Fareless Square

The boundary of the westside portion of Fareless Square (and later the Free Rail Zone) started at the west foot of the Marquam Bridge, ran northwest along Interstate 405 to Northwest Irving Street, east to the Steel Bridge, then southward along the western shore of the Willamette River. The boundary of the eastside section, added in 2001, started at the east foot of the Steel Bridge, ran northwest to North Interstate Avenue to Multnomah Street, then east to the 1400 block of Northeast Multnomah Street, south to Northeast Holladay Street, and west to the Steel Bridge. By implication the entirety of the Steel Bridge was within the fare-free zone.

According to the TriMet code, the free-ride zone was "within Zone 1" and did not constitute a separate fare zone. TriMet discontinued all fare zones effective September 1, 2012, and no longer uses a zonal, or distance-based, fare system.

Adopted in 1975 to combat limited parking and air pollution,[8] 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,[9] 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.[10] 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. In its last years, the free-service area covered 1.35 square miles (3.5 km²).[8]

From time to time during Fareless Square's history, some in the Portland area called for it to be abolished, for various reasons.

As bus drivers could only request, but not require, payment of fares on bus boardings within Fareless Square, critics of TriMet alleged that the existence of Fareless Square facilitated fare evasion, and thus lost revenue, which must be made up by other means, such as taxation. In particular, riders who boarded in Fareless Square without paying a fare and then knowingly traveled beyond the zone's boundaries would be evading fare payment. Transfers were given to all passengers who paid fares within the fareless zone, which were subject to inspection by fare inspectors or drivers at the first stop outside of the fareless boundary. However, in practice, drivers did not systematically enforce fare collection on bus trips taken from points inside the fare-free zone to points outside it. (In other cities with fareless zones, pay-on-exit is used on trips leaving the fareless area, and that practice was also used by TriMet from 1975 until 1982.)

On the MAX Light Rail and Portland Streetcar lines, a proof-of-payment fare system (or "honor" fare system) is used, so the application of the Fareless Square (or Free Rail Zone) meant that fare inspectors did not check passengers' fares within the free-fare zone.

In late 2007, a series of attacks against TriMet passengers, particularly on the MAX Blue Line in Gresham, led to increased public scrutiny of the security of the Portland transit system as a whole. Fareless Square was called into question as part of this inquiry, as it was alleged that the perpetrators of such offenses were often fare evaders who boarded TriMet in Fareless Square, and who then traveled to other areas (such as Gresham) without paying any fare, and that more stringent fare collection would keep such "undesirables" off the trains. TriMet's general manager proposed limiting the hours of Fareless Square to 7 a.m. to 7 p.m.[18] 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.[19] 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.[20]

In contrast, other commentators have periodically called for eliminating fares altogether on TriMet, financing the public transportation system entirely through taxation.

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