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

#271

Post by tim333 » Tue, Dec 17, 2019, 4:37 AM UTC

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…

Portland avoided that by busses running through their free ride zone continuing on to non free zones making them not really work as homeless shelters.

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

#272

Post by noneckbeard » Tue, Dec 17, 2019, 4:37 AM UTC

asdff wrote: post #268

noneckbeard wrote: post #136

In Gavin Newsom’s book Citizenville he talked about how, after becoming SF mayor, he discovered that fare collection cost as much as the revenue generated from fares. He started the process of making the bus free but was told by so many advisors that the busses would become “dumpsters on wheels,” from a combination of homeless people using them for shelter and people not respecting services that are free, that the pl…

Pretty asinine of him to back off at that. Homeless people aren't paying fares already. There are also 60k homeless in LA while 1 million people ride ride metro a day; even if every single homeless person boarded metro one day it would be a blip on your radar compared to everyone else. What fares hurt most are the working families in LA who pay $76 a month to ride the bus to work or school because there is no other c…

I think the argument was more that the bus system was already a pretty terrible experience, and making it more terrible would discourage even more people from taking the bus and create a downward spiral of quality.

The obvious correction is to make the bus experience less terrible, but I’m guessing that’s hard w/o increasing taxes or fares, both or which come w serious political and real world costs.

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

#273

Post by sitkack » Tue, Dec 17, 2019, 4:38 AM UTC

carapace wrote: post #251

noneckbeard wrote: post #136

In Gavin Newsom’s book Citizenville he talked about how, after becoming SF mayor, he discovered that fare collection cost as much as the revenue generated from fares. He started the process of making the bus free but was told by so many advisors that the busses would become “dumpsters on wheels,” from a combination of homeless people using them for shelter and people not respecting services that are free, that the pl…

> fare collection cost as much as the revenue generated from fares WTF!? That's freakin insane. If that's true, why do they keep raising the fares and upgrading the fareboxes!? If that's true, the SF city gov is effectively collecting money and lighting it on fire as a way to "throttle" bad behaviour on the bus!?

> If that's true, why do they keep raising the fares and upgrading the fareboxes!?

To pay for the new fareboxes, of course.

Just as Uber is a way to get away from "bus people", fares are away to get away from "free bus people".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K-iWBCL12Qg

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

#274

Post by asdff » Tue, Dec 17, 2019, 4:39 AM UTC

bilekas wrote: post #168

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…

Not to be rude, but don't you guys have security to just take them off ? It's a public disorder no ? I do feel for the homeless, and of course its a refuge etc, but its a public service and so can be removed from the tram/service. Its not a difficult solution to have to just grab a free ticket which could take you to the end of the line. In which case, no ticket (even free) no pass. I have a high opinion of Seattle i…

>> not to collect fares from anyone that declines to pay

In LA, the bus driver doesn't want confrontation so just stays silent. People just board without tapping their card, although sometimes in rush hour you can't get to the tap reader so it's not always malicious. Security is only present at larger subway stations, not all, and is just there to break up fights. They don't ride the busses or trains, either.

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

#275

Post by jachee » Tue, Dec 17, 2019, 4:41 AM UTC

markdown wrote: post #260

hanniabu wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yup, just earlier this post showed up in my thread with people trying to criminalize sleeping in public areas so homeless can be arrested. https://www.npr.org/2019/12/16/788435163/supreme-court-wont-...

Well they should, shouldn't they. Nobody should be able to monopolize and ruin the commons, whether or not they have a home. The problem isn't the criminalizing of sleeping in public spaces, it's the lack of publicly funded shelters and publicly funded (incl. mental) healthcare for the homeless. We should pay to give them a place to sleep, and punish them just like anyone else if they choose to set up camps in public…

> We should pay to give them a place to sleep, and punish them just like anyone else if they choose to set up camps in public spaces.

Good luck with the former. The NIMBYs will fight it tooth and nail, every millimeter of the way.

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

#276

Post by jessaustin » Tue, Dec 17, 2019, 4:44 AM UTC

edmundsauto wrote: post #36

reaperducer wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

What if making it free makes it less useful to most people? There's another comment talking about how they became rolling homeless shelters when they went to free, and use dropped because of hygiene issues.

People in California could overestimate the "homeless problem" in Kansas City. It gets really cold there. Missouri and Kansas are both brutal to poor people. (I've lived in Missouri most of my life so I'm allowed to admit that.) The homeless in KC are likely to avoid situations in which they provoke response from fellow citizens or police.

Buses do need to be cleaned regularly. When that doesn't happen, the homeless might be blamed, but a more fair target might be poor administration.

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

#277

Post by asdff » Tue, Dec 17, 2019, 4:45 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 all has to do with investment. LA has one of the largest metro systems and a million people use it a day. 60% of NYC commuters use public transport. In cities that build and improve transport, it gets used. It has nothing to do with culture but rather what is actually built.

It also doesn't help that transit agencies in smaller cities have been degenerate. Their answer for declines in ridership is to consolidate and cut service, not improve the network, which leads to more decline, and more consolidation, until you end up with a place like many commenters in this thread where 1 bus comes every hour, usually following the path of a former streetcar right of way that was ripped out by monied interests 70 years ago.

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

#278

Post by IAmEveryone » Tue, Dec 17, 2019, 4:47 AM UTC

underpand wrote: post #250

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…

The curse of the bottom 1%. This is why we can't have nice things. The bottom 1% in terms of behavior/ethics always ruins it for everyone else.

Many European countries have free monthly passes for poor people and I haven't noticed any problems of that kind.

Nor do I actually see what's particularly "unethical" about riding free public transport when it's cold outside? If capacity on rolling stock is tight, four square feet of floor in a warm room should be eminently affordable for the world's richest country. And, no, the availability of shelters doesn't make homelessness so comfortable that it becomes a lifestyle choice, or do you know anybody who would want to exchange their job & home for a homeless shelter?

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

#279

Post by mason55 » Tue, Dec 17, 2019, 4:50 AM UTC

markdown wrote: post #260

hanniabu wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yup, just earlier this post showed up in my thread with people trying to criminalize sleeping in public areas so homeless can be arrested. https://www.npr.org/2019/12/16/788435163/supreme-court-wont-...

Well they should, shouldn't they. Nobody should be able to monopolize and ruin the commons, whether or not they have a home. The problem isn't the criminalizing of sleeping in public spaces, it's the lack of publicly funded shelters and publicly funded (incl. mental) healthcare for the homeless. We should pay to give them a place to sleep, and punish them just like anyone else if they choose to set up camps in public…

Which I believe is what the SCOTUS essentially ruled today. If the city doesn’t have adequate shelter you can’t just arrest people for existing.

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

#280

Post by jessaustin » Tue, Dec 17, 2019, 4:52 AM UTC

msla wrote: post #32

What's their definition of "major"? Missoula has been offering no-cost buses for years now.

Whatever the definition might be, Missoula doesn't qualify. Missoula is #328 on the list of 384 metropolitan statistical areas in USA, just between Owensboro KY and Morristown TN.