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

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

#201

Post by edmundsauto » Tue, Dec 17, 2019, 1:30 AM UTC

reaperducer wrote: post #185

edmundsauto wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you doubting that homeless people tend to have worse hygiene? Or that people don't want to use public transit when it smells bad?

What I doubt is the notion that the number of people who don't use transit because of the homeless is statistically significant. The people who seem to complain about it most are also the sort of people who won't ride transit anyway and just use it as an excuse to stay in their cars.

Possibly. I prefer a car over public transit generally, although there are times when transit is more convenient. In those circumstances, I would use public transit more often if it weren't such an awful experience.

Directionally, I think it's reasonable to assume that bad smells negatively impact ridership. It seems all we disagree about is the magnitude. Given how few people ride transit now, even a small number of folks who avoid transit due to smell seems likely to be a decent sized percentage of overall ridership.

I'd bet that ridership would go up 10+% if you could magically remove any hygiene and perceived threat issues. Although now we're well into the territory where we are each just projecting our own opinions, because AFAICT neither of us have data to back our assertions.

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

#202

Post by AnthonyMouse » Tue, Dec 17, 2019, 1:34 AM UTC

bobthepanda wrote: post #105

huebomont wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

The reason for the distinction is that federal highways are interstate. Neither New York nor San Francisco is going to be willing to pay for highways to connect the two cities, but we all benefit from being able to get from one side of the country to the other.

But arguing that states and cities have fewer resources is ridiculous. Cities have more resources than anybody -- they're where the highest income people live.

It's the rural areas that have no money, but mass transit is useless there anyway, because it's too spread out and there is no need for it there because those areas have no traffic congestion.

The cities are where mass transit works as the cities are where the money is. It's only a matter of popular will.

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

#203

Post by jcranmer » Tue, Dec 17, 2019, 1:37 AM UTC

astrodust wrote: post #200

munk-a wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As much as rich people hate buses, they're a vital transportation resource to working folks - I take a bus and metro every day and save a bunch compared to owning and commuting in a car.

You don't take the bus because you like it, but because you have no other option.

There have been places where I could have commuted by car (i.e., I owned a car), but chose to commute by bus instead.

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

#204

Post by runarberg » Tue, Dec 17, 2019, 1:38 AM UTC

dmode wrote: post #180

runarberg wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If true, then there is something wrong with the policy that all shelters need to be sober. Introduce some number of shelters—in parts of the city where high drug usage is a problem—that include safe use spaces (i.e. with medical access, clean needles and dispose boxes, no drug arrest policy etc.)

Cities increasingly are calling for safe injection sites, but it is against Federal law

Federal legislation doesn’t stop Seattle from allowing the sale of marijuana, so that is a pretty lame excuse.

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

#205

Post by munk-a » Tue, Dec 17, 2019, 1:41 AM UTC

astrodust wrote: post #200

munk-a wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As much as rich people hate buses, they're a vital transportation resource to working folks - I take a bus and metro every day and save a bunch compared to owning and commuting in a car.

You don't take the bus because you like it, but because you have no other option.

Nope, I've got plenty of other options, I just choose to take the bus and support public transit. I do well for myself, not stupid SV levels of salary, but quite comfortable.

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

#206

Post by AnthonyMouse » Tue, Dec 17, 2019, 1:43 AM UTC

anon73044 wrote: post #92

zucked wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lower... what taxes, exactly? Income? Property?

Regressive sales and vice taxes. j/k Seriously though, this year is the first I've ever made over median income and I'm happy to pay taxes if they can actually improve QOL rather than be used to subsidize and oil company or two

It always worries me when people propose not to tax the poor, because government officials care incredibly much about maximizing tax revenue. It gives them an outright incentive to transfer wealth from the poor to the rich, because then they get a bigger cut of the money.

Wouldn't it be better to tax everybody the same and then help the poor by giving them money directly via a UBI, or direct programs like free mass transit? It would also make taxes a whole lot simpler (you buy a thing, you pay a flat percentage in VAT; no individual tax returns whatsoever) and thereby eliminate a lot of these shell games corporations and billionaires use to avoid paying their share.

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

#207

Post by hgskncrimcss » Tue, Dec 17, 2019, 1:44 AM UTC

dominotw wrote: post #125

farss wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> because it's warm, allowing encampments won't probably solve that unless they somehow provide heat?

In SJ under the 280/87 interchange along the bike path the homeless build wood fires and garbage fires.

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

#208

Post by munificent » Tue, Dec 17, 2019, 1:48 AM UTC

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.

> it is sometimes hard to understand why public transport is treated so differently in US.

It is worth remembering that the US is much larger than all of Europe, is considerably less dense, and much of it was not well-developed until after automobiles were in wide use.

Public transit doesn't make logistical sense in much of the country. It does make sense in some places, of course, but it's less of a part of the national culture because there are so many areas where it's not a good idea.

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

#209

Post by AnthonyMouse » Tue, Dec 17, 2019, 1:49 AM UTC

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…

> Making it free means that any expansion has become more expensive, and is now less likely to happen.

Making it free means more people will use it, which grows the interest group who will lobby to have it expanded.

If you think taxpayer groups advocating fiscal restraint have the edge over interest groups who want more spending, you'll need to explain why government budgets continually expand, even after adjusting for population growth and inflation.

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

#210

Post by AnthonyMouse » Tue, Dec 17, 2019, 1:57 AM UTC

justinmk wrote: post #41

yegle wrote: post #30

The small town of my alma mater is entirely built around the university. There's school bus serves everyone in the town (not limited to student, no validation required), and is basically no-cost public transit. I suspect this applies to many other college towns across US.

Indeed. "No price signal[1]" is very different from "no cost". It will cost plenty. Any service priced at zero simply has no back-pressure mechanism to respond to demand, nor to forecast demand, nor to measure demand in relation to alternative transportation options. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_calculation_problem

All of those problems already apply to any government program. The answer is to calculate demand and allocate supply based on factors such as ridership. That will be less efficient in a sense than pricing, but not necessarily so, because pricing in a market with network effects and significant fixed costs can also create significant inefficiency. Pricing, especially pricing that exceeds the variable cost or has to include the cost of a fare collection infrastructure, can reduce usage and thereby reduce the network effect. Which is a feedback loop that can lead to a death spiral. That's hardly efficient either.

And ridership is effectively a price signal anyway, because even when there is no monetary cost there is still an opportunity cost.