NYC mayor race shines light on why making public transport free is important

31 OCTOBER, 2025 

Who: Charles Darwin University sustainable transport solutions expert, PhD Candidate in Law, Ferdinand Balfoort. Ferdinand is completing his doctoral dissertation on distributive justice, sustainability and shared e-scooters, focussing on the benefits and burdens of sustainable transport technologies and possible solutions to reduce greenhouse emissions via carbon taxation and carbon credits. He is currently engaged on sustainable transport technology solutions, methodology development and carbon credit assisted deployment in Australia, as part of his PhD internship through Urban Analytica Pty Ltd, an incubator company from University of Melbourne. 

Topics: 

• Public Transport’s role in reducing greenhouse gas emissions 

• Distributive justice, benefits and burdens of public transport 

• Potential to support greater public transport uptake through carbon taxation and credits 

Contact details: Call +61 8 8946 6721 or email [email protected] to arrange an interview. 

Quotes attributable to Ferdinand Balfoort: 

“The New York mayoral elections have sparked renewed interest in free public transport, a policy which has become a point of immense discussion in the race. There is growing interest in trialling free public transport globally, with trials across the United States and in Europe.  

“Academic research finds that free public transport addresses the burdens and relative distributive injustice of inaccessible transport in cities in a range of ways. Free public transport reduces transport poverty, reduces city transport emissions significantly, improves mental health and even reduces aggression and incidents on public transport, it has been found. 

“Based on Neoliberal Economic leanings of many governments and city councils globally, public transport is proposed to be a profitable enterprise, oriented to a return on investment instead, creating relative benefits for operators, while increasing burdens on many stakeholder groups, leading to a relative transportation distributive injustice. 

“Carbon taxation on private car usage in tandem with free private transport is found to have an amplified impact on switching passengers to public transport usage. 

“Conversely, calculating the net emissions reductions from the switch to greater free public transport options, in conjunction with other positive interventions, is theoretically capable of unlocking voluntary carbon credits that could subsidise free public transport operations to some extent while accelerating the switch to lower emitting and more equitable, as well as safer transportation.”