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Yep. I actually discussed this in a similar thread on HN a few days ago. Fare revenue is approximately 3bn GBP. A 1:20 ratio. In the worst case assuming no-on

Yep. I actually discussed this in a similar thread on HN a few days ago. Fare revenue is approximately 3bn GBP. A 1:20 ratio. In the worst case assuming no-one additional travels due to it being more pleasant, fares would have to increase ~5%. My bus fare would go from 1.50 to 1.57. This is a distraction, though. It's not relevant, because we shouldn't allow damaging activity to occur regardless of whether it might look marginally better economically if we zoom in far enough. If the tube system funded itself by stealing wallets from random passengers, it would still be right to stop that program, even if fares went up, because it wouldn't be right or good. A related concern I hear often is that if something becomes n% more expensive, then some people will be priced out. The correct answer to 'poor people can't afford the bus' is not 'perform strange indirect forms of abuse on slightly less poor people'. The answer is 'fix the fact that people are poor'. Public services should be funded via taxation, not by private advertising partnerships.

isostatic 8y ago
> Public services should be funded via taxation, not by private advertising partnerships. 25% of TFL funding comes from government grants anyway, increasing that to 27% from local property taxation in London seems the most sensible thing, but in the age where people only care about the bottom line and don't factor in externalities I can't see that as an option. The Met are now selling themselves because people won't pay taxes to fund them (London's police budget is 20% lower today than it was in 2012/2013)
- esotericn 8y ago
  > The Met are now selling themselves because people won't pay taxes to fund them This is straying off topic, but I'd argue that it's more like "people don't feel they have any say in the process". I'd gladly pay more taxes for essential services, but what we seem to fallen in to in the UK is, for lack of better terminology, a political masturbation session. Brexit is like a big bang refactor. Pointless, won't change anything material in any predictable way (whichever direction it goes), and just blows everything that actually matters into the weeds. Give me the button to press that if other people press the button will result in the police, teachers, firefighters etc being funded properly. I will press that button and tell everyone I know to press that button. It doesn't exist; the only "options" come along with a whole host of completely irrelevant nonsense.

isostatic 8y ago

> Public services should be funded via taxation, not by private advertising partnerships. 25% of TFL funding comes from government grants anyway, increasing that to 27% from local property taxation in London seems the most sensible thing, but in the age where people only care about the bottom line and don't factor in externalities I can't see that as an option. The Met are now selling themselves because people won't pay taxes to fund them (London's police budget is 20% lower today than it was in 2012/2013)

esotericn 8y ago
> The Met are now selling themselves because people won't pay taxes to fund them This is straying off topic, but I'd argue that it's more like "people don't feel they have any say in the process". I'd gladly pay more taxes for essential services, but what we seem to fallen in to in the UK is, for lack of better terminology, a political masturbation session. Brexit is like a big bang refactor. Pointless, won't change anything material in any predictable way (whichever direction it goes), and just blows everything that actually matters into the weeds. Give me the button to press that if other people press the button will result in the police, teachers, firefighters etc being funded properly. I will press that button and tell everyone I know to press that button. It doesn't exist; the only "options" come along with a whole host of completely irrelevant nonsense.