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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

#61

Post by vlovich123 »

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.

How much is it in terms of min/$?

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

#62

Post by bombcar »

raldi wrote: post #42
woodruffw wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

By definition existing riders are those already willing to pay the fee, so of course they’re going to want better service via no fee.

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

#63

Post by aquarium87 »

I knew a woman in DC who was late for work because a guy tried to get on the bus, was denied entry because he couldnt/wouldn't pay, and so he pulled out a gun and shot the bus driver dead. She wasn't even phased. This was about 15 years ago.

Proof of fare is better than having transit employees be the enforcers. Free is even better, theoretically.

But be wary, transit in DC may turn into moving homeless encampment as there is no real way to tell someone they can't stay on the bus all day

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

#64

Post by piperswe »

chimeracoder wrote: post #40
tshaddox wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> 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.

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

#65

Post by loeg »

woodruffw wrote: post #52
Semaphor wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

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."

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

#66

Post by woodruffw »

WillPostForFood wrote: post #53
woodruffw wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where did you get that from? WMATA’s farebox recovery ratio is 24%, as of 2020[1]. Edit: And from a quick look, that’s high for the US. The average seems closer to 10-15%. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farebox_recovery_ratio

2020 data is totally wrecked because of Covid. Check the 2019 data for comparison. Average is 39%. NY was 54%, WMATA was 39%. https://www.transit.dot.gov/sites/fta.dot.gov/files/2020-11/...

Thanks! I’ll note that that’s still a far cry from half, but it’s certainly more favorable than 24%.

(NY’s 54% number is probably because of mixing of different fareboxes: recovery is much higher on the LIRR and MNRR than it is on the city buses and subways.)

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

#67

Post by vlovich123 »

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…

Could be correlation not causation without knowing more about the time period and geographic area you’re discussing. Homeless rates have been skyrocketing everywhere.

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

#68

Post by Gibbon1 »

loeg wrote: post #54
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…

So, it would help your argument if you could put concrete figures to any of these perceived costs, and then contrast that with the lost fares.

SFMTA's fare box recovery ratio is 17%. Were for driving it's 50% but the sums are vastly higher. While back read a fair argument that when you consider the alternative is a person driving the the proper fare price for mass transit is negative.

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

#69

Post by Donckele »

loeg wrote: post #54
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…

So, it would help your argument if you could put concrete figures to any of these perceived costs, and then contrast that with the lost fares.

In a small European capital city it cost 250 Million Euros some years ago to install electronic gates at the metro stations.

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

#70

Post by loeg »

Gibbon1 wrote: post #68
loeg wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, it would help your argument if you could put concrete figures to any of these perceived costs, and then contrast that with the lost fares.

SFMTA's fare box recovery ratio is 17%. Were for driving it's 50% but the sums are vastly higher. While back read a fair argument that when you consider the alternative is a person driving the the proper fare price for mass transit is negative.

SFMTA's recovery ratio prior to Covid was in the 20s %, and 30s a few years ago: https://www.sfmta.com/reports/muni-farebox-recovery-ratio

Looking at 2020 ratios in isolation doesn't give a very complete picture.

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