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There's pros and cons. On the con side: - When people get something for free, they often don't value it as much and treat it worse. E.g. more pollution. - pu
by valenterry 4y ago
There's pros and cons.
On the con side:
- When people get something for free, they often don't value it as much and treat it worse. E.g. more pollution.
- public transportation being free also means that it will be used even in cases where it is both economically and ecologically a suboptimal solution. This is a problem because more usage means higher costs. E.g. someone now might take a bus instead of cycling.
- Less competition. This point is tricky, but essentially, other solutions such as private long-distance busses (which have a comparibly good ecological footprint) might go out of business. In general, market might develop suboptimal.
There are a lot of good points too, which makes it a difficult decision. But since you asked, those can be named as reasons I suppose.
- atwood22 4y ago> - public transportation being free also means that it will be used even in cases where it is both economically and ecologically a suboptimal solution. This is a problem because more usage means higher costs. E.g. someone now might take a bus instead of cycling. That’s really reaching. Presumably people would do the thing that bear fits their circumstances after weighing the costs and benefits.
- mecsred 4y agoSo if the cost changed to zero, and the benefit stayed the same, would that not change the "best fit"?
- Leherenn 4y agoTo back GP's point, see this study. https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Free-Fares-Policies%3A-Impact-on-Public-Transport-and-Fearnley/cc1d94a6da5b1541f9cc0c81e38a9b19ef96b2e9?p2df https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Free-Fares-Policies%3A... For instance in Estonia, the majority of "switchers" were cyclists and pedestrians.
- secretsatan 4y agoI have a bus pass for my city giving me unlimited use all year round, and the service is excellent, a stop right outside my house with buses every 5-10 mins, I still walk a lot, but I do like the option of jumping on the bus if the weather is bad, or I'm just lazy