Sarahbeth used to drive. When her mobility declined, she switched to fixed-route buses in Bellingham, Washington, and when that stopped working, too, she moved to paratransit, the door-to-door service cities run for riders who can’t use regular buses or trains. She expected a downgrade in convenience; what she got was a downgrade in motherhood: the paratransit providers would accommodate her but not both of her kids on the same trip. Every morning, she had to decide between getting to work and getting her children where they needed to be. As she put it, the policy felt like a “hole in the law.”
Unfortunately, that is how many transit systems are currently designed: for riders who don’t have kids, do not have a job with a fixed start, and do not have a disability. Everyone else is squeezed into the cracks.
This is why cities should lower fares for low-income and disabled riders while also investing new funds in service frequency and accessibility.
The people who most need public transit are often the ones who can’t access it. Disability and poverty compound each other specifically in transit. According to a 2022 survey by SaverLife, transportation is the second-largest expense in low- to moderate-income households, trailing only behind housing. For disabled riders, these costs do not take their actual life into account: their children, medical appointments, and jobs will not pause if they miss their pickup time.
So what actually moves the needle? Here, the evidence gets a little counterintuitive. A 2023 research review from Results for America found that free and reduced fares increase ridership—with some studies reporting reductions of 20–40 percent—especially among low-income riders, while spending on service improvements increases ridership even more quickly. A separate 2018 study across 25 cities found that service frequency more strongly predicted whether ridership grew or shrank. A free bus that comes every 40 minutes is still a bus most people cannot plan their lives around.
However, improving frequency costs money, which raises the question of where that
funding comes from. The Victoria Transport Policy Institute’s research points to an answer hiding in plain sight: cities have subsidized car travel for decades by keeping parking artificially cheap, and even small corrections produce large shifts. For example, a parking fee of as little as one or two dollars daily can roughly double transit commuting. The money to fund better service doesn’t have to come from riders at all. It can come from pricing car storage closer to its real cost and spending that extra money on the system that people like Sarahbeth depend on.
If nothing changes, disabled parents will be forced to continue choosing between their jobs and families. Low-income riders will continue paying a transportation tax that competes with the cost of rent, groceries, and insurance. Every dollar cities spend protecting cheap parking instead of useful transit is a dollar spent reinforcing exclusion. Car-centric design doesn’t become more equitable on its own; underinvestment shrinks ridership, and low ridership invites further cuts.
City councils and transit agencies don’t need a new theory of transportation to fix this. They need only to spend existing money differently and change policies that cost nothing. Direct new funding towards frequency. Use parking pricing to fund improvements rather than treating car storage as untouchable. Finally, rewrite fine-print rules like child limits on paratransit—rules that don’t save money, don’t improve safety, and which exist for no defensible reason except that nobody with the power to change them has ever had to live with the consequences.
Sarahbeth shouldn’t have to choose between her job and her kids. No city should keep running systems where she does.
The views expressed in this op-ed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of the Saving the Sea Organization. This piece was written as part of the Emergent Fellows Program, our summer fellowship in environmental policy and advocacy.