111–120 of 236 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
There is absolutely no "shortcut" for cities to skimp on having sufficient transit infrastructure to get people where they need to go. If you underbuild, people drive cars. If you overcharge, people drive cars. If you restrict car traffic, people simply don't move or work in your city and your economy dies. One way to balance between free ride abuse and people not using the trains because they have a car is to give r…
> most of the US government is designed to self-sabotage things like publicly run transit anyway What level of US government is sabotaging transit? The federal government doles out at least $2.3B every year for transit projects[0], meanwhile state and local governments throughout the US are approving tax increases for more transit. [0]: https://www.transit.dot.gov/funding/grant-programs/capital-i...
168 billion total from state and local.
https://www.urban.org/policy-centers/cross-center-initiative...
Public transit on the other hand sees only 24.38 billion total.
https://www.bts.gov/browse-statistical-products-and-data/tra...
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I think it's worth specifying that Melbourne's CBD is pretty small, and there aren't a lot of reasons why you'd need to travel within it where you haven't already gotten in by public transport (for which you have to pay, and travelling within the city afterwards wouldn't cost extra even if it weren't free - our pricing scheme is notoriously complicated). I live in the CBD, and the only time it ever actually saves me…
The trams are managed by a contracted private company, but pricing and public transport policy is set by the government, which is your first of several factual errors. There are multiple reasons you'd need to travel within the CBD where you haven't already gotten in by public transport: It opens up multiple locations in the entire CBD and surrounds to a single day trip without shuttling cars between overly expensive…
I'm not unaware of this fact, but consider it basically irrelevant. Trams were privatised in 1999, after which the long series of fare policy adjustments were so baldfacedly opposed to public interest that the argument they were done absent pressure from whichever private organisation owned them at the time is warrantless. And they weren't subtle about the pressure, either - their arguments that their mandate wasn't profitable enough were ceaseless.
If you believe there are other factual errors, let me know.
Addressing the other points would more or less come down to citationless expressions of experience, so I don't know if it's worthwhile. I recognise that you do raise a few benefits, but I don't accept that it's an improved situation over the previously free Swanston Street route absent some numbers. We'll probably have to agree to disagree.
Little tip for anyone living in SF (fair percentage of this website): All minors can ride muni free if their family is at or below the Bay Area medium income, which is $115K for a family of four.[1] [1] https://www.sfmta.com/fares/free-muni-youth
Ugh, what's the point of making rich kids pay? Just to make it awkward for rich kids and normal kids traveling together?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EuEDuye-JmE
I definitely wouldn't let kids under 15-16 ride alone.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
There is absolutely no "shortcut" for cities to skimp on having sufficient transit infrastructure to get people where they need to go. If you underbuild, people drive cars. If you overcharge, people drive cars. If you restrict car traffic, people simply don't move or work in your city and your economy dies. One way to balance between free ride abuse and people not using the trains because they have a car is to give r…
> most of the US government is designed to self-sabotage things like publicly run transit anyway What level of US government is sabotaging transit? The federal government doles out at least $2.3B every year for transit projects[0], meanwhile state and local governments throughout the US are approving tax increases for more transit. [0]: https://www.transit.dot.gov/funding/grant-programs/capital-i...
At this level a couple billion dollars is hardly anything.
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.)
Estonia did just that: https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2018/06/estonia-is-making-pub...
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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…
> Why they can't just get machines for that? That's actually what they do in Toronto now. It's all "Presto Card" automated.
Astonishingly, the 'change collectors', who only sell tokens don't sell Presto cards.
Yet another mind-blowing bit of incompetence.
In Montreal, not only can you buy temporary cards (with money or visa), but you can also put rides on them in a fully automated way.
I will admit that the situation in Toronto may be temporary, but it's still utterly ridiculous.
This move isn’t going to change much. Children under 4 already don’t pay, and children under 10 pay half price. But overall it’s fairly rare to see kids commute by subway in Paris. Most kids go to school not far from where they live.
For those who may believe that this is going to increase the number of kids begger in the subway, I’d say that these guys already don’t pay...
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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…
Are you saying that depriving people of places to sleep makes the city more livable.
So yes, I'm willing to tell some homeless people to go to a shelter (of which there are plenty in the city) rather than ruin a transit system used by half a million commuters.
1. https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Human-waste-shuts-dow...