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Montreal is one of the most livable cities in the world, in part because of our safe and clean public transit system.

If there’s one policy that would go a long way to improving our quality of life, however, it would be to make all public transit free.

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Fiscal conservatives will immediately balk at this suggestion (as they often do at Big Ideas): after all, the Société de transport de Montréal’s 2017 budget notes that $632 million was culled from transit fares. Even if we take into account an offsetting reduction in road repairs that might result from fewer people driving and more people taking public transit, those figures wouldn’t balance: the City of Montreal’s 2017 budget invested $138 million for road repairs.

But consider that there are hidden costs to having so many cars on Montreal roads and multiple benefits to reducing their numbers. It’s important to include these in the equation.