Free Public Transit for all: Tallinn shows how it can work | CitiesoftheFuture.eu

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Tallinn isn’t the first city to experiment with free public transport, but it is the largest, with a population of 430,000. It has dubbed itself the “capital of free public transport” and is actively encouraging the rest of Europe to adopt a similar approach.

“We are frequently asked… why we are offering free-of-charge public transport,” Mayor Edgar Savisaar told journalists last August. “It is actually more appropriate to ask why most cities in the world still don’t.”

While the traffic benefits for Tallinn may be in dispute, the social benefits are clearer. In poorer parts of the city such as Lasnamae, a densely populated neighborhood with high unemployment, ridership has jumped by 10%. People can travel to jobs without worrying about cost, and employers can draw on a larger pool of workers and expand their workforce without needing to build additional parking.

For the city government, going free only cost an additional 12 million euros a year. That is, in part, because public transport was already heavily subsidized to the tune of 70%. Now it is subsidized 96%. (Most European cities subsidize transport more than 50%.)

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Free Public Transit for all: Tallinn shows how it can work | CitiesoftheFuture.eu

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