Plans to make public transport free of charge in Brussels
The CDH party has taken a first step to try to make the STIB network free.
What do you think about the road traffic in Brussels? No need to be an expert to know that the thousands and thousands of cars that are on the Brussels’ streets everyday make the city more polluted, noisier and less enjoyable in our daily life.
Traffic jams will never be completely eliminated; it seems to be an unrealistic dream. Solutions, however, can be implemented to try to reduce it in the long-term. While fuel could be a significant part of individual budgets, making public transport free could be a possible solution to reduce traffic and pollution in the streets.
And this perspective is not an unrealistic dream! Some cities have already made their public transport free across Europe. The Luxemburgish government even plans to make public transport free in the whole country. So nothing is impossible.
We’re definitely not there. But some progress might be more concrete over the upcoming months. CDH presented a resolution before the Brussels’ Parliament. This text aims to launch a study “which aims at assessing in an objective way the costs and the benefits, direct and indirect, of making the STIB network free”, wrote news outlet DH about this initiative.
The point is not just about economy. Public transport is a cross-sectional subject, which is related to health, environment, equality/inequality, urbanism etc. This report would then cover all those issues. It is not a big decision, that’s right, but assessing the benefits of free public transport should not lead to very bad results. Let’s then hope progress in this direction will be made in the upcoming years.
