The Canberra Liberals have today announced a policy of free public transport for all students, seniors and concession card holders. You can read about it here and here.
Let’s be clear – this is a cost-of-living policy, not a public transport policy. Public transport policy is about improving service and increasing patronage. The measures announced today cannot contribute to those goals.
When it comes to transport and cost of living, the best approach is to improve public transport services and routes to make it a desirable and feasible choice for more people and to allow more households to reduce their car use. Cutting into Transport Canberra’s income from farebox recovery creates a budget gap that would need to be filled from somewhere, and the announcement today does not indicate how the Canberra Liberals plan to address this.
PTCBR notes that Transport Canberra offers free travel to many groups of people and concessions to many other groups – you can find full details here: Concessions – Transport Canberra (act.gov.au). Seniors aged 70 years of age and over travel for free already, and generous concessions exist for others. Moreover, Transport Canberra fares have actually not increased since 2019.
PTCBR looks forward to seeing the Canberra Liberals’ actual public transport policy in due course.