PROVINCETOWN — The state budget requires all transportation districts in Massachusetts to provide free bus service, and Cape Cod is finally getting on board.

For most of the state, this is the second year with free buses. But since the Cape Cod Regional Transit Authority opted out of a state grant last year that would have provided free rides sooner, the free service began only last month. The free rides apply only to the CCRTA’s fixed routes, which used to cost $2 each way.

ADA Paratransit, a door-to-door shared ride service for passengers who meet eligibility requirements established by the Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA), which used to cost $2.50, will also be free for people with disabilities who are registered with the transit authority.

Since the free fares program began, “we’ve had a lot of positive feedback, and we have seen an uptick in ridership, which is great,” said Kathy Jensen, the acting administrator of the CCRTA.

The free fares are paid for thanks in part to Massachusetts’s Fair Share Amendment, also known as the millionaires tax.

Approved by Massachusetts voters in 2022 and in effect since 2023, the amendment levies a 4-percent surtax on households with annual income over $1 million, with the revenue going to education and transportation. Opponents of the policy worried that high earners would flee the state, but according to a report released in April by the Washington, D.C.-based Institute for Policy Studies, the number of millionaires by net worth in Massachusetts rose by 38.6 percent between 2022 and 2024, from 441,610 to 612,109.

Activists hope the new no-fare rides will improve bus speed, reduce carbon emissions, recruit more drivers, and help low-income people, who constitute a disproportionate number of riders.

According to Phineas Baxandall, the policy director of the Mass. Budget and Policy Center, free rides should make the bus service more efficient: since riders won’t need to stand at the front and “fiddle with their change,” it decreases the amount of time buses spend loading passengers at each stop.

For a tourist-oriented economy like the Outer Cape’s, the free bus program could also indirectly help businesses looking to hire employees from up-Cape, Baxandall told the Independent.

It could even decrease traffic on the roads if people opt to ride instead of drive. If that happens, Outer Cape drivers “won’t have so much trouble getting onto Route 6,” Baxandall said.

Kevin Brouillette, a driver for the CCRTA, said he has noticed some positive effects already. “There seem to be a few more riders as it catches on,” he said. “It certainly makes for quicker loading of passengers.”

 

Drivers Needed

Jensen told the Independent that the transit authority is always looking for new drivers, which could in turn allow them to increase service. Free buses might help with that.

“One of the things that drivers find most distasteful is having to be policing fares,” Baxandall said. When there are incidents of conflict on buses, they’re generally about fares, he said, “so the experience at other transit authorities has been that when drivers don’t have to collect fares, they like their jobs more, and it’s easier to recruit drivers.”

Jensen said the authority has trouble retaining drivers, since many of them started driving as a retirement gig. “People would retire and come down to the Cape, and then they would be a bus driver for a while, but then they’d either officially retire or, since they were an older population, they might leave in other ways.”

In 2020, the CCRTA started offering a $1,000 signing bonus to recruit more drivers. Jensen said the authority has managed to hire younger drivers lately, a trend she hopes will continue.

 

Expanding SmartDART

This fall, SmartDART service will expand on the Outer Cape, Jensen said. It will become available Monday through Saturday from 7:30 a.m. to 6 p.m., as is already the case on the Upper Cape. Currently, SmartDART is available on the Outer Cape only Monday through Friday, 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.

DART and SmartDART are CCRTA’s rideshare services that provide on-demand, door-to-door service. These both still cost money: SmartDART has a flat rate of $3, and DART has concession pricing: it’s free for children under 5, $1.50 for adults over 60 and people with disabilities, and $3 for everyone else.

SmartDART can be scheduled at the last minute through an app, like Uber, but regular DART services must be reserved at least one weekday in advance.

On the Outer Cape, SmartDART provides trips only within each town. For example, somebody who is riding the SmartDART from Wellfleet can only reach a destination within Wellfleet. DART provides longer trips.

The service is meant to help seniors or people with limited mobility in getting to and from bus stops, but it’s available to everyone. In fiscal 2025, the CCRTA provided 1,402 SmartDART rides and 2,199 DART rides on the Outer Cape, according to data Jensen gave the Independent.

Unlike the fixed route service, DART and SmartDART “will never be free,” she said.