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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

#21

Post by charlieyu1 »

Scoundreller wrote: post #8
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…

98% of consumers of any product/service would be willing to pay more but most places don’t allow this kind of price discrimination.

I mean this can be solved by giving discounts to elderly/disabled/poor people

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

#22

Post by ahahahahah »

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.

Note that generally public transportation funding is already <25% covered by fares and so to the extent that you think "paid for by taxpayers" is positive or negative, this doesn't actually have that much impact on that aspect.

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

#23

Post by tshaddox »

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.

> people who didn't take the buss before are not going to now all of a sudden.

I suspect a lot would. Some public transit systems are shockingly expensive. And even price-insensitive people would benefit from increased ridership of price-sensitive people if it also led to improved service.

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

#24

Post by heavyset_go »

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.

> 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.

I'm sure there are people who would benefit from this, like those carpooling and relying on rides from friends and family, to those who wouldn't be able to afford to work in places that would otherwise require a car to commute to that they don't have, etc.

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

#25

Post by up2isomorphism »

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.

[flagged]

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

#26

Post by atyppo »

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

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?

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

#27

Post by heavyset_go »

alwayslikethis wrote: post #3

Making transit free really misses the point. The money is much better spent on actually improving the transit options, such as buying more buses to improve frequency, building new tram or rail lines, or general maintenance (cleaning) that make using the transit more appealing for all but the most desperate. Look at all the cities in Asia and Europe where normal people use transit. Very few of them are free, though th…

You can do both at the same time, as doing both tackles both an overlapping problem and two+ different problems.

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

#28

Post by woodruffw »

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…

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.

I frankly wouldn’t mind paying more for public transit, but making it the crux feels roughly analogous to corporate ”greenwashing”: push the responsibility onto individuals and we can conveniently ignore the structural changes needed to make public transit systems grow and thrive.

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

#29

Post by scrollaway »

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. Seniors spending time asking for their special card so they can get it cheaper or for free.

The amounts spent on advertising to reduce gate jumpers, or to tell people about the latest formula or whatever.

The massive amounts spent on RND of new techniques to make going through the gates quicker because it’s an annoying experience. The bad deals made with payments companies to be able to take card payments directly at the gate.

Really it’s insane. When you start believing that public transit should be free because it’s infrastructure (there’s a lot of reasons why it should be free), you start actually seeing just how much money and time would be saved. Then it clicks.

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

#30

Post by raldi »

woodruffw wrote: post #28
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…

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. I frankly wouldn’t mind paying more for public transit, but making it the crux feels roughly analogous to corporate ”greenwashing”: push the responsibility onto individuals and we can conve…

First make it good, then make it free.
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