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My understanding is that one of the serious practical downsides to free public transit in American cities is that lots of homeless people use it. This sounds si

My understanding is that one of the serious practical downsides to free public transit in American cities is that lots of homeless people use it. This sounds silly (like, isn't that the goal?), but some fraction of those people are smelly and/or scary, and what tends to happen is that anyone who has a choice stops using those parts of the system. And then however one might feel about that outcome, what tends to happen next is that the transit system loses political support and funding. There's probably a common sense solution somewhere that includes both free ridership and also fairly strong enforcement around loitering and hygeine, but I don't know if any city has managed to really nail it. Incidentally, I think a lot of similar problems come up in cities that have free public bathrooms. A small number of abusers tend to make those bathrooms extremely unpleasant for everyone else.

bombcar 5y ago
This is it exactly - in areas without a "homeless problem" however you want to define that - you have a completely workable solution (example: airport shuttle trains, etc). Where you have an issue the fare requirement is often used an excuse to enforce a minimum level of "cleanliness" if you will.
analog31 5y ago
This sounds like a strange idea, but when I traveled in Europe, there were always first and second class carriages on the trains. You could do the same thing with transit. Every other bus is free. People could then choose between hanging out with the people for a few blocks, or paying for a ride.
- ampdepolymerase 5y ago
  What an innovative idea! Here in the states, economic indicators are a great proxy for many other aspects. Maybe we could do a trial in Montgomery, Alabama, surely nothing would go wrong.
  - mikro2nd 5y ago
    It would be helpful to us non-US persons if you'd explain what signal you're proxying with "Montgomery, Alabama". As it is this means nothing to a large number of people reading your comment.
    - K5EiS 5y ago
      I think they are referring to Rosa Parks, where the economic difference would lead to segregation.
      - deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
gizmo686 5y ago
Part of the problem is in being one of the only services that offers itself for free. If the homeless don't have ready access to showers and basic hygiene products, but do have ready access to public transit, then you get a lot of unhygenic people on public transit. If homeless people do not have ready access to shelter, but do have ready access to public transit, then you get them spending time on public transit for the shelter it provides, which means they use it a lot more then they would if they were using it for transit. Public transit isn't even particularly good shelter, but since most places don't allow loitering (with selective enforcement against the undesirables), you again get them congregating on the few places that do.
- askafriend 5y ago
  I wonder if it's possible to have a multi-tier system where you have a free compartment but also a separate paid compartment with much higher standards (and prices). The higher prices of the paid compartment would go towards subsidizing the free compartment.
  - gizmo686 5y ago
    In theory, I think is a good idea. An even better benefit in my mind is that it addresses the original articles complaint by providing a form of means testing without actually means testing. The free compartment is available to everyone weather they need it or not (that is to say, weather they can demonstrate in a satisfactory manner that they need it or not), however the people that don't actually need it will self-select out. The problem is political. At least in the US, this approach would be opposed by both major political ideologies: the right because it is a government hand out, and the left because it is unfair to have a "poor" section of the bus (see the reaction to mixed income apartments having a separate section 8 entrance, or restricting the amenities that section 8 residents are allowed to use, which is essentially what you are proposing). Further, the nature of bureaucracies in our economics system (be they for profit or government) is to prioritize profit centers at the expense of cost centers, so it would be difficult to maintain the "poor" compartment to an adequate level. Compounding on this is the fact that the poor and homeless tend to be the least politically powerful groups, and maintaining adequete funding for this scheme would be difficult,
askafriend 5y ago
Nailed it. I would love to use public transit in SF, but instead I'll just keep using Uber for my own sanity and health.
- supportlocal4h 5y ago
  Perfect. Tax Uber to subsidize free public transit.
  - josephcsible 5y ago
    This turns into an adverse selection death spiral. The people who abuse the service will be subsidized by those who were driven off by them.
  - sokoloff 5y ago
    That might work in the short run. In the long run, voters who don’t see value in the service will inevitably tire of paying for it. Making public transit broadly appealing is the way to sustain it. Finding competing services to tax to pay for it is a minor part of the overall strategy I think.
failwhaleshark 5y ago
That's an incidental effect of not providing proper housing. Blaming homeless people for not having somewhere to go is like victim shaming. Giving homeless people homes is cheaper than not.
- ihsw 5y ago
  Unlimited access to housing, medicine, and food does not make you a responsible adult.
- heneryville 5y ago
  As the brother of a homeless person, many do have a place to go, but choose the homeless lifestyle. My brother moved to a big west coast city to be homeless. Cheaper housing there wouldn't have helped him.
  - failwhaleshark 5y ago
    Not everyone chooses to be homeless, so painting all homeless with one brush would be disingenuous. For example, I know 6 sane, smarter-than-average, old guys who drift around the SF Bay Area mid-Peninsula region who don't drink or do drugs, but are poor and cannot afford housing on their own. 2 have managed to get accommodations, 1 by the COVID lockdown. That's 4 left looking for 24-hour coffee shops, laundromats, bus stops, and diners.
    - adkadskhj 5y ago
      But giving all homeless homes isn't the solution either, lest you want crime and drug filled ghettos. The solution in my mind requires everything, at once. Homes for those who need it. Mental support for those who need it. And enforcement for those who merely want to abuse and corrupt the system. The homeless problem lumps everyone together into one camp and while they do suffer equally, their reasons are vastly different. There is no single solution, and it certainly will be difficult. Unfortunately i see the friction involved in _actually_ solving this problem as so great that it will never be done. Though some extreme measures may be taken.
vlunkr 5y ago
My relatively small city has free public transit, it's very nice. There isn't a big homeless population though. A quick Google search shows that quite a few bigger cities are also doing it for free.
gnopgnip 5y ago
I hear this a lot, but it isn't as much of a problem as it would seem. The emery go round in Emerville and Oakland, and the Alameda Loop shuttle are both free and don't have this problem. It seems like the solution here is everyone disembarking at the end of the route. And you have areas where public transit isn't free that do have this problem
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
Cthulhu_ 5y ago
That's a symptom though; if you don't want homeless people looking for shelter, you should solve the homeless crisis instead of making public transit expensive. I mean there's a lot of people who would gain a lot of opportunities if they could afford to commute, so free public transit would also reduce the homeless and poverty situation. What really makes me angry is that it's not a dichotomy; the US is the richest country in the world, they can give free health care, housing and education to everyone. But they refuse, instead (nationally) pumping it into the military while (privately) funneling it upwards to the extremely rich. That money could be redistributed to raise the minimum wage (and if you get paid minimum wage, your employer is effectively saying "I'd pay you less if I could") and improve the lives of everyone. But the people in power (and their voters) don't want that, because that means considering those worse off as them as equals. It boils down not to economics, but egoism, classism and racism. It's the "as long as I got mine" attitude.

bombcar 5y ago

This is it exactly - in areas without a "homeless problem" however you want to define that - you have a completely workable solution (example: airport shuttle trains, etc). Where you have an issue the fare requirement is often used an excuse to enforce a minimum level of "cleanliness" if you will.

analog31 5y ago

This sounds like a strange idea, but when I traveled in Europe, there were always first and second class carriages on the trains. You could do the same thing with transit. Every other bus is free. People could then choose between hanging out with the people for a few blocks, or paying for a ride.

ampdepolymerase 5y ago
What an innovative idea! Here in the states, economic indicators are a great proxy for many other aspects. Maybe we could do a trial in Montgomery, Alabama, surely nothing would go wrong.
- mikro2nd 5y ago
  It would be helpful to us non-US persons if you'd explain what signal you're proxying with "Montgomery, Alabama". As it is this means nothing to a large number of people reading your comment.
  - K5EiS 5y ago
    I think they are referring to Rosa Parks, where the economic difference would lead to segregation.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]

gizmo686 5y ago

Part of the problem is in being one of the only services that offers itself for free. If the homeless don't have ready access to showers and basic hygiene products, but do have ready access to public transit, then you get a lot of unhygenic people on public transit. If homeless people do not have ready access to shelter, but do have ready access to public transit, then you get them spending time on public transit for the shelter it provides, which means they use it a lot more then they would if they were using it for transit. Public transit isn't even particularly good shelter, but since most places don't allow loitering (with selective enforcement against the undesirables), you again get them congregating on the few places that do.

askafriend 5y ago
I wonder if it's possible to have a multi-tier system where you have a free compartment but also a separate paid compartment with much higher standards (and prices). The higher prices of the paid compartment would go towards subsidizing the free compartment.
- gizmo686 5y ago
  In theory, I think is a good idea. An even better benefit in my mind is that it addresses the original articles complaint by providing a form of means testing without actually means testing. The free compartment is available to everyone weather they need it or not (that is to say, weather they can demonstrate in a satisfactory manner that they need it or not), however the people that don't actually need it will self-select out. The problem is political. At least in the US, this approach would be opposed by both major political ideologies: the right because it is a government hand out, and the left because it is unfair to have a "poor" section of the bus (see the reaction to mixed income apartments having a separate section 8 entrance, or restricting the amenities that section 8 residents are allowed to use, which is essentially what you are proposing). Further, the nature of bureaucracies in our economics system (be they for profit or government) is to prioritize profit centers at the expense of cost centers, so it would be difficult to maintain the "poor" compartment to an adequate level. Compounding on this is the fact that the poor and homeless tend to be the least politically powerful groups, and maintaining adequete funding for this scheme would be difficult,

askafriend 5y ago

Nailed it. I would love to use public transit in SF, but instead I'll just keep using Uber for my own sanity and health.

supportlocal4h 5y ago
Perfect. Tax Uber to subsidize free public transit.
- josephcsible 5y ago
  This turns into an adverse selection death spiral. The people who abuse the service will be subsidized by those who were driven off by them.
- sokoloff 5y ago
  That might work in the short run. In the long run, voters who don’t see value in the service will inevitably tire of paying for it. Making public transit broadly appealing is the way to sustain it. Finding competing services to tax to pay for it is a minor part of the overall strategy I think.

failwhaleshark 5y ago

That's an incidental effect of not providing proper housing. Blaming homeless people for not having somewhere to go is like victim shaming. Giving homeless people homes is cheaper than not.

ihsw 5y ago
Unlimited access to housing, medicine, and food does not make you a responsible adult.
heneryville 5y ago
As the brother of a homeless person, many do have a place to go, but choose the homeless lifestyle. My brother moved to a big west coast city to be homeless. Cheaper housing there wouldn't have helped him.
- failwhaleshark 5y ago
  Not everyone chooses to be homeless, so painting all homeless with one brush would be disingenuous. For example, I know 6 sane, smarter-than-average, old guys who drift around the SF Bay Area mid-Peninsula region who don't drink or do drugs, but are poor and cannot afford housing on their own. 2 have managed to get accommodations, 1 by the COVID lockdown. That's 4 left looking for 24-hour coffee shops, laundromats, bus stops, and diners.
  - adkadskhj 5y ago
    But giving all homeless homes isn't the solution either, lest you want crime and drug filled ghettos. The solution in my mind requires everything, at once. Homes for those who need it. Mental support for those who need it. And enforcement for those who merely want to abuse and corrupt the system. The homeless problem lumps everyone together into one camp and while they do suffer equally, their reasons are vastly different. There is no single solution, and it certainly will be difficult. Unfortunately i see the friction involved in _actually_ solving this problem as so great that it will never be done. Though some extreme measures may be taken.

vlunkr 5y ago

My relatively small city has free public transit, it's very nice. There isn't a big homeless population though. A quick Google search shows that quite a few bigger cities are also doing it for free.

gnopgnip 5y ago

I hear this a lot, but it isn't as much of a problem as it would seem. The emery go round in Emerville and Oakland, and the Alameda Loop shuttle are both free and don't have this problem. It seems like the solution here is everyone disembarking at the end of the route. And you have areas where public transit isn't free that do have this problem

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

Cthulhu_ 5y ago

That's a symptom though; if you don't want homeless people looking for shelter, you should solve the homeless crisis instead of making public transit expensive. I mean there's a lot of people who would gain a lot of opportunities if they could afford to commute, so free public transit would also reduce the homeless and poverty situation. What really makes me angry is that it's not a dichotomy; the US is the richest country in the world, they can give free health care, housing and education to everyone. But they refuse, instead (nationally) pumping it into the military while (privately) funneling it upwards to the extremely rich. That money could be redistributed to raise the minimum wage (and if you get paid minimum wage, your employer is effectively saying "I'd pay you less if I could") and improve the lives of everyone. But the people in power (and their voters) don't want that, because that means considering those worse off as them as equals. It boils down not to economics, but egoism, classism and racism. It's the "as long as I got mine" attitude.