I’m of the opinion that the current model is generally the most appropriate with it being tax payer-subsidized, but the people who actually make use of the service carry some of the cost.

It’s a public service that’s available but not every single person actively uses it all the time. I think it makes sense that the people riding the bus carry some additional cost there.

I’d much rather RIPTA expand routes and invest in increasing driver compensation rather than making fares free, but if they can secure extra federal grants to cover all fares then it’s fine with me.

As it is for right now, for FY22 (which ended 6/30/22 for RIPTA) total employee comp pretty much equals out to the state and federal subsidies received, coming out to about $86M each. Passenger fares only make up about $9M of revenues, but the overall budget for RIPTA isn’t very high, with the revised FY23 budget coming in around $147M with expectations of about $11.7M in revenue from passenger fares.

It is worth noting that revenues for RIPTA are bit inflated for the next couple years due to extra funding coming from the Covid Relief Fund. Once that dries up, I’m not sure what changes they’ll make.