Last January, Tallinn, the capital city of Estonia, did something that no other city its size had done before: It made all public transit in the city free for residents.
City officials made some bold predictions about what would result. There would be a flood of new passengers on Tallinn’s buses and trams — as many as 20 percent more riders. Carbon emissions would decline substantially as drivers left their cars at home and rode transit instead. And low-income residents would gain new access to jobs that they previously couldn’t get to. As Mayor Edgar Savisaar likes to say, zeroing out commuting costs was for some people as good as receiving a 13th month of salary.
One year later, this city of 430,000 people has firmly established itself as the leader of a budding international free-transit movement. Tallinn has hosted two conferences for city officials, researchers and journalists from across Europe to discuss the idea. The city has an English-language website devoted to its experiment. And promotional materials have proclaimed Tallinn the "capital of free public transport."
The idea has been very popular with Tallinners. In an opinion poll, nine out of ten people said they were happy with how it’s going. Pille Saks is one of them. "I like free rides," says Saks, a 29 year-old secretary who goes to work by bus. "I have a car, but I don’t like to drive with it, especially in the winter when there is a lot of snow and roads are icy."
Different Reads on Ridership
What’s less clear on the first anniversary of free transit in Tallinn is whether it has actually changed commuting behavior all that much.
City officials made some bold predictions about what would result. There would be a flood of new passengers on Tallinn’s buses and trams — as many as 20 percent more riders. Carbon emissions would decline substantially as drivers left their cars at home and rode transit instead. And low-income residents would gain new access to jobs that they previously couldn’t get to. As Mayor Edgar Savisaar likes to say, zeroing out commuting costs was for some people as good as receiving a 13th month of salary.One year later, this city of 430,000 people has firmly established itself as the leader of a budding international free-transit movement. Tallinn has hosted two conferences for city officials, researchers and journalists from across Europe to discuss the idea. The city has an English-language website devoted to its experiment. And promotional materials have proclaimed Tallinn the "capital of free public transport."
The idea has been very popular with Tallinners. In an opinion poll, nine out of ten people said they were happy with how it’s going. Pille Saks is one of them. "I like free rides," says Saks, a 29 year-old secretary who goes to work by bus. "I have a car, but I don’t like to drive with it, especially in the winter when there is a lot of snow and roads are icy."
Different Reads on Ridership
What’s less clear on the first anniversary of free transit in Tallinn is whether it has actually changed commuting behavior all that much.
Mayor Savisaar says it has. He points to numbers from early last year, showing that traffic on the biggest crossroads had decreased by 14 percent compared to a week shortly before the policy started. He has also cited substantial increases in transit riders. "We are frequently asked … why we are offering free-of-charge public transport," Savisaar told a gathering of officials from Europe and China in August. "It is actually more appropriate to ask why most cities in the world still don’t."
by Sulev Vedler, The Atlantic | Read more:
Image: Vallo Kruuser
