution: 1.5 million people in NSW suffer from noise pollution, which is rising with growing car use (State of the Environment 1997, NSW DEC). Road development and maintenance: Present annual spending by the Roads and Traffic Authority is $2 billion, with more than $700 million going to road and infrastructure maintenance. Total cost: $12.2 billion (minimum) to $20.9 billion (maximum).