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D.C. free bus bill becomes law as zero-fare transit systems take off

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Re: D.C. free bus bill becomes law as zero-fare transit systems take off

#71

Post by bradleyjg »

Overtonwindow wrote: post #59
kennywinker wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your issue seems to be with funding. Fares are usually quite a small component of transit system’s budgets. We don’t require users of city streets to pay fares to use that transportation infrastructure, with exception of the occasional toll-funded highway/bridge/tunnel, and we spend many many billions of tax dollars more on those than we do on public transit. If free transit is a bad idea so are free city streets.

Not quite true… A few years ago, the district of Columbia decriminalized fare evasion. So many people stopped paying the subway fare that the gap in the budget became very significant on the order of millions of dollars. What you see as a small component of transit systems budgets, they seem to see as a quite significant part of their budget. I think this is going to lead to worst outcomes, and a worse funded system.…

Fare evasion is now de facto legal in nyc as well as the DAs refuse to prosecute. The MTA estimates it’ll cost $500 million a year.

Re: D.C. free bus bill becomes law as zero-fare transit systems take off

#72

Post by woodruffw »

loeg wrote: post #65
woodruffw wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tallinn is the most famous free one, I think. In terms of nominal pricing, I was thinking of Grenoble, where it was around $2 USD equivalent when I was there there. Edit: Another example is Prague, which is around $1.

~$2 fares are common in the US and I would not describe that as "free or nominally priced."

Okay, but do an in-kind comparison: can I take a public tram for ~$2 in similarly sized US cities?

I can’t think of many; the first that comes to mind is Portland’s MAX, which is $2.50, has a smaller network with longer headways, and services a much larger metropolitan area as justification for its existence.

Re: D.C. free bus bill becomes law as zero-fare transit systems take off

#74

Post by woodruffw »

TulliusCicero wrote: post #49
throw_m239339 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is in conflict with public transit in many European cities, which is (1) free or nominally priced, (2) has favorable headways compared to nearly every US city, and (3) is more sustainably funded than public transit in the US. In which European capital cities bus fairs are free?

Luxembourg, I think? Haven't heard of any others, though.

I didn’t know Luxembourg! Tallinn was the one I was thinking of.

Re: D.C. free bus bill becomes law as zero-fare transit systems take off

#75

Post by katbyte »

adgjlsfhk1 wrote: post #17
0xB31B1B wrote: post #5

Free transit is stupid. When surveyed, the huge majority (98%) of weekday transit riders say they want increased service over decreased prices. Everyone wants 10 minute or less headways. People will pay 3 dollars for a bus ride if the line has 10 minute headways or less and signal priority, but they won't take the bus if its stuck in traffic and has 30 minute headways. The reality is that transit funding for free tra…

the reason to do free buses is that making people pay slows the bus down. it's not a major slowdown, but 1s per rider adds up. Also decreasing price does increase demand which helps justify increased service.

It also costs a lot of money to collect and enforce fares.

Re: D.C. free bus bill becomes law as zero-fare transit systems take off

#76

Post by chimeracoder »

piperswe wrote: post #64
chimeracoder wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I’d be surprised if the fees are meaningful on many transit systems, especially if you also throw out the costs of selling the tickets and enforcement. Almost no public transit system has a farebox recovery rate even close to 100%. For municipal service (ie, excluding specialty transit), even 50% is almost unheard-of in the US, and only a few systems in Europe exceed 50% as well. In the US, the better transit syste…

Almost no _Western_ public transit system, that is. High farebox recovery rates (>100%) aren't all that uncommon in Asia.

> Almost no _Western_ public transit system, that is. High farebox recovery rates (>100%) aren't all that uncommon in Asia.

Sort of, not exactly. Asian countries typically report their metrics differently, so they look much higher, but it's because they have non-fare sources of revenue that provide a massive source of income which they combine with their fare revenue for reporting purposes. So it's not an apples to apples comparison.

Re: D.C. free bus bill becomes law as zero-fare transit systems take off

#77

Post by zbrozek »

yuliyp wrote: post #46
zbrozek wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would absolutely take Caltrain more often than ~never if it were cost competitive with driving. But it isn't, so I actually take it low single digit times per year under special circumstances.

Caltrain is definitely cheaper than driving for one person. As an example, Palo Alto to San Francisco caltrain is $7.70 for a 32 mile ride. That's 24 cents per mile. The IRS mileage rate is 62 cents per mile. Even if you add $5.50 for parking at the station, it's 41 cents per mile.

I drive a cheap EV which I charge for free. A marginal mile costs me about 18 cents. On top of that I'm usually traveling to SF to visit friends with my wife. Hard to justify taking the train.

Re: D.C. free bus bill becomes law as zero-fare transit systems take off

#78

Post by viknesh »

kennywinker wrote: post #9
0xB31B1B wrote: post #5

Free transit is stupid. When surveyed, the huge majority (98%) of weekday transit riders say they want increased service over decreased prices. Everyone wants 10 minute or less headways. People will pay 3 dollars for a bus ride if the line has 10 minute headways or less and signal priority, but they won't take the bus if its stuck in traffic and has 30 minute headways. The reality is that transit funding for free tra…

Your issue seems to be with funding. Fares are usually quite a small component of transit system’s budgets. We don’t require users of city streets to pay fares to use that transportation infrastructure, with exception of the occasional toll-funded highway/bridge/tunnel, and we spend many many billions of tax dollars more on those than we do on public transit. If free transit is a bad idea so are free city streets.

I'm not sure that it's just funding. Collecting fares also creates capitalist incentives which is ultimately good for an end user, since the transit system is incentivized to do things (increase frequencies during rush hour, create more reliable systems) in order to collect additional fare revenue.

You could argue that it's all "just funding," but fares can help to prioritize work which will help collect the most future fares, creating the largest positive impact for end users.

Re: D.C. free bus bill becomes law as zero-fare transit systems take off

#79

Post by bushbaba »

atyppo wrote: post #26
minitoar wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

arguably fuel tax is that fare

Car culture is massively subsidized in America. Why are we subsidizing (overwhelmingly wealthy) owners of EVs? Can I get a tax credit for an e-bike?

Yes you can! Here's just a few of the rebate programs.

https://electrek.co/2022/04/28/denvers-electric-bike-rebates...

https://electrek.co/2022/05/03/vermont-launches-the-first-st...

https://electrek.co/2022/11/29/another-us-state-adds-electri...

https://www.siliconvalleypower.com/home/showpublisheddocumen...

https://www.peninsulacleanenergy.com/ebikes/

https://www.alamedamp.com/407/Rebates-and-Incentives

Re: D.C. free bus bill becomes law as zero-fare transit systems take off

#80

Post by scrollaway »

SamReidHughes wrote: post #57
scrollaway wrote: post #29

To you all complaining about free transit, I invite you to actually look the next time you take the bus or metro at the amount of infrastructure dedicated to ticketing, validation and enforcement. I invite you to think about the amount of money spent on it. I invite you to think about the amount of time wasted by people on ticketing. The queues at ticket booths, people spending time researching what pass they want. S…

Recently a train opened up that connects downtown to where I live, not free, but ticketing isn't really enforced. There had previously been bus service, and of course, roads. Now the place is populated with bums, the nearby Starbucks removed indoor seating, the supermarket, once open 24 hours and a place for van-dwelling homeless to use computers, now has gates up to inhibit shoplifting, and what was once a safe area…

Oh stop. No, this isn't the "cost of free public transit" - first of all, it's not even "free public transit". It's the cost of your local administration not dealing with the homeless population correctly. It's the cost of a terrible social net.
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