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Kansas City is first major city in U.S. to offer no-cost public transportation

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Re: Kansas City is first major city in U.S. to offer no-cost public transportation

#61

Post by jcranmer »

ksec wrote: post #58
nostromo wrote: post #23

Seattle used to have this for an area of the city. It was called the "Free Ride Zone" - and it had some unexpected consequences. The primary problem is that homeless people would get on the bus because it's warm, and would fall asleep. The busses became rolling homeless shelters. This caused other people to take the bus less, because of public safety concerns, as well as simple quality-of-life issues like unpleasant…

Arh, is this why why people in US hate public transport and prefer to drive themselves or go by taxi? For those of us living in the "outside" world where public transport are the norm, it is sometimes hard to understand why public transport is treated so differently in US.

A lot of the distaste for public transit in the US is ultimately motivated by a "fuck poor people" mentality, especially in regards to bus transit (rail systems tend to attract a somewhat wealthier clientele).

Re: Kansas City is first major city in U.S. to offer no-cost public transportation

#63

Post by nostromo »

jcranmer wrote: post #61
ksec wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Arh, is this why why people in US hate public transport and prefer to drive themselves or go by taxi? For those of us living in the "outside" world where public transport are the norm, it is sometimes hard to understand why public transport is treated so differently in US.

A lot of the distaste for public transit in the US is ultimately motivated by a "fuck poor people" mentality, especially in regards to bus transit (rail systems tend to attract a somewhat wealthier clientele).

Ridiculous.

Americans are practical like anyone else. Transit in the US tends to be (much) slower than driving, so people drive.

In the few places where transit actually works, like New York, Americans use it.

Re: Kansas City is first major city in U.S. to offer no-cost public transportation

#64

Post by julienb_sea »

runarberg wrote: post #54
milkytron wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think what the original commenter meant was that people get upset because they don't want to subsidize transit systems, and would rather have them break even or turn a profit. What a lot of those same people don't understand, is that taxes pay for the road systems. The people that understand public transit realize that it's hard to recover the costs without assistance (taxes).

I think exactly that happened in the last Washington state election. The state legislator put on the ballot a measure that would limit the amount the state could tax each car owner. Proponents would claim that the tax was going towards public transit infrastructure (like Sound Transit 3) and that it was unfair to tax car owners for that. The measure was approved.

The measure was sold largely as a general flipping of the bird towards King and neighboring counties by the rest of the state. Generally there is opposition from eastern Washington for car tabs going to fund Sound Transit's investments on the western corridor, which doesn't really do anything to benefit those that don't live in the western corridor.

And yes, I am aware that King net exports money to the east. I'm not sure how impactful that argument is for a minimum wage worker living far away from Seattle paying $500 a year on car tabs, for a car that they have no alternative but owning in order to get to their job.

Re: Kansas City is first major city in U.S. to offer no-cost public transportation

#65

Post by nostromo »

CuriousSkeptic wrote: post #49
acchow wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right. So of course we're supposed to solve homelessness. Know how this can be accomplished in Seattle?

You don’t need to solve all of homelessness, just providing something competitive with a bus could be a start one would think.

Seattle has tried that.

People with chemical addictions will not go to shelters because shelters don't allow you to be drunk or high.

So shelter beds go unused, and people shoot up and drink in parks, on sidewalks, and on busses.

Re: Kansas City is first major city in U.S. to offer no-cost public transportation

#66

Post by Dumblydorr »

jcranmer wrote: post #61
ksec wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Arh, is this why why people in US hate public transport and prefer to drive themselves or go by taxi? For those of us living in the "outside" world where public transport are the norm, it is sometimes hard to understand why public transport is treated so differently in US.

A lot of the distaste for public transit in the US is ultimately motivated by a "fuck poor people" mentality, especially in regards to bus transit (rail systems tend to attract a somewhat wealthier clientele).

I'm sorry, I have to push back here. Is it a "fuck poor people" mentality, as you state, to not want to be near people who smell of urine, excrement, BO, stale drug smells? This is simply the modern nose being accustomed to sanitary smells, can you really say it's a "fuck poor people mentality" if it's down to literally never smelling those smells except on public transport?

Re: Kansas City is first major city in U.S. to offer no-cost public transportation

#67

Post by farss »

nostromo wrote: post #23

Seattle used to have this for an area of the city. It was called the "Free Ride Zone" - and it had some unexpected consequences. The primary problem is that homeless people would get on the bus because it's warm, and would fall asleep. The busses became rolling homeless shelters. This caused other people to take the bus less, because of public safety concerns, as well as simple quality-of-life issues like unpleasant…

It's not just the free fare - it's the abysmal lack of shelter options and the attempts by cities to criminalize encampments and force people to find somewhere indoors to avoid arrest.

Re: Kansas City is first major city in U.S. to offer no-cost public transportation

#68

Post by papreclip »

nostromo wrote: post #23

Seattle used to have this for an area of the city. It was called the "Free Ride Zone" - and it had some unexpected consequences. The primary problem is that homeless people would get on the bus because it's warm, and would fall asleep. The busses became rolling homeless shelters. This caused other people to take the bus less, because of public safety concerns, as well as simple quality-of-life issues like unpleasant…

Yep, I personally would much sooner use public transportation that charged $10 (with no exceptions) than free public transportation. Sharing close quarters with aggressive, smelly, intoxicated, unstable people is stressful and unpleasant

Re: Kansas City is first major city in U.S. to offer no-cost public transportation

#69

Post by kasey_junk »

rayiner wrote: post #56
huebomont wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is there's no additional investment into the system to make it attractive to riders. The KC transit system is poorly designed and making it free isn't going to make it good. Better to keep charging the fare and use the revenue to improve service, then reevaluate when ridership is growing. Transit investment has a LOT of catching up to do to even get close to the types of subsidizing and handouts we give d…

> Transit investment has a LOT of catching up to do to even get close to the types of subsidizing and handouts we give drivers in every corner of this country. That’s completely untrue. Yes we spend more on vehicles than transit. But way more people drive than use transit. There is not even a comparison. In 2016 federal and state spending on road, transit, and water infrastructure was $416 billion: https://www.bidnet…

I’m not disagreeing with your broader point but none of those studies account for space utilization issues. Transit uses space better due to lack of parking and more density per track.

No idea how that impacts the actual dollar numbers but it’s worth noting.

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