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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

#11

Post by minitoar »

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.

arguably fuel tax is that fare

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

#12

Post by acomjean »

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…

I went to umass amherst which had a free bus system which I used regularly. It was pretty great, you didn’t have to think about it. Also without having to make sure fairs paid up people could get on from the middle of the bus instead of just the front door which seemed to speed the boarding process.

I work in the longwood area of Boston. There are private bus routes that make up for the lack of good public transit for the area. It’s also free with Id.

https://www.longwoodcollective.org/lma-shuttles/shuttle-rout...

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

#13

Post by lokar »

braingenious wrote: post #4
sourcecodeplz wrote: post #2

Free as in a free lunch? I've heard there's no such thing. I know of places where pensioners (over 65yr olds) get it free but not universal. There are pros and cons to this of course but overall: people who didn't take the buss before are not going to now all of a sudden.

Free at point of use. It is paid for by taxpayers, like every other bit of public transit in the country.

Like pretty much all transportation systems (roads, trains, airports, etc) in all nations.

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

#14

Post by heavyset_go »

redox99 wrote: post #10
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…

Isn't public transportation already heavily subsidized? Surveyed people might not understand that to increase spending 2x without any increase in subsidies, fares might need to 5x or 10x.

It is, and at least the cases I'm familiar with, fares are sometimes nominal fees. Commuters wouldn't be able to afford the real cost of public transportation if it needed to be solvent and funded by fares alone.

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

#15

Post by chimeracoder »

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 reality is that transit funding for free transit is zero sum

Except it doesn't have to be zero-sum. A government can simply decide it wants to prioritize public transportation. The funding isn't inherently zero-sum.

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

#16

Post by mertd »

braingenious wrote: post #4
sourcecodeplz wrote: post #2

Free as in a free lunch? I've heard there's no such thing. I know of places where pensioners (over 65yr olds) get it free but not universal. There are pros and cons to this of course but overall: people who didn't take the buss before are not going to now all of a sudden.

Free at point of use. It is paid for by taxpayers, like every other bit of public transit in the country.

Yes and that's absolutely fine. America needs to reevaluate its extreme aversion to investing in collective good.

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

#17

Post by adgjlsfhk1 »

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.

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

#18

Post by tshaddox »

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…

Are the fees there to actually provide a meaningful portion of the funding, or just to make rich people who don’t use public transit feel like it’s more fair because the poor people don’t get to ride for free? 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.

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

#19

Post by rayiner »

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.

Fares revenues make up half of WMATA’s operating budget, which is on the low side. The London Tube fully covers its operating costs.

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

#20

Post by mertd »

minitoar wrote: post #11
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.

arguably fuel tax is that fare

If fuel tax is enough why do we keep passing trillion dollar infra bills and allocating majority of it to road repair?
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