Cult MTL: "Offering free public transit on special occasions is a great first step, but the city needs to go much farther. Ideally, all public transit should be accessible. The simplest way to do that is to make it free to all at all times, but I recognize that progressive ideas are often implemented progressively, so let’s start with a few baby steps:
• Issue free transit passes to social assistance recipients. Public transit is unaffordable on a welfare income, and lack of mobility makes it harder for the poor to find work or to shop outside their communities. Free transit could help offset the problem of “food deserts,” the lack of decent local grocery stores common in poorer districts. This is a huge gesture that will cost virtually nothing.
• Offer free transit days on a more regular basis. Start with free weekends during the summer months to encourage public participation in all the festivals we’re already subsidizing.
• Keep the metro running all night on New Year’s and Nuit Blanche, but make it and the night buses free to encourage even more people to leave their cars at home (or to turn down lifts from friends who are driving drunk)."
• Issue free transit passes to social assistance recipients. Public transit is unaffordable on a welfare income, and lack of mobility makes it harder for the poor to find work or to shop outside their communities. Free transit could help offset the problem of “food deserts,” the lack of decent local grocery stores common in poorer districts. This is a huge gesture that will cost virtually nothing.
• Offer free transit days on a more regular basis. Start with free weekends during the summer months to encourage public participation in all the festivals we’re already subsidizing.
• Keep the metro running all night on New Year’s and Nuit Blanche, but make it and the night buses free to encourage even more people to leave their cars at home (or to turn down lifts from friends who are driving drunk)."
