51–59 of 59 posts
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I always thought it was pretty grim that Boston's "Charlie Card" was named after a man who was 'trapped' in the subway system because he couldn't afford to pay his way out.
Charlie is not a real person, it's a song.
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There isn't even much technical ingenuity here. I'm not sure how this is even noteworthy. You save $1 between two people? So you split it for a lousy $0.50 or maybe $100 per year? Just stop drinking lattes and you'll save that in a month. Not to mention if you live further away, you deserve to pay more to make up for the extra resources needed to move you around, as nchuhoai said.
The best route appears to save $2.05 each direction according to https://github.com/asifhaque/transit-arbitrage/blob/master/d... : [orinda => pittsburg] + [walnut-creek => pleasant-hill]: 2.05 (35.6522%) [orinda => pittsburg] + [walnut-creek => concord]: 2.05 (35.6522%) [orinda => pittsburg] + [pleasant-hill => concord]: 2.05 (35.6522%) Though who knows if anyone actually takes these routes. And remember many of the…
For example, if you're making the long trip from San Bruno to North Concord / Martinez, that'll cost you $6.95. If someone is traveling from Pittsburg to South San Francisco (almost exactly the opposite route), then that would normally cost them $6.70. But if you notice that their destination is one stop from your starting point, and vice versa, then you can meet up at any station in between and swap tickets, so the ticket you started with travels from San Bruno to South SF ($3.10) and their ticket travels from Pittsburg to North Concord / Martinez ($1.85). Instead of paying a combined $13.65, you pay a combined $4.95.
What am I missing? Are those twitter data scientists just not that bright? ;)
Looks like it risks $250 fine for: (2) Misuse of a transfer, pass, ticket, or token with the intent to evade the payment of a fare. See California Penal Code 640(c)(2) http://www.sacrt.com/penalcode.stm
But neither user that swaps is attempting to evade payment of a fare - they are both paying fares at the end of their trip. Of course, a judge would probably laugh at you and find you guilty in 15 seconds with a "logical" argument like that.
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If saved both ways that's $2/day. Assuming you worked 40 hours a week and got two weeks vacation (which most minimum wage people don't, and part timers don't get any paid vacation), you'd save $702 a year, or about 4% of the post-tax income for a minimum wage worker in San Francisco. Not everyone gets to work 40 hours a week. A recent study showed as many as 39,000 San Franciscans could be getting paid below minimum…
Waaaaaaaaayyyyyyyyyyyyyyy too many points in this argument to address so I'll try to keep it on point to my assertion its now worth the effort: So you save $2/day for a week = $14 (I was generous and gave you all 7 days even though most people I know work 5 days and even minimum wage workers don't work 7 days a week, every week, for a full year) $14 x 3 remaining weeks in a month = $42 $42 x 11 remaining months of th…
Your logic is strange, though. You mention that considering the high cost of living, $14 won't go very far. The insinuation, I guess, is that because it doesn't go very far, it isn't worth much? When really the fact is that since goods and services in SF have much higher value, each dollar you save is that much more important to being able to afford even the basic necessities (like rent, much less food and transportation!)
"What you consider" to be a minimal amount of money is what some people consider %3 of their annual income. For you that's probably what, $3,000? You can probably afford to lose that and it doesn't really affect your life much, which is why you have such a skewed view on what is minimal or worthwhile and what isn't. For a lot of people, $56 a month is the difference between having to borrow money from family to pay the rent or not, or having to decide between feeding everyone in their family for the week or not.
Hybrid car? Okay, I get it, either this is a troll or you seriously just don't consider anyone other than yourself to matter, and thus this idea of saving money is nonimportant to you. But it could be life-saving to other people. Like someone once told me, "Hey fool, this ain't no football game!"
They mention game theory then completely ignore that this scheme only works if both parties work together perfectly.
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Waaaaaaaaayyyyyyyyyyyyyyy too many points in this argument to address so I'll try to keep it on point to my assertion its now worth the effort: So you save $2/day for a week = $14 (I was generous and gave you all 7 days even though most people I know work 5 days and even minimum wage workers don't work 7 days a week, every week, for a full year) $14 x 3 remaining weeks in a month = $42 $42 x 11 remaining months of th…
Sorry, I miscalculated. I counted whole weeks instead of work days, which is 250 days, so really it should be $520 for $2 a day for 260 days with 2 (full) weeks vacation. Your logic is strange, though. You mention that considering the high cost of living, $14 won't go very far. The insinuation, I guess, is that because it doesn't go very far, it isn't worth much? When really the fact is that since goods and services…
Not at all. The point is in a high rent area, everything is more expensive. Simply put, $14 won't go very far. It doesn't mean that $14 is worthless.
>>>> You can probably afford to lose that and it doesn't really affect your life much, which is why you have such a skewed view on what is minimal or worthwhile and what isn't.
Whoa! Pump yo brakes there playah. First of all, you don't know me from a hole in the wall. You shouldn't start swinging wildly like that when you don't even know where I came from or where I've been. I have a crystal clear view on what's worthwhile, but at the same time, it's relative to your own life. I've been in a gutter, I know what its like to live on food stamps and have to bootstrap yourself to get somewhere in life. Nobody needs to tell me I don't know the value of money. I've been there, and I know.
>>>> Hybrid car? Okay, I get it, either this is a troll or you seriously just don't consider anyone other than yourself to matter, and thus this idea of saving money is nonimportant to you.
Quite the opposite actually. My whole point in the first place is there are better, less arduous ways of saving $56 a month than trying to find someone to trade a train ticket with every day for a full year. Hell, you could probably skip the $6 Starbucks every day for a few weeks and save that. You could bike to work two days out of five and save it in gas. You could start a side business and MAKE an additional $56 per month. That was my point to begin with. I'd rather be doing something that's enjoyable to save or earn that money instead of hounding some stranger to swap tickets with me so I can save some money.
Does that make sense??
In the UK train fares are not a metric. Specifically, sometimes travelling A to B then B to C is cheaper than getting a ticket direct from A to C. For example ... Just about two years ago I had a return journey from near Liverpool in the North West of England to Exmouth, in the extreme South West. The simple return ticket was about £115. However a return Liverpool to Cheltenham was about £50, and a return Cheltenham…
Another thing you wouldn't do is go to:
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Sorry, I miscalculated. I counted whole weeks instead of work days, which is 250 days, so really it should be $520 for $2 a day for 260 days with 2 (full) weeks vacation. Your logic is strange, though. You mention that considering the high cost of living, $14 won't go very far. The insinuation, I guess, is that because it doesn't go very far, it isn't worth much? When really the fact is that since goods and services…
>>>> The insinuation, I guess, is that because it doesn't go very far, it isn't worth much? Not at all. The point is in a high rent area, everything is more expensive. Simply put, $14 won't go very far. It doesn't mean that $14 is worthless. >>>> You can probably afford to lose that and it doesn't really affect your life much, which is why you have such a skewed view on what is minimal or worthwhile and what isn't. W…
Aside from biking to work (which is sometimes feasible but sometimes not, such as with people with disabilities, the elderly, people who live far away, people who don't own a bike, people who don't have a shower at work, people who work long hours at manual-labor jobs and are constantly tired, and you know, all the other ways this might not work) I don't think those are options that most minimum-wage workers have. Buying Starbucks every morning is not something minimum-wage workers typically do. Being able to start a business is a privilege usually of the middle class, or businesses passed down through families, or require certain education or other resources, not to mention the barriers of being either non-white, non-male or not a native english speaker... Not to say it can't be done. But most minimum wage workers can't do these things.
There's a lot of people who don't have a better way to save money because they're already saving everything they can. This technique provides a new way to save.
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The best route appears to save $2.05 each direction according to https://github.com/asifhaque/transit-arbitrage/blob/master/d... : [orinda => pittsburg] + [walnut-creek => pleasant-hill]: 2.05 (35.6522%) [orinda => pittsburg] + [walnut-creek => concord]: 2.05 (35.6522%) [orinda => pittsburg] + [pleasant-hill => concord]: 2.05 (35.6522%) Though who knows if anyone actually takes these routes. And remember many of the…
I must not understand his methodology, because if you're willing to meet at an interim stop (as in the examples above), then it's easy to save quite a bit more than $2.05 just by swapping with someone who is taking almost exactly the opposite route as you. For example, if you're making the long trip from San Bruno to North Concord / Martinez, that'll cost you $6.95. If someone is traveling from Pittsburg to South San…
You are of course right though that you can save far more money if you do get off and swap with someone going the opposite way, but then you have to wait for another train. If you already get off the train in order to transfer (say you commute from Pittsburg to Fremont), then swapping cards with someone going the opposite direction is easy.