Hamilton eyes free transit for kids to boost poor pandemic bus ridership
Hamilton is poised to offer free HSR bus rides to children up to the age of 12 starting this November.
City council is expected to sign off Oct. 13 on a one-year experiment to test free transit for kids as part of an HSR effort to put butts back in bus seats after a dramatic pandemic plunge in ridership.
The city is also proposing an enhanced customer loyalty program and free early-morning rides on Waterdown's new on-demand" bus service next month through December. The public works committee unanimously recommended all three changes at a meeting Monday.
Offering a kids-ride-free option will hopefully grow the HSR's ridership of the future," said transit director Maureen Cosyn Heath - but it will also offer immediate help to marginalized residents hurt most by COVID hardship.
What we are finding right now is that COVID-19 has had significant impacts on the financial well-being of our ... fellow Hamiltonians," Cosyn Heath said Monday. By making this move now, we're providing a benefit at a very difficult time for the community."
Hamilton is proposing a one-year pilot that would allow kids ages six to 12 to ride free with a PRESTO card. (Children under six already ride free.)
Right now, the fare for kids age six and up is $2.10 for a single ride or $92.40 for a monthly pass. That means a family with three kids under the age of 13 who rely on monthly transit passes could save up to $3,300 a year.
It's hard to say exactly how the change will affect HSR revenues, but paid fares for that age group accounted for about $164,000 in 2019.
That cost convinced a past Hamilton council to pass on the idea of free transit for kids when it was pitched by Coun. Sam Merulla in 2015 - the same year Toronto adopted the strategy.
Now, Hamilton is belatedly joining a growing municipal trend, with free bus rides for the 12-and-under crowd already offered by communities like Oakville, Burlington, London, Windsor and Kingston.
It hasn't been the smoothest ride in Toronto, where the TTC has discovered fraudulent use of child PRESTO cards by adults to steal free subway rides.
The HSR did not immediately respond to questions about whether it is worried about potential cheats.
Regardless, councillors at the public works meeting Monday were firmly on board with the plan.
Mountain councillor John-Paul Danko praised the proposal as a way to make bus travel a normal thing to do" for kids who represent the next generation" of Hamilton transit users.
I'm really looking forward to seeing what impacts (the pilot) has on ridership," he said.
Other ridership-boosting proposals endorsed Monday include:
- Offering free rides between 5 and 10 a.m. on the new on-demand" bus service that started running last month in Waterdown. The two-month promotion is meant to tempt new riders onto the system in a community with historically low transit use.
- Improving the HSR customer loyalty program. Right now, if you ride the HSR 11 times in a week, the remainder of your rides that week are free. Starting Nov. 1, you only need to ride eight times in a week to earn your free trips.
Matthew Van Dongen is a Hamilton-based reporter covering transportation for The Spectator. Reach him via email: mvandongen@thespec.com