And many other cities do, too. And it works. I know, I've used it. I wish we had it in our Downtown Core. Or at least a DayPass Shopper rate. I know I would use it in Vancouver and leave my car parked at home.

As long as you pay for the Transit infrastructure , let it be free.

I have read reports from studies that have taken place on free transit and what happens is that the downtown core becomes much busier. As a result, the cities economy improves.

Since Translink does not just control transit but also bridges and roads as well, everyone benefits from their services not just those using transit.

In addition, not having to carry around a pile of change to use transit will increase ridership and thus cut down on the traffic for those who have to drive and the wear on the road they drive on.

I agree with some commenters that calling this free is misguided, really the point is that we should all buy into this upfront since it's helping everyone and will be better managed and used without dealing with passes.

A brilliant idea!

Gary Bizzo: If you drive a car, you are being subsidized to the tune of about $8,000 per year by the rest of us. Automobile transportation subsidy is way bigger than transit subsidy. Cyclists are the only ones paying their way!

Please don't think I'm being obscene, the word that was asterisked out in my post was *********

This is a hilariously bad joke. Add more taxes onto property owners and businesses to pay for free public transit. Oh, and we need to add capacity while we're at it.

Translink already draws 53% of its revenue from property, fuel and Aircare taxes. In F2009, they took in $356M in fares, and $576M in taxes. So before you want to talk about making anything free, realize that the transit service whose fares you're whining about are already massively subsidized by the rest of us.

As for your "small contribution" from property tax, let's look at a few more numbers. Of that $356M in fare revenue, $210M was in monthly passes, including U-Pass. Let's be overly generous to your half-baked idea and assume that every one of the remaining $146 million in single-use fares was from someone who doesn't live here and thus wouldn't qualify for your plan.

So... your "small contribution" just added $210 million in additional property taxes that the rest of us need to cough up every year, just so you can take the #6 from Davie and Denman down to Granville Street.

The last census put the population of the GVRD at roughly 2.1 million people. Hey, $100 per person per year sounds pretty reasonable, doesn't it? Of course, that's assuming that every man, woman and child ponies up the hundred smackers, so a traditional South Asian, three-generation household now owes maybe a thousand bucks, while the 20-year-old PBR-chugging hipster in a basement suite off Main and 13th will of course pay nothing as a non-property owner.

...by the way, that South Asian family living in a moderately-priced, average-for-Vancouver house worth around a million dollars is already paying around eight thousand dollars a year in property taxes, a relative bargain compared to Vancouver's insane business property taxes.

So, under your scheme, the 64-year-old grandfather working as a $10/hr security guard to help make ends meet now has to work an extra three hours a week so you can take the bus for free.

TL;DR - your idea is total bunko, lady, and your *********, welfare-state BS is ruining this city for all of us. Do a little math and learn to love riding your bike.

I must make it clear that my considerations that go against the feasibility of a free transit have been made very cautiously while being a proponent of ****-fare public transport, also often called free public transport or free public transit, through subsidizing transit system 100% to seriously reduce usage of cars for commuting. This idea is item no 15 out of some 20 suggestions made at the page entitled : Policy Makers to do at http://vsrbc.web.officelive.com/PM.aspx

I am not persuaded that sufficient thought has gone into this proposed free transit idea. The anticipated “annual” contribution from property tax to fund free transit in the expanded capacity mode would be at this time clearly unaffordable and bitterly resented. Those who would not be able to use this service and would be forced to fund it would not find it fair. It sure is good social action, and therefore comes with all the evils that go with socialization like reckless overuse and costs for regulation of the process. Even if it is good for tourism it collides with the greening of the city. Tourists are a source of emissions while they travel to Vancouver and stay here. In all honesty cutting back global emissions requires suppression of tourism seriously and limit personal vacationing to local destinations only. We do not help things by promoting tourism. The real cure for climate change is hibernation of economy not promoting it. While the Transit would save the administrative costs and even the carbon foot print of preparing and vending the fare tickets, there would be huge expansions of fuel (even if it is electricity), vehicle maintenance, vandalism repairs, and manpower (operator) costs that would far exceed the saving of the administration of the fare collection. One area of savings would be the prosecution of fare evader because then everyone would be a fare evader. Whether the dispensing with the fare collection would improves safety of drivers/operators is very speculative. One can even argue that high ridership and frivolous ridership with professional criminals able to use transit with impunity would move some of the petty crime into the transit system and there is a potential for greater violence by the offenders against the riders as well as the operators. On the other hand there is going to be rise in crime rate from climate change itself so the balancing is really very delicate. The biggest hurdle at this time is that pockets of taxpayers, the city budget and the Transit budget all are running in serious deficit such that the proposal has not merely **** but a negative chance of becoming a reality. We have missed the bus in that regard as it is too late to implement this proposal, which could have been a possibility when things were bit more prosperous. So the solutions are do not travel or use your bike or your legs.