>> Writing for Rochester Beacon.

Dr.

Batabyal says this research investigates the effects of providing free public transportation to low income individuals through what is known as a randomized controlled trial that was conducted in King County, Washington, where Seattle is located.

The experiment aimed to determine whether eliminating transit fares could improve employment outcomes and other aspects of well-being for disadvantaged populations.

The trial enrolled, or I should say, the randomized controlled trial enrolled nearly 1800 participants from public assistance offices in King County.

Participants were randomly assigned to either a so-called treatment group, which received six months of free transit valued at approximately $200, or to a so-called control group, which received partially subsidized fares.

That's a $1.50 per ride.

The analysis leveraged administrative data to track outcomes like employment earnings, public benefit receipt, health care use, arrests, even credit scores.

And what Dr.

Batabyal found might confirm some of our ideas about free public transit and might go against others.

This hour, we'll talk about free public transit, what we know, what what the data tells us, what it could mean for communities in different parts of the country, and whether it might be a fit or not in our home region.

Our guests this hour include Dr.

Ahmed Ali, Distinguished Professor and the Arthur J. Gosnell Professor of Economics at RIT.

Welcome.

Thank you for being here.

>> Thank you.

Evan.

And I want to say.

>> A little shout out to the Rochester Beacon.

Really good stuff all the time in the beacon.

They do really good work.

They bring in really smart people.

They've got a great team.

So salute to the beacon.

Cody Donohue is co-executive director of Reconnect Rochester.

Welcome back to the program to you.

>> Thank you for having me back, Evan.

And I second that emotion about the Rochester Beacon.

>> Yeah, really good stuff.

Cody.

Remind folks what Reconnect Rochester is all about.

>> Reconnect Rochester advocates for transportation choices and options in Monroe County.

We want to inspire people to think about all the different ways they could get around, and to choose walking, biking, public transportation when it makes sense to have fewer car trips.

>> So one of the things we'll talk about this hour is not only what the data tells us about what happens when you roll out free public transit, but also how you figure out if it's that's a fit for New York City and for Rochester and for Geneva, New York.

Or if it's a kind of a unicorn in places where it can work, but it's going to struggle to be sustainable.

Other places, or if there's different policy choices that you can take to get there.

But I want to start with what Dr.

Batabyal was looking at, which is, I think, a very important question.

If you're going to do something, if you're going to have a big public policy initiative, you have to define what your goals are and tell me why.

Tell me how that's important in this context.

>> Well, one key reason why it's important is that there are a limited number of funds, limited number of projects that public officials can typically pay attention to.

So if you don't define your goals clearly, you run the risk of not accomplishing anything or accomplishing accomplishing something.

Quite the contrary to what you were seeking to accomplish.

So that's a generally good idea and a generally good approach to begin any kind of analysis with.

By first asking yourself, what is it that I want to accomplish with this policy or attempted policy?

>> And so in the case of New York City, Zohran Mamdani is talking about free public transit, and he talks about it from a number of different lenses.

He talks about it as a justice issue.

He talks about the importance of access to health care, the importance of being able to just simply get around a city.

As someone who lives in in a city, he talks about it as an employment opportunity, about people being priced out, of being able to get to work, about a large population that can't own a car and need some kind of transit to get there.

And so there's a lot of different prongs to what Mamdani is saying.

Free public transit could could provide.

You chose to look at King County, Washington and tell us a little bit more about what they did.

First of all.

>> All right.

So the okay, let me begin with by backtracking in terms of what the economics research, until this particular study that I focused on tells us.

So there are two camps.

One believes that by making public transport free or almost free, you're substantially going to increase access to jobs, better jobs, longer jobs, which is a good thing for the economy in general.

Then there's another camp that says, show me the money.

In other words, you claim that there are these employment benefits, but the data appears not to show any.

So with that background, in this King County study that I'm looking at, this is a randomized controlled trial.

Presumably the gold standard in econometric and statistical analysis, where you have these two groups, a treatment and a control group.

And what these researchers were trying to look at is, are there, in fact any employment effects from making public transport free?

So you have these two groups, one group to whom public transport was free.

This is the so-called treatment group, and the other group, the control group, where the cost was lower, approximately a buck 50 per ride.

And what they were looking to see is are there any employment effects?

And to their surprise, they find that the employment effects, to the extent that they exist, are so minuscule to be statistically irrelevant.

But they did find other non employment benefits that were positive.

So here's an example of the goal is I'm looking to find are there or are there not any employment effects.

And you find that there are virtually none.

But gee whiz this is not something that I thought about.

But there are other positive effects from making public transport free, which I would normally not have thought of had the scope of the study not been sufficiently expansive as it was in this case.

>> Like getting to the doctor.

>> Correct?

>> okay, so we'll talk in a moment about all of the different findings and some of those positive effects.

Let me stay on the subject of employment.

I think people are really going to struggle hearing that.

They're going to say, wait a second.

So you've got some people who may be homeless, some people who may be lower income and really struggling and giving them free public transit and a pretty large city.

How could that not affect their employment?

I mean, like, intuitively, I think people are going to struggle with the data.

I know the data is the data.

Were you surprised at this?

>> not particularly because like with so much of economic analysis, the devil is in the details.

So in principle, the idea of making public transport sounds free sounds like a good idea.

But then there are a lot of details.

Even if I make it free, what is the frequency of service?

How many busses are there that take you to work and take you back from back home from work in the evening?

So for instance, just to you know, focus on this one particular point.

Suppose public transport is completely free, but it takes me two hours to get to work from home.

Then the fact that it's free doesn't do a whole lot, because I have to get up very early in the morning to take advantage of the fact that this transport is now free.

Similarly, if it's another two hours to get back to home, then I spend four hours in the bus and that's time that I could have been working.

On the other hand, instead of making it free, if the frequency of service were increased, then in some locations at least, that might be a better bang for one's buck.

Whereas you had to get up at 630 in the morning.

But if I can now be reasonably sure that between 630 and 830 in the morning, there will be four busses, and I have a choice of any one of those four busses.

That might be a better way to deal with the access to employment situation than making public transport free willy nilly.

So the devil is in the details, and this is related to defining one's objective clearly.

And presumably we'll talk about this targeting the policy very, very carefully.

>> Is there anything that indicates the Mamdani campaign has thought about the granular level of frequency of of transit, et cetera., in New York City, or do you think it just looks like a more of a broader slogan?

>> I think he has thought about some of it, but remember, he's only talking about, as far as I know, he's only talking about making busses free.

>> Yeah, for.

>> Now, he's not talking about making subways free, so it's already targeted to a very narrow part of the population in New York City that takes busses to get to wherever they want to.

So to that extent, he's already demonstrating the value of targeting.

Now, whether the cost itself will work out, that's a separate issue.

He claims it will, but of course, he has naysayers.

>> Cody, would you have before you saw the data in a study like this, would you have expected employment to be affected by free public transit?

>> Well, I think I think like like the study, you know, points out and like, like you're pointing out, professor, the service, the quality of the service, the frequency, the routes and the destinations that are served are almost more important than than the cost.

And, you know, when, whenever we talk to people in our transit ambassadors program and surveying writers, you know, the reliability to get to the places where they need to go in the timeframes that they need to go.

Are are most most important and, and that consideration, sometimes, you know, so in a lot of the ways that we've asked the question, you know, Rochester RTS having a $1 fare, the affordability piece is, is a little bit less important.

So I think going all the way back to the, to the to the initial question, what's the policy solution?

what's the policy goal that we're trying to solve for with free fares?

you know, everyone's got different needs and, and affordability is certainly a need for a certain subset of people.

But there are probably ways to accomplish that through different programs and different policies and efforts that target, the people that really need it most, that are the most dependent on public transit.

You know, my worry with all of this is that introducing free public transit for everyone, it removes a source of revenue from the transit authority.

It's about 5% for RTA, for RTS.

And that's within this broader context of an already very constrained fiscal environment for the authority.

it's a you know, they're they're running operational deficits.

They're projected to have greater operational deficits.

The state of New York is about 50% of that of that subsidy.

The federal government also subsidizes the service.

And we're we're not being funded to the level that we need to in order to have a good quality service.

So just kind of echoing back to what you said, you could offer a free service, but if that service is only every two hours and it doesn't run on Sunday and you're not creating a service that's attractive to people that would otherwise pick a car, you're not really making a better service.

>> I mean, listen, if anybody is going to get on board with free public transit in our community, it might be DSA who was invited to this program.

And we still want to talk to the folks from DSA, Rochester DSA.

was not able to get anybody on this program today.

from that particular cohort, but really reconnect Rochester.

I mean, you're not opposed to inexpensive, easy ways to get transit.

You're trying to you sound like a pragmatist to me today, Cody, which I mean, which I think is important.

>> Yeah.

I mean, we at reconnect, we are very much in favor of the reduced fares for the most vulnerable groups of people in the community.

So it's children 6 to 11 under five, you know, under five and under ride, ride free seniors, people with disabilities, veterans get free, get veterans, get free fares.

And, we have advocated in the past to explore making, you know, a 50 cent fare free because, you know, how much impact would that have on the bottom line?

But that's all within this wider context of the chronic underfunding of of the system and the future deficits.

So it makes it very difficult.

It makes it difficult to say that, you're going to go in that direction if, you know, you're already looking at, at budget constraints that might eventually lead to cuts.

We want to avoid those kinds of cuts.

And I think that's that's the challenge.

That's the policy challenge for the politicians right now at the state level is where do we find more revenues for upstate public transit to make it sustainable and really serve, you know, be an attractive option for people to commute to work.

>> So, listeners, as we continue to kind of wade through the data on what we know about these free public transit ideas in different places.

I would love to hear from you if, if do you take the bus?

Did you used to take the bus?

Is it a convenient option for you to the point that our guests are making?

Is it a cost issue or is it a frequency issue?

Is it a convenience?

And really reliability issue for you?

84429522 you want to call the program's toll free 8442958255263 WXXI.

If you call from Rochester 2639994, email the program Connections at wxxi.org.

If you're watching on the WXXI News YouTube channel, you can join the chat there.

And Julie Williams and team I just mental note there probably should have a conversation with TT.

It's been a little while since we've had the team from RTS on the program.

They're always very accessible and they do a great job answering questions from listeners such as if there isn't a frequency of routes in X, Y, and Z, why is that?

And you know, I think everybody wants to know how you structure your rides and and where you go and why.

But part of what Cody is saying is, you know, when you're running a deficit, it's tight enough already.

It's not easy.

So, on that note, let's talk about what happened in this King County study in Washington state, a six month study, nearly 2000 people are participating.

Professor says that's a it is a well run trial trying to get good data.

And I'm going to read some of the findings that you note here.

it the treatment group used public transit a lot more, an average of 6 to 7 additional boardings per week.

That's a four fold increase compared to the control group.

This tells us you're right, that making public transportation free removes a major barrier to transit access for low and low income individuals.

So okay, so there's not an employment bump, but there's definitely a ridership bump.

>> Absolutely.

>> okay.

So so what does this tell us.

>> Well, this tells us that people who were otherwise constrained, most likely because of income related reasons, will significantly take advantage of the increased transportation facilities made available to them, basically for free.

And they show that in the data.

That means people like to travel.

When travel is affordable or close to affordable.

As far as they're concerned.

So access is clearly one issue.

And the study shows that you have a lot more ridership with free transportation, but that's not particularly surprising.

I mean, if you make anything available for free, there will be greater consumption of that good relative to it not being free.

>> So again, I'm going to keep hitting the some of the main important takeaways here because you're going to hear about it not just in the Mamdani campaign, but free public transit is going to be a debate in a lot of places across the country.

Part of what Bill is saying is, yes, people will ride more if you remove that cost barrier.

No, you can't expect this to be an instant panacea to joblessness or employment.

>> Correct.

And the other thing that I would add, and some people seem to forget this is New York City, Manhattan in particular is not a good example for the rest of the United States.

I mean, there are many things that are typical to New York City, which don't quite apply even elsewhere in New York.

In New York, New York State, and certainly in other cities in our country.

>> So how do you figure out, Cody, to Dr.

Robert Bohls point, what works for Rochester?

I mean, there's going to be a Mamdani is one of the most one of the hottest politicians in the country right now.

And so there's going to be a lot of focus on that campaign, and there's going to be a lot of focus on.

And if he wins especially, there's a lot of focus on his policies.

How do you figure out if if he's doing that in New York City?

How do we figure out if that's applicable in Rochester or in the Finger Lakes or in other communities?

>> Well, what I credit his campaign with is elevating this conversation about public transit.

It was kind of like really heated up around the I call it congestion pricing.

You know, we're trying to get trying to have fewer cars in lower Manhattan with congestion pricing, you know.

So he's kind of he's taken that on Assembly as as an Assembly member.

He also got the free fare pilot for the busses in in Manhattan.

And that was, you know, conducted that pilot in New York City.

So he has some, some experience here.

but, you know, I'm usually on the receiving end of that comment when I'm talking about some bike and, and pedestrian things, like, we're not New York City, we're not New York City.

So I'll just throw it back at myself.

That or how about how about this?

>> For to Europe, right.

>> Yeah.

>> We're not Europe.

>> We're not we're not, you know, Copenhagen.

But you know, in this case, we certainly aren't New York City.

we have very different you know, transit system, bus system.

and we have those, those challenges and you know, I think talking about affordability, I think the thing that we need, you know, the thing I want to kind of back up to, to talk a little bit about the choices or the kind of false choice that we have in Monroe County, Monroe County you can be very constrained and still feel that you need to own a car in order to access employment opportunities and healthcare and grocery stores.

I mean, we've talked about it on this program before.

The sprawl effect of different amenities kind of going outside the city center where BTS is either running to the terminus and then doing on demand zones and having, you know, a kind of a different kind of model out there.

But, you know, essentially there's this trade off of time.

am I going to spend two hours on the bus in order to get to the doctor's appointment?

That's, in Henrietta or am I going to, you know, bite the bullet and kind of pay for the car at that?

That will get me there in the time frame that I want.

There was research that, came from the Rocky Mountain Institute on,, potentially saving potential savings if there was better and more frequent bus service in communities, allowing people to have fewer cars or, or, less reliance on the car.

And it found that people could save up to $4,000 a year.

if there was better transit in, in most places in America.

So in the big picture, that's that's a huge affordability gain.

this is all I just want to say, all on top of, you know, like what I said earlier, the the need to bring, more affordable public transit or free public transit to the most vulnerable populations in, in in in Monroe County.

and I would point to you know, the, the EBT card integration that BTS has done, they, they for certain clients of DHS who receive EBT cards, you can, you know, use that card now to swipe for free fare on the bus.

So that's one way of providing a free fare to the person.

But the the revenue is not necessarily removed from the scenario for for the transit authority.

>> I'm going to take some phone calls because we've got a pile of them already.

And in our second half hour, we're going to talk a little bit more about some of the other findings that we have not mentioned yet from this study of free public transit.

so let me start with Shirley in Rochester.

Hey, Shirley, go ahead.

>> Hi.

Thanks for taking my call.

>> Sure.

>> I'm wondering, the doctor said that there are some things in New York City that you're not going to find in other communities, and that could influence the study.

What are some of those things?

Please?

>> Well, for, for instance, in Manhattan and more generally in New York City, it's known that people as a percentage of the population that rely on public transport in general, far exceeds that which is true in most other American cities.

so that's one key point.

The other thing is having a car, particularly in Manhattan, can reasonably argue it is in fact a liability.

So that's again, something that's not true in many parts of the United States.

It's certainly not true in Rochester, where many people, as Cody was just pointing out, even though their income constrained, feel the necessity to have a car, even though they would rather do with public transport if at all possible.

>> And you want to add there, Shirley?

>> No, I just wanted to know what those variables were that he was referring to.

Thank you very much.

>> Yep.

Thank you for the phone call, Shirley.

let me get Rick in Rochester next.

Hey, Rick.

Go ahead.

>> my question is simply, what are the demographics of the Rochester Monroe County community?

How many people under a free public transportation would actually utilize it?

Do you know the numbers or have any sense of how many people are out there who are constrained in visiting their doctor or going to employment?

That would be actually assisted in that by free public transportation?

The other thing I just want to mention is the sprawling nature of Rochester's economy.

The employers, like RIT and the U of R and Linden Oaks, the major, their major employers, but they're way out outside the spokes system.

So I'd just love to know how many people are we talking about that would benefit from this?

Thank you.

>> Yeah.

Good questions.

Rick.

let me start with Cody.

What would you say to that?

>> Yeah, I think I think Rick highlights the the kind of false choice, like, you know, they're they're just simply jobs.

You can't get using TTS.

you know, relying on that every day because they're too far out and you have to rely on on transitioning from the mainline bus service to connect to on demand zones.

It becomes a logistical headache.

full of potential, you know, missed, missed connections that might result in your job being cut.

you're being fired.

They question the demographics.

I think it's a great question.

you know, there is no free fare proposal in Rochester right now, obviously.

So you know, I don't think that's been totally quantified, but, you know, perhaps Monroe County DHS could give some of the numbers and updates on who's utilizing the EBT cards for for fare swiping.

you know, Rochester Monroe anti-poverty initiative, which just celebrated ten years yesterday.

you know, has has the data on on people who are living, at, at, at or below the poverty line.

and which, by the way, you know, speaking of affordability the federal poverty guideline for a single person is $15,000 and the actual survivable, survivable budget in Monroe County is more like $32,000.

And the third largest, you know, cost for a person's budget in Monroe County is transportation.

>> But I think you know, Cody notes, Rick is making an important point in that if you just try to pin what happens, whatever happens in New York City, whatever happens with the Mamdani campaign, a possible Mamdani mayoralty with what might happen here.

Cody's right.

We got to look at a spoke system.

We got to look at where transit goes, where it doesn't go.

I know that over the years, RTS has said they are trying to make sure that transit can go where the jobs are, even though the jobs have shifted in many ways over the years.

But it is not apples to apples here, and I think it's important to know what your demographics and your your data indicate about who would use such a system, how often and how you would, you know, how they would get access to it.

Right?

>> Oh, absolutely.

Without question.

That's the central question that needs to be answered.

So as far as I know, there is no data specific to Rochester on that particular question, which is very, very important.

So this is crying out for a study.

And you would typically one way to do something like this would be to survey potential constituents.

Ask them, you know, do you take the bus now, will you take the bus.

Under what circumstances do you take the bus?

All kinds of questions.

See, this is very related to defining what the policy objective is, because it may well be true that in a place like our city of Rochester, making fares free is trumped by increasing the frequency of service or changing the routes along which busses currently travel.

But you'll never find out until you actually survey the population who you are seeking to assist in the first place.

>> But related to that, before I jump back to your phone calls, one other point here for Cody.

We talk about transportation culture too.

So it is right that you've got to know your population.

You need to ask them.

You need to really get a sense of what they're going to do.

However, when you when that is not a muscle that you've exercised, when you have not been a bus rider, as most people in our community do not take the bus, I'm I understand that many people do, and many people absolutely, vitally need it.

But we are not New York City.

That doesn't mean that you couldn't see a dramatic increase in ridership in any number of ways, whether whether it's access, whether it's cost.

But do you think that a survey would tell you what people actually would do, given that the culture right now is not very public transit centric?

>> Well, that's a great question.

That's kind of why I reconnect.

Rochester exists, so thank you for that.

yeah.

I mean, luckily we have Rochester data.

The Act Rochester dashboard has a transportation, section.

And we do know from that that data that 88% of Monroe County residents drive alone, 88%.

That's, you know, most people, and public transportation, I think we're at 2%, 1.5% of Monroe County uses public transportation.

>> 1.5%.

>> That's according to the Rochester dashboard.

And and this is you know, this is where I think, you know we need to start being innovative.

We need to kind of light a light, a fire under ourselves, as far as getting people to experience public transportation and get the ridership back.

BTS is still at 80% of pre-pandemic levels of ridership.

And we go over to Albany, Cdta, the Capital District Transportation Authority.

Last fiscal year, they saw a 12% increase from the previous year and hit a record 18.4 million on boards.

And they kind of credit that to the innovations in their service that they've been doing.

They do bus rapid transit, three bus rapid transit lines.

We've talked about that for Lake.

They've expanded the universal pass program, universal pass basically works with employers to give their employees free bus passes.

So that encourages people to use the bus, get people on the bus, and then they have several kind of on demand and express routes that they operate to some of their suburban things.

So I think there's some some innovation that we have to look for.

But what I want to plug, Evan is, later this month, September 29th through October 3rd is the National Week without driving.

So if we're talking about a chance for people to experience the bus for the first time or try leaving their car at home and try to get somewhere that they want to go, and doesn't have to be a high stakes thing, like getting to your getting to work.

It could be, I want to go down to have dinner somewhere, or I want to go see a movie at the.

coffee with a friend, grab a coffee with a friend.

September 29th through October 3rd.

Go to Reconnect Rochester org and you'll see the week without driving.

And there you can take a pledge to leave your car at home and try a different mode of transportation and experience the bus.

And I think for a lot of people, myself included, I'm on a bus line that gets me to my office within 15 minutes.

and and, and I can, easily use that option if I want to.

It doesn't work for everybody, >> after we take our only break.

I really hope that caller on line two is still there.

There are some really interesting ideas there.

So John and Rochester, if you're there, we're going to take your call right after this very, very short break.

certainly certain things are being sent through in the system to me that I never thought I would read on Connections.

But people have a lot of ideas on what to do about transit, as Cody knows, as reconnect, Rochester knows we're talking to Cody Donahue, co-executive director of Reconnect Rochester, and Amit Batabyal, is the Arthur J. Gosnell Professor of Economics at RIT, who wrote a piece for the Rochester Beacon about what data tells us about what happens when we make public transit free.

We'll come right back with more of your feedback next.

Coming up in our second hour, we are processing the assassination of Charlie Kirk.

In a climate of growing political violence in this country, the assassination of Charlie Kirk is not the only such instance of a political attack.

Even in the last few months, in this country, we saw it in Minnesota.

We've seen it in a lot of places, and it's a dangerous place to be.

How do we pull back from the abyss?

We'll talk about it next hour.

>> Support for your public radio station comes from our members and from Mary Cariola, Senator, proud supporter of Connections with Evan Dawson believing an informed and engaged community is a connected one.

Mary Cariola for and Smith Center for the Arts, presenting improv comedy group The Second City with Laugh Harder, Not Smarter comedy and songs from the company's 50 year history, as well as new sketches.

September 20th at 8 p.m.

Tickets online at The Smith.

>> This is Connections.

I'm Evan Dawson.

Dallas says.

I used to use public transit.

He says maybe it was Mount Read to MCC or grease to MCC.

I remember it took a long time.

I'd work at MCC and I remember I spent as much time on the busses as I did at work.

It's exactly what our guests have been talking about.

When that happens, people stop using it and it is not as effective.

It's one of the reasons that Dr.

Batabyal points out that if you look at King County, Washington, this six month study of free public transit doesn't really indicate that making it free made more people get jobs because they still didn't get great.

You know, frequency of service.

There were other ways that you could have addressed some of that that might have put more people in jobs.

I, we didn't get John to hang on the line, but John in Rochester called in to say, and he said it in all caps, apparently legalize hitchhiking.

okay.

Cody Donahue, you didn't expect that hitchhiking.

Is it time to bring it back?

>> I don't think I, I don't think we have that on our web page.

>> No, I don't think so.

I will say this.

My, my my father grew up in Jamestown, went to college at Miami, Ohio, and he and his best friend used to hitchhike from Jamestown to Oxford, Ohio and back all the time.

And he had all kinds of stories to tell.

But he said it was a different time.

and we don't nobody trusts anybody anymore.

You're going to hitchhike like the level of social distrust is so high in this country.

We mentioned earlier this week that when parents are surveyed about what would happen if their child plays or plays in a city park with another eight year old for two hours, 50% of parents think those kids are getting abducted.

It is unbelievable how untrusting we are of people.

So John, you know, hitchhiking, I don't know, but.

>> You're making me think of I mean, you know, having better public transportation would allow kids to be able to be more independent, you know, be able to get around without their parents kind of having to shuttle them around.

But you know, it makes me think also about, some of the alternatives that people are pursuing, especially they want they want that job.

They want that specific job.

They need to be there on time.

They want to get home afterwards in a reasonable amount of time.

So, you know, we hear a lot of stories of people taking Ubers.

And speaking of people you don't know, and you're hitching effectively, hitchhiking.

But you know, they're taking Ubers and they're paying a premium in order to, you know, value their time and get back more quickly.

Where, you know, where public transit could serve that, that, that place instead.

But it's it's the economic, you know, decision amongst all the different transportation options that people have that they're making, but they might be spending a significant amount of their income on it.

>> Yeah.

>> And I, may I add something, Evan?

I mean, we say here in the United States that time is money.

Money is time.

Any policy that disregards that maxim is bound to fail.

>> That's Dallas's point, right?

Like you can't be on the bus as long as you're at work.

>> Correct.

>> It's not going to work.

>> Correct?

>> Yeah.

All right, Denise, next on the phone.

Hey, Denise, go ahead.

>> Hi, everybody.

I've been listening to your show, and it's been very interesting to me.

I have for the past three years been working on a county funded project called Driven to Success here in Rochester.

And the work I do is I meet or do phone financial sessions with low to moderate income working residents of Monroe County to see if I can connect them to our lending partners, local credit unions and banks to get low cost financing for vehicles.

A lot of low income workers have challenged credit and have a difficult time getting a car financed, and a lot of them work and are taking the bus, but they have stories of the challenges of just the time frame of taking a bus, and then some are doing Uber where they're spending well over $1,700 a month in Uber to get to work full time.

and what I'm seeing is, is that even with a public transportation system, it lacks a lot for a working person.

I have some people out in Brockport where the bus lines are no longer in existence.

There is an on demand service.

But what I've found from some clients is that they fill up fast, so sometimes they have to call late at night to secure a ride, and then it's filled and they can't get a ride to work.

So I think it's a great idea to have, low cost or free transportation available.

But I don't really think, from what I've seen from the sessions I've done and I've done a lot of sessions and it's a very familiar scenario where the public transportation system doesn't fit the needs of a working person, especially someone who has to drop off their kid at daycare on the way to work.

That's troubling.

But anyhow the Driven to Success program is available to anyone in Monroe County who's low to moderate income, and you can find our application on consumer credit of Rochester's website.

And that's about it.

>> Thank you for the phone call, Denise, I appreciate that.

Anything you want to add their doctor Bill?

>> No, that's a very relevant observation.

And this is an example of something you would find out if you, in fact, gave a meaningfully constructed survey to potential respondents that the issue for them, or at least a subset of them, as this person just described, isn't public transport and it's availability from what she says, they would be better assisted if you could provide them with a zero or very low cost interest loan that would allow them to buy a car.

So for so amongst other things, they could, for instance, drop off their children at daycare before they go to work.

So these are the examples of things that I have in mind when I say that your policy has to be targeted.

And one of the things that you were asking just a couple of minutes ago about whether you can really learn this kind of information through surveys, I think what you were getting at is, can you rely on surveys for people to truthfully reveal what their intent is.

>>, or maybe not even truthfully, but just if they haven't exercised the habit of using public transit, they might say no.

But if it becomes free or if it changes dramatically, all of a sudden they might go, you know, I think I could do this.

>> Correct?

Correct.

And but I want to I just want to make a little bit of a plug for survey studies.

I mean, survey studies and the methodology associated with them have improved significantly over time.

So this and I say this because this is a standard response from economists.

You can't believe surveys.

People are never going to be truthful.

It's a waste of time conducting them.

That's simply not true anymore.

And you can in fact glean a lot of useful information.

Like what this person just said.

>> What do you make of Denise's caller Cody?

>> no.

That's Denise is doing good work at the, individual and the micro family level.

certainly.

I want to take it back to the policy.

You know, we what should the state politicians, what should the mayor of New York City, anyone in that position be thinking about?

And that for me, that's the systems level.

So, why is that person feeling compelled to get a car?

Because they don't feel that public transportation is a choice that works for their their their setup for their lifestyle or their family, their family life, the child care, maybe somewhere that is not convenient to their house, or there's not a lot of childcare options.

They could only get into one place.

So there's a systemic issue around childcare access.

There's a systemic issue around where employers decide to put their companies or their headquarters or their factories.

and then, you know, bringing it all the way back to public transit.

We need more funding.

each year for the past couple of years upstate has gone to Albany to ask for 15% increases in the operating funding, which which would make it possible to pay the drivers well and operate, operate the routes that, you know, more times more frequency.

And last year they only got 4.88%.

So they asked for 15.

They got 4.88%.

And this is when there's a there's already deficits in place.

So you know I think in a coordinated fashion our in our community, all the decision makers, all the politicians should be going.

And I would say start starting with Governor Hochul at this point to to say, you know, we need we need much, much more investment in public public transportation in our community because it is hindering people's access to job opportunities to and creating economic vitality.

Let's get that.

Let's get that number kind of in front of the governor as early as possible while they're developing the budget.

>> Make sense to you?

>> Yes.

But what I would add to that is that we need to look at the costs and benefits of doing something like what Cody proposes.

So for instance, suppose we say we have only three routes in Rochester, but they go once every two hours one way and the other.

Is it more meaningful from a benefit cost perspective to increase the frequency, to increase the number of routes, and to increase access in general?

Or should we use our limited dollars available to provide low interest loans so that people can actually have access to reliable cars with which to travel to work?

In addition to dropping off their children to daycare.

Which one is the better thing to do?

It's not obvious to me that it's public transport.

It may be, but that's the kind of data that we need to look at before we can come to a meaningful conclusion.

>> okay.

>> I think we're we're I would push back on that.

Is that there are a lot of externalities and a lot of subsidies that go into funding personal vehicles, the roads that they travel on the snowplowing.

Of course, you need to have that also for the busses, but, you know, the the additional externalities of having more cars on the road in terms of environment, in terms of we've learned that, tires are actually a huge source of microplastics that are that we're learning about in our bodies.

not to mention the safety issues that we've talked about.

Vision Zero and reducing traffic injuries and fatalities.

We're in a crisis of traffic traffic safety.

And so having more cars on the road, I would just, you know, might also bring in those externalities and influence the cost benefit in a slightly different way.

>> Correct.

That's why you need the data.

So it's not obvious which one is the right way to go.

And I would add one thing that a lot of people are also under the impression that if you have free public transport or very low cost public transport, the number of riders riders will go up because access will have gone up and that means fewer cars on the road.

That may or may not be true.

It's not obvious that the number of cars driven will fall significantly as a result of making public transport either free or low cost.

So that means the sustainability, the environmental argument that you'll have fewer emissions by making public transport free.

Again, it's not obviously true.

>> Actually.

We have a study for that.

So the Denver, did a free fare pilot and they looked at precisely that.

Did it lower emissions.

Did it lower the number of cars on the road.

And actually the finding was no, they did not.

It did not lower the number of cars on the road, didn't it didn't lead to a significant reduction in greenhouse gas emissions from cars.

And the the hypothesis there was that, it was precisely kind of what we said earlier that more people were onboarding more frequently, that people people that already used the bus were using it more frequently, and actually people who were already walkers or bikers were using the bus instead.

So it did you know that that that's obviously not the finding that a, you know, a transit advocate wants to see.

But but that was that was interesting because ultimately one of the goals, you know, for, for us is to reduce the reliance on the personal vehicle, for the environmental benefits, for the congestion and air quality benefits, and for street safety.

>> And if the if the data is the data, even if it's not what you maybe hoped to see, grapple with what it means.

And then if if a certain policy is not going to be as effective at getting cars off the road, then we need other approaches, right?

Yeah.

I think it's admirable what you're saying.

I think I think the fact that you bring up the Denver study is admirable to me, Cody.

That's what I'm saying.

>> Well, I mean, it's I guess it's it's it's kind of like going out of fashion now is to admit, admit that there there are different viewpoints and people.

Yeah.

There's different.

Yeah, but that doesn't.

>> Mean that doesn't mean you give up on crafting better policy.

In fact, taking data and, you know, will help you not miss what your policy.

I think it's great.

>> Well, I think one of my great frustrations in the policy space is, is just we we we don't try a lot of things.

We don't just try try it and see what happens.

And, you know, we have to study it first.

We have to, you know, go through approvals and reviews and this it's very slow.

And then we go ten, 15 years without seeing, you know, if something can work.

and you know, I think if we were willing to try, try some more things, evaluate it as we go.

Certainly.

but be more flexible that that allows us to, you know, find the solutions to the urgent problems that we have.

>> All right, Maggie, in eastern Decoite on the phone next.

Hey, Maggie.

Go ahead.

>> Hi.

So I would love to take public transportation to the public market or to Park Ave or to show in place.

But it's just not convenient.

And I think that we're really missing, you know, the goal of widening the usage of public transportation by only making it meet the bare minimum for people who don't have any other option.

>> okay.

>> That's true.

I mean, this this is an indirect reference to what I was saying a couple minutes ago about time is money.

Money is time.

So convenience is a big part of that.

So you could make public transport free, but if it's not convenient either because of frequency or the nature of the routes that the busses travel, no one's going to take public transport.

So this is another aspect of understanding driver or potential driver habits and public transport travelers habits to figure out what the best thing might be for Rochester in any given period of time.

>> Cody.

>> Yeah, in an ideal world, I think we'd like to see a bus system that serves everyone, that it's a choice that you would want to make to go out to, shown place or Park Ave and you know, enjoy time with your friends and that, you know, you're able to relieve the congestion of the parking lot at shown place.

you know, because you chose to get there a different way.

I will say it's a very nice bike ride.

>> Anything you want to add, Maggie?

>> Yeah.

I also wanted to note that in France, I found a ride share app.

When I was there a couple years ago where it's not an Uber or Lyft driver, it's just a regular person that is going a specific route.

And you can sign up to ride with them.

I didn't see that there was anything available in the U.S.

when I came back from that, but I think that that would be another really good option, to have here for people that can find a good connection for carpooling.

>> Maggie.

Thank you.

I didn't know about that idea.

Again, I hope people trust each other enough.

>> Well, I realized my age when some some of my friends had kids going to college this year, and I said, oh, so they do.

They still have that bulletin board.

You know, where you can tell people that you're going back to.

>> Rochester.

>> Need a ride bulletin board?

And then somebody said, well, there's probably an app for that.

>> Yes, there is.

Maggie, I don't know if that's going to come here.

That's a very interesting idea.

really good stuff there.

Let me get Michael's email.

that I think is a fair question.

Although I think that there may be some apples and oranges here.

He says this is a meaningful analysis.

However, what I'm not hearing is the naming of best practices.

By that I mean, if there is somewhere that you can go, for example, regarding public transit and an access to transportation for poor people above all else, you want advice for people who are at that destination.

So what communities are there that have done a better job at solving some of the issues that you've been discussing?

The reason I think it's a little apples and oranges is it is absolutely vital, I'm sure.

Reconnect Rochester looks literally around the world for better practices or different ways of doing things.

You still have to make sure that it can fit for your community, for your infrastructure, for your population dispersion, for where the jobs are.

But it's a good question, Michael.

And what would you say?

>> Talk to the people who are most impacted.

You know, talk to them and see what they what they prefer and what what options are they evaluating?

Is there an option they don't know is available?

you know, I think a lot of people don't know about like the Vo access program.

It's a low income subscription model for the Vo scooters around town.

there's certain things that people may not know, but talking to them about what?

What's important to them?

What are they trying to accomplish?

And then what are the different options that, that, that match to that?

I think it's important using that survey model, to tease it out.

And then, you know, one of the models that we, that we try to follow is, is when we talk to people, you know, using those stories to illustrate the real life impact on people in, in Rochester of you know, not fully funding the public transit system.

>> Is there a utopia transportation city in this country that you say?

Boy.

>> I think a lot of people would point to Portland, Oregon.

they were the first to have a streetcar, you know, modern streetcar, modern light rail kind of streetcar system.

certainly they they've they've done a lot of things right with urban growth boundaries and things of that nature.

But it is an ever evolving, ever evolving space.

I think the one trend that I'm, I'm very concerned about is autonomous vehicles.

I think that that that has a lot of potential to go wrong.

and I did go out to San Francisco a little this year, chickened out.

I was gonna go.

I was gonna get in the Waymo and Waymo, and then I chickened out.

I saw it, and I was like I'm just not going to do it.

So, you know, I technology is definitely, you know, changing and evolving, but not always in the right direction.

>> before I lose the hour, let me mention that Dr.

Batabyal in his piece for the Rochester Beacon, also noted the following non employment impacts from fare elimination.

as far as financial health is concerned, for the people in the six month study whose fares were eliminated, the treatment group demonstrated short term improvements in financial well-being with lower debt balances.

About $97 less, higher credit scores, 13 points higher.

Although these effects were not statistically robust.

Over time, there was a health dividend and that free transit was associated with a 5.6 percentage point reduction in health care visits, particularly non-emergency outpatient care, suggesting improved access or improved health behaviors.

And there was a criminal justice component with a modest reduction in arrests, 1.5 percentage points, driven by declines in financially motivated crimes like theft and trespassing.

Lastly, no significant changes were observed in residential moves, indicating that free transit did not influence relocation decisions.

So in our last minute there, what would you leave with our listeners about some of these other impacts that we're seeing from this study?

>> Well, I'll come back to the same point that I was making at the beginning of this program that in order to construct any kind of public policy, certainly transport policy, you need to have clearly defined goals, and you have to have a willingness, in part to piggyback on what Cody was saying, try different things, but try different things means having expanded surveys, you truly make an attempt to discover what the transport related behavior of your ridership or potential ridership is actually going to be, and then be be prepared to implement nonstandard things.

You know, like one of the callers said, maybe it would be a better idea to provide low income, low interest loans to make cars affordable rather than provide some massive infusion into into public infrastructure.

But we don't know the answer because we don't have the data.

So that's where the thinking ought to begin.

>> Thanks for coming in and sharing more of what you wrote about in the beacon.

We appreciate your expertise in the time this hour talked about Abbe Lowell.

>> Thank you for having.

>> Me and Cody.

car free when I mean your car free all the time.

But you're encouraging people to go car free.

>> When I. September 29th.

October 3rd, I am car light.

I try to try to use my car as little as possible, but September 29th to October 3rd.

Reconnect Rochester, take the pledge and figure out a different way to get around.

>> And will you come back and talk Vision Zero soon with us?

>> Absolutely.

>> We'd love to do that.

Reconnect Rochester.

Really interesting.

group.

They've really evolved and strengthened and grown over the years.

So reconnect Rochester.

Org for more.

That's Cody Donahue.

I'm at all great conversation this hour.

More connections coming up in just a moment.

>> Oh.

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