Completely disagree, the service needs to be free. One of the reasons bus service is such a mess is that people would rather use their cars than a bus so there's very little incentive to make bus services any better. It's a catch 22. Bus service doesn't get better because ridership is low and ridership is low because bus service is bad.<p>Free bus service will increase ridership which in turn will improve bus service over the long run. One very important point, the service needs to be safe and clean. Otherwise, it will be an ugly mess that no one wants to use.