The future of public transport is slightly less expensive (maybe)

One of Mayor Andrew Little’s key election promises was to cap weekly public transport fares. Problem is, that’s not something he has the power to do. 

Little’s policy was to make all Metlink trips free after your eighth trip. So, if you take public transport to and from work every day, your Friday morning trip (trip nine) and any others are free.

However, Little only has jurisdiction over Wellington City Council. Public transport falls under the Greater Wellington Regional Council’s purview, who recently ran into a $5 million shortfall in Metlink’s budget thanks to lower-than-expected ridership. 

Despite this, Metlink is fully onboard with the idea. Manager Tim Shackleton describes fare capping as something “we have to do.” 

Metlink currently sells 30-day train or bus passes, which can cost hundreds of dollars. Shackleton's plan is for fare capping to replace those passes. 

“We know a lot of people can't necessarily afford to pay for the whole month upfront, so from an equity standpoint I think fare capping is important to do,” said Shackleton. 

Shackleton also hopes fare capping could drive behavioural change. Metlink almost always has free space on its weekend services, so if more people take public transport on the weekend, more people are using public transport for the same cost to run the service. 

But while Shackleton and Little agree on the necessity of fare-capping, they do so for different reasons. Shackleton mentions train passes in his answer extensively. Little wants to defocus the trains. 

“There’s issues about how Regional Council allocates the money they get from central government,” said Little. “I’ve seen a lot of analyses which suggest it’s heavily weighted towards train transport rather than the bus network.” 

“I think there’s scope to negotiate something there to improve bus fares.” 

A regional council spokesperson told Salient that 50% of Metlink’s funding went to buses compared to 45% to trains, though there are only four train routes compared to the ~100 bus routes. 

There are obvious reasons why Little and Shackleton have different focuses. Little’s jurisdiction only includes Wellington City, which almost exclusively uses buses. Metlink has responsibility for the whole network, and rail patronage is 6% below what it was before the pandemic. 

All of which raises the question—if both City and Regional Council want fare capping but for different reasons and with different funding strategies in mind, where will the agreement come from?

Regardless, it’s clear there’s demand for fare capping. 193 of 246 respondents to an (admittedly unscientific) Salient Instagram poll said they were struggling to pay for public transport.

Law and political science student Meg Lange said she was spending a fifth of her income on public transport fares, and further price hikes would mean deciding which lectures to go to. So unsurprisingly, she’s very keen on fare capping. 

“After the eighth trip, then you're free to do stuff, especially on the weekends,” said Lange. 

“I want to be able to come into town and do things like going to meetings and functions without having to think about how I've already spent so much getting to school each week.” 

Little said conversations with regional council are yet to happen, but is committed to achieving fare capping within the triennium.