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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

#381

Post by rrrrrrrrrrrryan »

ridethewave wrote: post #367
ahelwer wrote: post #303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, housing first is absolutely the way to go. Sadly the very thing causing homelessness also makes housing-first much more difficult: astronomically-expensive real estate. Condos in Seattle cost more than $500/sqft, and investing tons of money to construct these buildings further props up the ridiculous valuations. Socialized housing is absolutely the answer, but homelessness will never be solved until we stop tre…

>homelessness will never be solved Interesting. Question: do you think that if all of a sudden a wand was waved and everyone homeless in a given city/geography was magically housed that there would still be (eventually, over time) further homelessness or do you think that homelessness would cease to exist from that point forward? What do you think would happen in say, 5-10-15 years out?

> in a given city/geography

When a city is more hospitable to the homeless, it attracts more homeless. The homeless problem in California's major cities is in part due to their their (relatively) accommodating treatment of the homeless.

Cities, even states, aren't ever going to be able to fully tackle this problem alone - there needs to be a massive initiative at the federal level.

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

#382

Post by gamblor956 »

ahelwer wrote: post #305
Thriptic wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It depends on the situation. I certainly feel compassion for people who are down on their luck; who want to be part of society and have just gotten unlucky; and who are scraping to get by and trying to fix things. I absolutely want to extend them help and see them get back into a healthy, happy, and productive state (and have done so in the past). That being said, I don't have much compassion for people who harass me…

Many of these people experience serious mental health issues, including addiction. I've had mental health struggles myself (depression) as have many people here. If you are among them, ask yourself how well you think your recovery would have gone without a safe, warm, dry place to retreat where nobody would bother you. Then there's the issue of many mental disorders strongly affecting executive functioning, which is…

When I worked for the public defender, most of my clients were homeless at some point.

They were homeless, and mentally ill, because they chose to use powerful, mind-altering drugs that fucked up their brains. They chose to keep using those drugs.

I have absolutely no sympathy for drug addicts. Using drugs is a choice. The fact that it has serious consequences does not engender sympathy. If anything, the fact that people know drugs will fuck them up and still use them anyway makes me less sympathetic to drug addicts.

I have great sympathy for the homeless who are merely down on their luck. You can identify them pretty easily. They're the ones that aren't drunk or high, and they're usually in the shelters at night because they'd rather have a hot shower and a hot meal than spend a night on the street with the addicts.

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

#383

Post by gamblor956 »

lazyasciiart wrote: post #329
gamblor956 wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Generally, most people who are "pro-homeless" or talk about treating them with respect don't actually live near or otherwise interact with the homeless on a regular or even occasional basis, which lets them feel superior and cast moral judgments on those of us who do live near the homeless and try to do something to contain the problem.

Generally, people who make that argument are completely wrong and somehow fail to recognize how nonsensical it is to argue that social workers etc just don't interact with homeless people enough to see them with contempt.

Social workers aren't pro-homeless. They're pro-people, and they generally work their asses of to get people into housing so they aren't homeless anymore.

And yes, every single one of them absolutely feels contempt for the homeless who choose the streets over shelter just so they can stay high. I worked with enough social workers when I was a public defender to have a better grasp of their views on the homeless than you do.

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

#384

Post by cameldrv »

IAmEveryone wrote: post #284
cameldrv wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The reasons are: 1. Public transit is very slow relative to cars. This is because the U.S. was mostly built after the invention of the car, which means road capacity is higher, parking is easier, and distances are farther. Even in places with decent public transit, it takes 2-3x as long to get somewhere on public transit as driving a car. 2. The U.S. is a rich country and more people can afford their own car or to ta…

At least in cities and during the day, good public transport is faster than cars at any distance. In London or Paris (and even New York), you'll see hedge fund managers on the subway.

London and Paris don't have motorways that go into the city center like most U.S. cities do.

Even so, even in say, Paris inside the ring, it's typically faster to take a taxi than the Metro. Go on Google maps and pick some random routes and see for yourself.

As soon as you go to a smaller city or travel outside the densest part of the city, the car becomes dramatically faster.

My observation is that hedge fund managers do not typically take the subway. They have chauffeured cars so that they can make productive use of their time while driving. In the rare instance that transit is faster, being able to simply sit down and take calls, do email, etc is very valuable and is not practical on most forms of transit. Certainly confidential calls are a no-go, and laptops are not practical except on some commuter rail. Furthermore, on most transit trips, the time is broken up. At minimum you have walking time, then waiting time, then moving time, then more walking time. With transfers it's broken up even more. You'd be lucky to have 1/3 of the time sitting in a seat where you could peck out emails on a smartphone.

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

#385

Post by milkytron »

weberc2 wrote: post #211
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 have a really hard time believing public transit could reasonably compete with the highway system with respect to return on investment. Consider how much food and consumer goods would cost without highway infrastructure never mind the secondary effects. Consider also that you would be making road travel prohibitively expensive for the lower classes.

Public transit isn't meant for private (commercial) distribution of goods.

There are other trains for that, and they are hugely important to the US infrastructure. We would not be the country we are today without rail.

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

#386

Post by gnopgnip »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #131
bobthepanda wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or, you could use the tax money that you could use for free rides (that only makes bad service marginally more useful) and put it towards more useful service? It's not as if this money came out of a box labeled "only for free fares." Right now this is a $9M opportunity cost, annually. To get both the free fares and $9M of better transit would double the cost of this, but then you'd have to ask why not use all $18M on…

> To get both the free fares and $9M of better transit would double the cost of this, but then you'd have to ask why not use all $18M on better transit, etc. But then there is a reason for that -- spending has diminishing returns. If you have some money and you could use it to serve an area with 1500 riders then that may be worth it, but once you've served it, the next best unserved area which costs just as much to s…

The flip side of this is induced demand. If you create a better option, more people will use it, more overall trips are taken, and more value/tax revenue is generated indirectly.

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

#387

Post by Gibbon1 »

creato wrote: post #314
Gibbon1 wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You aren't mistaken.

Yes he is, and so are you. I just spent 2 minutes and found half a dozen vehicles under $1000 that will likely run well for years. Public transit really isn't an option for most people in the US, and even if it is, unless a transit pass is subsidized, a car like that is probably more cost effective even including fuel, maintenance, and insurance, not to mention the savings in time and freedom provided by a car (any c…

At some point you should maybe sit down and figure out how much your car is costing you each year. And get back to us.

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

#388

Post by lazyasciiart »

gamblor956 wrote: post #383
lazyasciiart wrote: post #329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Generally, people who make that argument are completely wrong and somehow fail to recognize how nonsensical it is to argue that social workers etc just don't interact with homeless people enough to see them with contempt.

Social workers aren't pro-homeless. They're pro-people, and they generally work their asses of to get people into housing so they aren't homeless anymore. And yes, every single one of them absolutely feels contempt for the homeless who choose the streets over shelter just so they can stay high. I worked with enough social workers when I was a public defender to have a better grasp of their views on the homeless than…

That's such an obviously false statement that I can't believe you bothered to type it. I've been related to enough social workers to have a better grasp of their views than you do, apparently.

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

#389

Post by sbmthakur »

lazyasciiart wrote: post #336
sbmthakur wrote: post #317

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But this issue has been returning as it's now common knowledge that Seattle bus drivers are instructed not to collect fares from anyone that declines to pay. Is this legal? From where I come, you can be booked if you intentionally refuse to pay fare.

Of course it's legal. Basically bus drivers are told not to hold up an entire bus route just to call police to come and arrest someone who won't pay a fare. Even with that in place I have sat on a bus in peak hour traffic while some jackass bus driver yelled at someone who had accidentally got on the wrong door and made them squeeze through a whole crowded bus to swipe their stupid orca card. As if that was worth hol…

Thanks for clarifying.

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

#390

Post by winrid »

iudqnolq wrote: post #306
winrid wrote: post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry that's just not an acceptable answer. Telling everyone to add to traffic in the city just to be in a clean environment is stupid. I spent two weeks in Beijing. They actually kicked the homeless out of the city and there are constant reminders to keep the subways clean. It was really nice.

This is not actually true. Beijing has a massive underclass of people living illegally because they don't have internal passports that allow them to live in a city. This let's the city have the benefit of their labor while being able to crack down harshly and jail/deport whenever. They also don't provide any social services for these people (trash pickup, school, medical). So that's why many people who you might othe…

Thanks for the info. Maybe the explanation was dumbed down for a foreigner.
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