Raising HSL ticket prices is a mistake

Public transport fares will rise again. HSL, the Helsinki region transport authority, plans to raise fares by about three percent a year in its preliminary 2027–2029 plan. By the plan’s end, prices would be nearly ten percent higher. That does not serve Kirkkonummi residents.

Why does a flat percentage hit Kirkkonummi hardest?

When fares rise by the same percentage in every zone, those living furthest away pay most. In Kirkkonummi that means commuters using public transport. Commuting and other regular trips to Helsinki require an ABCD ticket. Under HSL’s current fare table, a 30-day season ticket costs an adult 121.80 euros. The same rise costs a Kirkkonummi resident more than someone travelling from Espoo, who can use a cheaper two- or three-zone ticket.

Why did we oppose the fare increases?

Member municipalities are submitting statements. Kirkkonummi’s Urban Development Committee reviewed the statement earlier in August, the Municipal Board at month’s end. We Greens opposed the fare increases. Raising ticket prices is not the way to balance HSL’s finances. Kirkkonummi zones station areas and rail corridors so growth follows the train, and that only pays off if the train remains an alternative to the car. Every increase narrows the gap the zoning strategy depends on.

What would fix HSL’s funding model?

HSL’s finances are strained, but large fare increases will not fix that. Operating costs keep rising, and larger municipal contributions would burden municipalities heavily. The choice is not between raising prices and doing nothing. The consultation round is when municipalities can demand the funding model be fixed, by ending the infrastructure compensation agreement, under which other HSL municipalities fund big cities’ infrastructure projects, improving HSL’s finances and spreading costs more fairly.

Who will travel by public transport ten years from now?

A rail connection is basic infrastructure, like a road or a water main. As public transport costs shift onto the user year by year, the service becomes one only the well-off can afford. In a municipality Kirkkonummi’s size, this happens fast. For many, the car is already the only realistic option, and an expensive ticket makes it sensible. Yet the municipality’s strategy wants more public transport use. That is the contradiction.

A single fare increase is small, but these increases will decide whether Kirkkonummi residents travel by public transport or by car ten years from now.