[[File:TriMet bus stop sign with "Fareless Square" (2009).jpg|thumb|right|300px|A TriMet bus stop sign with a "Last stop [in] Fareless Square" sign attached, in 2009]]

Fareless Square was an area within central Portland, Oregon, where all rides on TriMet buses and light rail and the Portland Streetcar were free. It primarily consisted of the downtown area and, after 2001, the Lloyd District. It existed from January 1975 through August 2012, but was briefly renamed the Free Rail Zone in January 2010 after its coverage became limited to light rail and streetcar service, with bus rides no longer being free. The TriMet board decided in June 2012 to discontinue the Free Rail Zone primarily to help fill a large shortfall in the agency's budget, and the action was one component of a package of extensive budget cuts

History

Adopted in 1975 to combat limited parking and air pollution,

Fareless Square initially encompassed the area of downtown Portland between Hoyt Street and Market Street, and from the Willamette River west to I-405. On April 3, 1977, it was expanded southward from Market Street to the point where I-405 meets the river at the Marquam Bridge. A minor adjustment of Fareless Square occurred during the 1990s in order to include the stops for Union Station (Amtrak), by extending the northern limits of the area by one block to Northwest Irving Street.

In 2001, Fareless Square was extended again, this time across the river to the Lloyd District. Included were MAX stations along Holladay Street and bus stops on NE Multnomah Street from the Rose Quarter, past the Oregon Convention Center to the Lloyd Center shopping mall. This was a panhandle-shaped addition to the original free-fare zone, and consequently Fareless Square was, strictly speaking, no longer square-shaped, but it retained its name. In 2007, a pair of stops directly in front of Union Station, added with Portland Mall construction and north of Irving Street, were added to the zone<!-- I'm pretty sure. There was a Board of Directors agenda item related to this -->. In its last years, the free-service area covered .

The proposals were refined into one that would eliminate fareless service on buses but keep rail service free. Proponents of this change argued that, with MAX light rail being added along the Portland Transit Mall in 2009, most transit users riding solely within the fareless area would be served by MAX and the Portland Streetcar, and therefore still travel for free.

The Portland Business Alliance and tourism bureau supported the move. At that time, the estimated loss of revenue attributed to free rides on buses in the fareless zone was $800,000.

TriMet's fiscal year 2013 budget proposed the elimination of the Free Rail Zone effective September 1, 2012, as part of a package of service cuts and other changes intended to deal with a $12&nbsp;million budget shortfall, and the proposal was approved in June. The fareless zone was discontinued at the end of service on August 31, 2012. However, others questioned the logic of linking incidents of crime in Gresham with the existence of a free transit zone located several miles away, in downtown Portland, and TriMet's own statistics showed that in 2007 the agency received very few complaints about activities such as drug dealing and panhandling in Fareless Square. TriMet held two public hearings on January 16, 2008 to help determine the future of Fareless Square but, after receiving a large volume of comment from the public, decided to not make any immediate changes.

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References

  • Map of Fareless Square as of 2009, archived by the Internet Archive

<!-- semi-arbitrary, but SW Washington and between 4th and 5th seems appropriate -->