As public sentiment against it pours in, a full meeting of council could potentially reverse a committee decision to recommend killing Calgary’s free fare zone.
Early in May, the Infrastructure and Planning committee approved a recommendation 7-4 that council end the downtown Calgary free fare zone beginning Aug. 1
Since that time, councillors have seen a groundswell of pushback from citizens. The item comes to a full meeting of council at a busy May 26 Regular meeting of Calgary city council.
Ward 4 Coun. DJ Kelly said that he’s had more people contact his office about the free fare zone than he had contact them about citywide rezoning. Further, he said that he hasn’t seen a compelling reason to end it.
“I’m not going to be voting to remove the free fare zone come next week at council, as I just think that the downside is far steeper than the upside at this particular point in time,” he told reporters.
According to his office, they’ve received 195 people contacting them in support of keeping the free fare zone, two looking for an alternative, and none asking for its removal.
Though the vote to remove the zone was 7-4 at committee, there are 15 members on Calgary city council. With Kelly’s vote against the removal, it inches closer to failing at city council.
Mayor Jeromy Farkas, who has also recently stated that he’s against the removal of the free fare zone, also didn’t vote at committee.
Ward 9 Coun. Harrison Clark, who doesn’t sit on the committee either, has since dug into the issue more with citizens and posted online that he’ll continue to consider if it’s the right move.
“Ending the Free Fare Zone doesn’t create a fully closed system,” he wrote.
“It introduces friction in one portion of an otherwise open network. That forces a larger choice: do we try to incrementally close a system that wasn’t built for it, or do we focus on making that open system safer, more reliable, and more attractive?”
Farkas, Clark and Kelly would make the vote a 7-7 tie. That leaves Ward 1 Coun. Kim Tyers as the final vote at council unless others have changed their minds.
Tyers voted in favour of the sub-bullet to remove the free fare zone during last year’s budget deliberations.
Safety benefits touted by supporters
Ward 6 Coun. John Pantazopoulos said earlier in May that he would have preferred a middle ground. He attempted an amendment to charge a reduced rate through the downtown route, though it failed at committee.
He said adding the fare would help with revenue, but also with safety.
“You make transit safer by having people on transit, but we also have to make sure that it’s safer by making sure that our officers, our transit officers, have the ability to go and enforce the bylaws that we’ve made when it comes to fares and making sure that you’re there for the right reasons,” he said.
MORE: Calgary is about to end free downtown transit. This councillor wants to expand it city-wide.
Ward 10 Coun. Andre Chabot said that with a free fare zone, anyone can get on the system. Then it’s a question of how you force them to comply with safety and security.
“Once they’re on the system, it’s kind of hard to get them off beyond the free fare zone,” Chabot said.
“So, this at least allows them to be proactive to ensure that people at least have a paid ticket to ride the system, to provide greater certainty and security for the paying customers who were paying a fare expecting that they’re going to be able to get on a bus that’s going to be safe and secure.”
Ward 5 Coun. Raj Dhaliwal doesn’t buy the security argument. He said that’s the leg the councillors in favour are trying to stand on. The city’s own free fare zone report suggested that while platforms could see safety improvements, it would likely just displace the social disorder to the periphery around station areas.
“It’s a seriously unserious plan,” said Dhaliwal.
“I haven’t seen any numbers to show me that that will improve the safety.”
Mayor Farkas recently posted to reddit encouraging people to contact their respective councillors to help save the free fare zone.
“Let me just cut to the chase: Cutting the free fare zone is the wrong move,” he said in a video posted online.
City councillors will have the final debate on May 26.
