Paris Will Make Public Transportation Free for Kids

Post by hopler » Mon, Jan 21, 2019, 2:14 AM UTC

closeparen wrote: post #43

johannes1234321 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

kind of a strawman. Maybe one could also find better ways to give shelter to homeless. And for the bad kid there are other ways than using tickets for that.

Laws are kind of a non sequitor. Maybe one could also find better ways to motivate people to treat each other decently. But I’m going to continue funding homicide investigations. “Don’t make things livable in small and practical ways, just hold out for total structural revolution and the solution to multigenerational and intractable social problems” is an infuriating line that unfortunately guides much of San Francis…

Post by hopler » Mon, Jan 21, 2019, 2:15 AM UTC

iodbh wrote: post #67

ahakki wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are kicked out. The doors are locked.

I have spent a couple of nights in locked metro stations myself : before locking, they just warn that they're going to lock. Whoever's still inside is locked in until morning, but there's no kicking out.

Post by masonic » Mon, Jan 21, 2019, 2:17 AM UTC

MrTonyD wrote: post #27

Hong Kong makes 2 billion a year on public transportation. They did that by giving the land around the station to the transportation agency, so they lease it out long term, and that pays for all the trains and operations. They charge a token fee for using public transportation. I'd prefer to see real public support, rather than a business/profit justification for lower fares, but in the current greed-valued world I'l…

  makes 2 billion a year on public transportation

Post by JacobJans » Mon, Jan 21, 2019, 2:33 AM UTC

sonnyblarney wrote: post #74

pseudolus wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the major issues around offering free public transportation is funding. Public purses are pretty strained everywhere and additional taxes are unlikely to be accepted. Physically, there's also a problem in that systems are simply not geared for the expected increase in ridership which in itself is sufficiently large enough to cause problems but not meaningful enough to cause a significant dent in car use. I bel…

Is it the public purse? Or is it unions? Or maybe something down the chain? The TTC/Subway in Toronto has 'change collectors' - people at every station who do change, they earn over $100K if they work a lot of overtime. There are effectively no automatic change booths at the stations, and no automated way to just 'buy a token and get on'. Can you imagine why it's so inefficient? Why they can't just get machines for t…

Post by toomanybeersies » Mon, Jan 21, 2019, 2:44 AM UTC

Shivetya wrote: post #5

zhoujianfu wrote: post #2

Why not make it just free for everybody? Public transportation typically has profit margins of -50% to -90% anyway... just take it to -100% and get a huge boost in ridership! (And probably save some expenses relating to collecting payment/enforcement.)

previous studies done showed that making it free did not result in significant uptick in usage[1]. It really comes down to, does it go where you want from where you want when you want and all this on a timely basis. Hence the big reason buses always win over rail as they can adapt to changing needs. [1] https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/01/why-can...