Ever heard of free public transportation? Well it’s not an alien concept anymore, it does exist! However, this is not very common. Who would benefit from such free transportation? Obviously the people or the citizens would be the ones who are most benefited by it but free public transportation is also beneficial for the economy and for the environment. Why? Because if mass transit was free then a lot of people would use it instead of their own automobiles. This means lesser emissions or carbon dioxide and other pollutants and fumes and better quality air!
Free public transportation is already a successful idea in Hasselt, Belgium. In fact, free public transit has started more than a decade ago and it is still as popular! A brief history about free public transportation in Hasselt:
In the year 1995, the politicians became aware of the poor public transportation in Hasselt and the problems it created. Although the public buses covered a huge area, yet there were very few commuters. Hence, the city’s transport company (De Lijn) was presented with the project of free bus service by the city council. And as they say, the rest was history. Thanks to Steve Stevaert, free bus service was launched on July 1, 1995 in Hasselt. This became a huge hit! When there was no free bus service, the numbers of passengers per day commuting by the bus were a mere 1000; however, with the introduction of the free bus service, the number zoomed up to 12,600! Gradually other free shuttle service was also introduced for convenience.
Now, back to the present; it would not be such a bad idea if every city had free public transportation. The funding for such services could be obtained by introducing a small increase in taxes. This would hardly be any problem because in comparison to the savings made by using free transportation instead of private cars, the tax paid for such free public transit would be negligible! Also, staffs would be required and nor would there be wastage of paper for the purpose of tickets!
Free public transportation offers various environmental benefits such as reducing the emissions of greenhouse gases, which means no global warming; other advantages are the reduction in noise pollution, air pollution, smog, congestions, not to mention the significant reduction in fossil fuels like diesel or petrol! No more worries over increase in petrol prices! Free public transportation also saves the country from spending billions of money on highways and saves trees because there would be no printing of tickets! Not only that, the precious urban space would also not be wasted on parking spaces and there would be less cramped parking spaces. It also reduces litter! Because a majority of the litter found in metropolitan cities are the receipts or bus tickets. Also it fosters public pride in community resources and there would be no more fare disputes!