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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

#101

Post by sokoloff »

reaperducer wrote: post #18
lacker wrote: post #12

Unfortunately, I think this is a step backwards. According to the US Census, about 1% of commuters in Kansas City use public transportation. https://censusreporter.org/profiles/31000US28140-kansas-city... It's hardly "public" transportation at all, if it's only useful to 1% of residents. If public transportation is going to make any impact on the lives of Kansas City residents, it first has to be providing a useful s…

If public transportation is going to make any impact on the lives of Kansas City residents, it first has to be providing a useful service to them. Why does that have to be "first?" Why not make it free, and also make it useful? If the goal is to increase ridership, making the rides free lowers the barrier for people in transit-served areas. Then you can subsequently or simultaneously expand it. It makes no sense to k…

The quoted sentence is almost a tautology. If it's not providing a useful service, how would it possibly be making a [positive] impact on their lives? (If it's making a positive impact on their lives, that is, by definition, useful I think.)

In this case "first" was used as a matter of logical antecedent. ("If P then Q", rather than "first P, and later Q".)

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

#102

Post by drdeadringer »

madengr wrote: post #73
jcranmer wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

All you have to do is search “KC bus shooting” on YouTube.

Although you forgot to mention BART, do you believe such is common across US public transportation?

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

#103

Post by shantly »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #94
freeone3000 wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

More than half of Americans end up not paying taxes, because their income is too low. If you're saying make it negative, sure, I'm all for that, but I think you are underestimating the poverty situation in America.

I'm pretty sure it's not true that more than half of Americans avoid paying FICA because their income is too low. It would have to be $0.

Also sales, property, and so on.

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

#104

Post by forthwall »

ngngngng wrote: post #62

I guess Salt Lake City must be too small to count. Or not qualify on some other metric. All the light rail trains in the city are free, but once you get outside of a certain region there is a charge.

This isn't true. (https://www.rideuta.com/Fares-And-Passes/Current-Fares)

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

#105

Post by bobthepanda »

huebomont wrote: post #47
bobthepanda wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Past experience shows generally that things like tolling or road pricing only become politically palatable if an alternative with existing capacity already exists. But funding such alternatives is hard and usually road pricing is proposed in part for the funding. So it's a very chicken vs egg situation.

It's not a hard chicken/egg situation though - put money into making transit a viable alternative for these roads, then start charging for the roads when there's another option. We don't think twice about spending billions eternally digging up and reconfiguring our highways, so we could do the same to transit, for much more bang for the buck.

The main issue is that historically in the US, transit operational funding is a strictly state and below matter, but the feds are happy to stump much of the bill for highways. And states and cities generally have fewer resources.

With such a strong urban-rural political divide these days, and suburban views of transit ranging from apathetic to hostile, federal support for transit operations is unlikely. Personally, I would be a fan of devolving transport funding entirely to solve this issue.

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

#106

Post by kiliantics »

zozbot234 wrote: post #13

Doesn't literal "no cost" public transportation lead to issues with folks abusing the service as a place to hang out? Also, does the service never get congested in other ways? I'd argue that public transportation should be paid for when congested, so that users are incented to shift their use to other times.

Oh no, people hanging out in public spaces! People making use of the space they literally own, how terrible!

Couldn't you make the same argument for cars? We should stop people hanging out in their cars and congesting our public roads!

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

#107

Post by DoreenMichele »

acchow wrote: post #42
noobermin wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is essentially treating the symptoms, not the cause.

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

Seattle needs a great deal more housing.

https://streetlifesolutions.blogspot.com/2018/05/seattle-sta...

The US needs to provide a national health care system. Our current system is actively part of the problem.

Homeless services need to do a better job of providing "opportunity," not just charity. Most homeless services actively help keep the problem alive, a la The Shirky Principle.

https://streetlifesolutions.blogspot.com/2019/08/give-man-fi...

https://streetlifesolutions.blogspot.com/2018/07/the-shirky-...

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

#108

Post by drdeadringer »

tbrownaw wrote: post #99
jeromegv wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow. Have you ever wondered that may be inequality should be a problem worth solving instead of finding yet another way of isolating yourself from the problem?

I'm not entirely clear on how avoiding unpleasant situations precludes also working to fix those same situations. (I'm also not clear on why this is an "inequality" problem rather than a "destitution" problem.)

"Out of sight, out of mind" is real and not uncommon.

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

#109

Post by tessla »

rshnotsecure wrote: post #35

Quick question, has anyone here heard of a very odd company in Kansas City called... https://joesdatacenter.com . All of the staff on LinkedIn exist...but there are only 3 of them and apparently the founder and CEO just got out of community college? They claim to have at least a few ten thousands of floor space, so that must be minimum $25 million in server capital assuming all are used. They also for some reason bro…

Joe's Datacenter is known for hosting hackers and spammers.
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