Thanks for another great post about something that a lot of people on this forum don't even think about. I think part of what this boils down to, more than jus

Thanks for another great post about something that a lot of people on this forum don't even think about. I think part of what this boils down to, more than just means testing or fares/rates/etc. is that any time you put up logistical/bureaucratic/cognitive/complicated barriers to something, you discourage its use beyond what you're directly trying to prevent (in name - sometimes the barriers are entirely intentional. something something voting...) This goes beyond just poor peoples' access to public transportation. Most adults experience this in at least some way dealing with government bureaucracy. It's key in product design - making something confusing and hard to use will discourage its use, even if it delivers a lot of value once the difficulty is overcome. Humans only have limited amounts of patience, focus, attention, time. If you are poor those are even more scarce, since they're being spent on basic day-to-day survival. Anyway, I think particular public policy options that could fix these types of problems may delve a bit too far into politics. But I think the problem is fixable. Make things simpler