[...] the annual financial requirement is likely to be between €20 million and €25 million.
[...]
The policy is intended to encourage more people to leave their cars at home and use public transport for journeys within Porto and the surrounding urban region.
[Mayor] Duarte has cautioned that abolishing fares will not, by itself, resolve Porto’s congestion problems. He described the programme as part of a broader mobility strategy that must also include faster services, better connections, increased capacity and more reliable journey times.
Porto currently has about 16 kilometres of dedicated bus lanes. The municipality plans to increase this to approximately 22 kilometres by the end of 2026, giving buses greater priority over private vehicles on some of the city’s busiest routes.
The mayor said public transport would need to become more convenient and dependable than travelling by car before a substantial change in daily habits could be expected. The municipality’s objective is for public transport to become the main means of travelling around Porto, with private cars taking a secondary role.
The scheme is unusual because Porto is paying for its residents to travel across the entire metropolitan network rather than offering free journeys only inside the municipality.
The Porto Metropolitan Area comprises 17 municipalities, each of which remains responsible for its own spending decisions. [...]
I don't know about that. I am gung ho about using transit in my city because the only thing cheaper is bike and foot (which I also like). visited dc and if I lived there I doubt I would use it because of how expensive it is.
Transit is expensive. Bikes and walking is a lot cheaper. However if you want to go any distance at all bikes and walking don't get your there in a reasonable amount of time. This not being 1700 (when bikes didn't exist) most people want to go a lot farther for many trips - it enables getting so much more done when your reasonable range as longer.
The costs of transit should be compared to the cost of a car. I challenge you find anything that you can do reasonably on transit that is cheaper with a car. (not just fuel costs, insurance, maintenance, and such - even a beater that you maintain yourself is going to have a hard time with this). Thus the real goal to get more people on transit should be making more trips reasonable. Cost is rarely the issue if people are taking the trip.
I mean that is fine but if you can't afford it you can't afford it. You said you don't see expense causing more people not to take it but that is just not so as there are levels where you get people dropping.
There are those levels, but nobody is close so why talk about them? Or perhaps better to say just have a program for the free poor and charge everyone else a reasonable price.
Transit should be for everyone, not just those who are so poor they will put up with terrible service because they is all they can get.
Because programs should not be means tested. That always results in people who need it not getting it. When its just available no one misses out due to beuracracy and different laws that come up from parties that want to toughen up on freeloaders. You also save on not paying for programs to decide who gets stuff and who does not. No idea what you mean by no one is close though.
Poor generally means other issues and so you already have the means treating as part of getting people the help they need for their other issues.
yeah and we should not have it. every little crumb takes hours to get. I knew that before I experienced it and now I have experienced it. Its not all collected into one basket. each thing is seperate and sucks up tons of time. so tons of time to be able to travel and tons of time to get some food and tons of time for some healthcare. and on and on an on.
In short make transit better would help more than making garbage transit free.
well yeah. everything is bad when its garbage but its also better free so free and quality would be best.