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

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

#41

Post by ratchetbob » Tue, Jan 31, 2023, 5:50 AM UTC

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…

which cities have free or nominally priced transit? Certainly not Paris, anywhere in Germany, Switzerland, Amsterdam, etc.

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

#42

Post by raldi » Tue, Jan 31, 2023, 5:50 AM UTC

woodruffw wrote: post #32

raldi wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First make it good, then make it free.

There’s no intrinsic ordering here: making a public transit system better requires justification through ridership numbers, and making your system free is a fantastic way to improve those numbers.

Why do you believe that? American transit experts are saying things like, “I’ve heard people describe the free fare movement as being a movement for free, terrible service, and that’s how the trade-off ends up working if you expect this to happen inside the budget of an impoverished American transit agency" and "if a transit agency had to choose between devoting funds to reducing fares or to maintaining or improving service, most riders would prefer the latter. It also suggests that the notion of making transit “free”—though politically appealing —would provide less utility to the public than if the equivalence in foregone revenue were spent improving service and continuing to charge a fare."

Sources: https://slate.com/business/2021/06/free-transit-is-not-a-gre... https://transitcenter.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/TC_Whos...

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

#43

Post by Bluecobra » Tue, Jan 31, 2023, 5:50 AM UTC

mertd wrote: post #20

minitoar wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

The current fuel tax (in the USA) not enough. Federal fuel taxes have not been raised in 30 years and not adjusted for inflation/cost of living. I’m sure it would be a political death wish to try to raise it again.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_taxes_in_the_United_Sta...

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

#44

Post by Semaphor » Tue, Jan 31, 2023, 5:51 AM UTC

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…

Which European cities are those? I heard one or two with free transit, which ones are "nominally priced"? In Germany, it’s decently expensive.

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

#45

Post by throw_m239339 » Tue, Jan 31, 2023, 5:53 AM UTC

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…

> 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?

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

#46

Post by yuliyp » Tue, Jan 31, 2023, 5:53 AM UTC

zbrozek wrote: post #6

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.

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.

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

#47

Post by acomjean » Tue, Jan 31, 2023, 5:54 AM UTC

CuriousCosmic wrote: post #33

acomjean wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 fo…

Worth noting that university transit systems are very much not free. The fees are just included in your tuition. For Amherst specifically, this is covered by undergrad students' tuition and graduate students' service fees. For context the grad student service fee is around 300-700USD per semester depending on how many credits you take. So by no means is it free. I do agree with you though that universal access to tra…

The busses I took were the “pioneer valley transit authority”.

Apparently they do charge some routes, but the ones operated by umass now are free to students.

They’d actually train students to drive the buses. ( still do apparently) an interesting skill to leave university with. https://www.umass.edu/transportation/now-hiring)

Umass was interesting. The fees were how they kept money at the school as tuition went to the states general fund. Sports were always covered by those fees which was free basketball tickets (though it was a lottery when I left, but I worked at the paper and would take pictues..)

It was a while ago that I was there (last century..)

https://www.pvta.com/

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

#48

Post by braingenious » Tue, Jan 31, 2023, 5:56 AM UTC

ahahahahah wrote: post #22

braingenious wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I think it’s great! I’m happy for my tax dollars to go to transit! The net positive of keeping drunk drivers off the road, increased access to work for people and increased access to workers for businesses is great!

Not a big fan of fares though, as somebody that’s dropped my wallet in the dark in the middle of the night in a sketchy part of town.

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

#49

Post by TulliusCicero » Tue, Jan 31, 2023, 5:56 AM UTC

throw_m239339 wrote: post #45

woodruffw wrote: post #28

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. 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…

> 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.

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

#50

Post by loeg » Tue, Jan 31, 2023, 5:57 AM UTC

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.

Make people pay at the stop before they board.