Sen. Ed Markey and Rep. Ayanna Pressley are reintroducing the Freedom to Move Act, legislation that would allocate $25 billion over five years to support state and local transit agencies to create fare-free public transportation systems.
Some of Massachusetts's federal representatives are renewing a push for free transit.
"In particular, for Black Boston bus riders, riding, waiting, transferring, an additional 64 hours a year, that's an additional 64 hours to get to your place of work, to get to school, to get to a health care appointment, to get to childcare," said Pressley."When Sen. Markey and I say this is literally about the freedom to move, that is so basic and so essential and something that should be an inherent right for everyone."Sign up for NECN newsletters.
"We know that this works because we've measuring every bit of it in Boston through these three bus routes that have been fare-free for over a year now," said Mayor Michelle Wu."We know that compared to the entire system, these are the routes with the highest ridership, and that is no accident."found Routes 23 and 29 are recovering ridership quicker than the entire bus system since becoming fare-free.
"You are enabling them to get to their jobs and be able to afford to keep those jobs, because right now, a lot of my neighbors are being priced out of this community, and this is actually going toward helping them be able to stay and be able to provide the underpinning for the city of Boston," she said.