A county commissioner is asking for a study of fare-free transit programs in Kansas City and Salt Lake City to inform the potential implementation fo a similar program in the South Florida county.
Miami-Dade County Commissioner Xavier Suarex has begun advocating for free transit, according to an article by Jesse Scheckner, following in the footsteps of Kansas City.
“It is time for Miami-Dade County to come into the 21st Century and provide fare-free public transportation,” Mr. Suarez said in a Dec. 15 press note. “Given the fact that total revenues from buses and Metrorail barely exceed $100 million, which is less than 2% of the operating budget for the county, the time has come to induce the use of mass transit by any and all means.”
Suarez has requested that the county attorney’s office and Transportation Planning Organization (TPO) draft resolutions that would enable studies of the idea, as exemplified by Kansas City an Salt lake City, reports Scheckner.
A separate article by Sandy Smith connects the Miami discussion to the precedent set by Kansas City to ask whether fare-free transit could become a national movement. The answer is not clear, but most of the cities that currently offer free transit are much smaller than Miami-Dade County, Kansas City, and Salt Lake City.
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