MA: Free bus rides show transit equity in action | The Republican Editorials

The question local lawmakers brought to Pioneer Valley Transit Authority riders in Springfield this week had a foregone answer. Yes, many riders appreciate, and now depend upon, the free access they get to bus transportation.

By the time the four got on a bus Monday headed for Union Station, the reason for asking this question was already moot. Frustrated by teen misbehavior at the station, Mayor Domenic J. Sarno had suggested the free rides enabled by the state’s Try Transit initiative should cease. Sarno quickly changed his mind on that – so what can we take away from the brief field trip conducted by state Sens. Jake Oliveira and Adam Gomez and state Reps. Orlando Ramos and Carlos Gonzalez?

We think it’s that public transportation deserves steadfast support from the Legislature, the governor and elected officials throughout Massachusetts. That’s what people want and need. “We did this because the amount of phone calls I received is astronomical,” Gonzalez told The Republican after the trip.

It appears the program will continue. Ramos said this week that the free bus service, funded only through June, is expected to be renewed in the next state budget.

In a letter to the editor of The Republican, a regional nonprofit that aids disabled people warned that loss of free access to bus travel would fall most heavily on poor people. More than half of the PVTA’s ridership lives at or below the poverty line, according to Angelina Ramirez, CEO of the Stavros Center for Independent Living Inc. in Amherst.

In their rolling interviews with riders, the lawmakers heard that free transportation is a godsend to the people the PVTA serves. One rider, Alexus Pope, takes multiple trips daily in her work as a visiting certified nursing assistant. People are traveling not only to jobs but to medical appointments and schools and to shop for food. One lawmaker talked with college students who take buses to their classes, as well as a worker at the Home Depot outlet in Chicopee. Another interviewed a Springfield man who catches a bus to get to his job at Arnold’s Meats in Chicopee.

Only a tiny minority, apparently, hop on to meet young friends at the station and cause trouble. A stepped-up police presence will keep this system safe.

Aside from individual riders’ needs, state support is a matter of equity. The Try Transit program steers money to the state’s 15 regional transportation systems, including the PVTA. It offsets the enormous resources that feed operations of the MBTA in Boston.

Ramos notes that money to underwrite public transportation comes from the Fair Share Amendment, which places a levy on incomes over a million dollars.

Every day, that money helps make life a little easier at the other end of the income scale.

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