16 ms·
The brilliant thing about making public transit free is that unlike many other things that can be government subsidized, free public transit can't be stolen or
by danans 8y ago
The brilliant thing about making public transit free is that unlike many other things that can be government subsidized, free public transit can't be stolen or arbitraged.
- mherdeg 8y agoYeah I grew up hearing that "The optimal price of public transit is free". The one pitfall I was told about was something called a "free-rider problem", which in this specific context doesn't have its normal economic meaning and refers to people taking up public-transit resources while not actually trying to get from Point A to Point B. Just for example, if your transit is clean, safe, supervised, a moderate temperature, and has long journeys, what fraction of its users will be using it to get somewhere vs. using it because it is a safe place to be? In the Bay Area, there is "Hotel 22", the Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority #22 bus from Eastridge Transit Center to Palo Alto Transit Center, about a two-hour ride running 24 hours a day (see e.g. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/11249291/The-dark-side-of-Silicon-Valley.html https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/... or https://www.mercurynews.com/2013/10/31/homeless-turn-overnight-bus-route-into-hotel-22/ https://www.mercurynews.com/2013/10/31/homeless-turn-overnig... - a safe warm place to sleep for $6). In Pynchon's "V" there is Benny Profane "yo-yoing" on the 42nd Street Shuttle from Grand Central to Times Square, but his contemporaries were certainly finding shelter there: https://harpers.org/archive/1956/03/subways-are-for-sleeping/ https://harpers.org/archive/1956/03/subways-are-for-sleeping... These aren't necessarily bad side effects but understanding how folks will use the system when it's free is an important part of making the policy decision to make it free.
- saagarjha 8y agoIn an ideal world, there are other clean, safe, supervised and temperature controlled places that you can provide that make hanging around public transit not a particularly attractive option.
- blunte 8y agoThis is not a public transportation problem, this is a housing/wage problem.
- function_seven 8y agoTrue, but that's not useful when creating transit policy. The housing and wage problems are present within the society you're writing your transit policy for. If those problems exist, then your transit policy must account for them.
- iknowstuff 8y agoAhh, there it is, the US can never have nice and clean things because of its massive inequality. Judging by European countries it would seem like there are ways to fix that.
- baroffoos 8y agoReminds me of a comment I saw on HN a while ago about an American shocked that other countries have public toilets that aren't covered in shit, blood and needles. It seems like so many Americans are not even aware that the problems they face are not global and they just take it as a fact of life.
- WanderPanda 8y agoThis is absolutely against my experience. When I visited the US last year I was surprised by how clean and well maintained public toilets were. I am not used to this, as in Germany public toilets (if they even exist) are totally disgusting.
- tomjakubowski 8y agoThe pay public toilets I used in German train stations (Freiburg, Munich Hauptbahnhof) were clean and fine.
- majewsky 8y agoI think "paid" is the significant word here. That said, the toilets on German trains (not in train stations) are generally ok as well, even though they're not paywalled.
- icebraining 8y agoWell, they're paywalled by the train ticket, no?
- 8y ago
- Arnt 8y ago99.x% vs <1%, if Munich is a model. And if Munich isn't, then I'm curious why not. (FWIW, Munich's transport network includes about 200 underground stations that aren't just clean, safe and supervised, but also sheltered from rain and open about 21 hours per day.)
- mcv 8y agoSo in order to have free public transportation, first, free safe places you can be need to not be scarce. I can live with that. I'd like safety to be free and abundant.
- lambdadmitry 8y agoI don't get why many people think it's sane to make everyone's life worse (by making public transport scarce, expensive, and denying economic growth coming from increased efficiency of a good public transport system) just to avoid someone getting something for free, i.e. homeless getting reasonable accommodation. Bus seat seems like a pretty low bar to clear for a wealthiest country in the world, and yet apparently even the wealthiest state in the wealthiest country can't provide anything better for its residents. How come?
- isostatic 8y agoHow do you ration limited seats on a train? By charging more at certai times you encourage those who can choose less desirable services to do so.
- baroffoos 8y agoBy adding more trains on the route at peek times. "Less desirable services" means taking limited space using cars
- isostatic 8y agoRail lines can take a certain amount per hour (say 32 on the Victoria line). They are already maximum length and maximum capacity, and already leave people behind. Buses are cheaper but slower. Those who aren’t in as much of a hurry can take the bus or walk. With no cost differential people will base it just on time, increasing time taken on the rail service. Same applys on long distance. Sometimes I need to be in London at 9am so will take a more expensive busier peak train. Sometimes I don’t need to be there until the afternoon so I travel on quieter or slower trains, saving money and freeing space for those who do have to be in by 9am.
- CaptainZapp 8y agoRapid Bus Transit[1] systems seem to be a good way to combine high capacity with (almost) guaranteed transit times and much lower costs than building rail, let alone subway systems. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bus_rapid_transit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bus_rapid_transit
- tty2300 8y agoAdd more tracks. We have 8 lane highways but a 4 track train line is unthinkable?
- luckylion 8y agoThat might work in the US but it won't in Europe where cities are generally densely packed. You can't just tear down a few rows of houses/dig new tunnles/turn the city into one big construction project to add more space for tracks.
- emerongi 8y agoAfter the rural buses here were made free, the companies that own the buses started inflating the passenger amounts. The subsidies were in part dependent on how many passengers are taking the bus - to avoid paying for bad/inefficient routes - and of course it immediately got taken advantage of.
- dullgiulio 8y agoThey cannot inflate the numbers. There is a (free) card system. When boarding the bus you have to validate the ticket. The ticket system is handled by a separate company, not by the bus companies.
- baroffoos 8y agoThat seems pointless. Why make everyone carry around a card that has no purpose for the user. Why not just let the government design all the routes and manage it.
- westpfelia 8y agoHelps keep companies from lying about number of people using the lines. Makes sense honestly.
- HatchedLake721 8y agoIn Tallinn, Estonia, free public transport is for city residents only, which pay local taxes. You get a “city resident card” that you use on public transport to get a free ride. Everyone else pays as normal
- hapidjus 8y agoTo keep track of how the system is used maybe. What lines are popular and what lines can be reduced.
- atoav 8y agoYou can track the flow of people within your own country, you could even display full buses in realtime and send a notification to get the next one. And most important: you can differentiate locals from tourists.
- sansnomme 8y agoBut it can be exploited by crowd sourced delivery services.
- atoav 8y agoAFAIK there already are (and probably have been since trains exist) courier services that bring you stuff via train in express tempo. Even if trains were free and they wouldn’t throw you out when you fill the train with parcels, taking a truck or a plane might just be more economical, cause you can drive to distribution places directly.