7 ms·

Maybe we need to stop thinking about public transport as a revenue generating/ self funding organization and just think about it as a critical piece of making a

Maybe we need to stop thinking about public transport as a revenue generating/ self funding organization and just think about it as a critical piece of making a city work. Nobody worries about whether the fire department is “breaking even”, you just pay for it through taxes because it’s essential

readthenotes1 2y ago
Where I live, the fare ticket's affordance is the ability to kick homeless off public transportation as it is the most comfortable place they have during hot summer days. I wish they would also kick off people who eat on the train and leave their mess behind, but they never confront nuisance-makers.
- pests 2y ago
  Did you know the homeless can also buy a ticket, even without a home?
  - readthenotes1 2y ago
    Of course. But they have to have the money, and based on the number that flee ahead of the ticket checker, it's not a way many want to spend what they have.
VWWHFSfQ 2y ago
> just think about it as a critical piece of making a city work That's what the NYC MTA is... and they're $42 billion in debt. And they need to "borrow" another $23 billion from taxpayers to fund themselves for 2025-2030. [0] https://www.osc.ny.gov/files/reports/osdc/pdf/report-3-2025.pdf https://www.osc.ny.gov/files/reports/osdc/pdf/report-3-2025....
- mikem170 2y ago
  Did that have anything to do with the cancellation of congestion pricing? I heard that was supposed to generate $16 billion through 2030 for the MTA.
  - uncanneyvalley 2y ago
    It has to do with the fact that “[a]t $2.5 billion per mile, construction costs for the 1.8-mile Phase 1 of the Second Avenue Subway were 8 to 12 times more expensive than similar subway projects in Italy, Istanbul, Sweden, Paris, Berlin and Spain”[0], repeated for every activity they undertake. [0] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-02-23/in-nyc-subway-a-case-study-in-runaway-transit-construction-costs https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-02-23/in-nyc-su...
nomel 2y ago
This would be fine if government projects like this had any sort of accountability. As is, these systems can become infinitely inefficient while claiming "we just need more money to fix it". Privatization seems to be the only way to enable accountability.
- askvictor 2y ago
  Privatization doesn't fix that; the state just ends up continuing to chuck money every time the companies (who are now in charge of critical infrastructure, and thus can't be allowed to fail) cry poor. It ends up being less efficient with a bunch of extra money flowing to the private sector. At least this is the Australian experience.
  - laverya 2y ago
    Perhaps we need to try the Tokyo model, with multiple competing subway/rail companies. But unfortunately most cities are nowhere near the size and prosperity of Tokyo.
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
  - nomel 2y ago
    > the state just ends up continuing to chuck money every time Then that's not a private entity, that's a government funded contractor, with the government shelling out the money with no accountability.
- heavyset_go 2y ago
  The endless streams of private contractors blowing through deadlines, budgets and billions of dollars on government contracts doesn't really agree with that assertion.
  - dotnet00 2y ago
    A lot of that happens because the government provides the contractors with an endless stream of money and refuses to use the accountability mechanisms in the contracts when they mismanage their tasks. As a currently popular example, most of the contracts around SLS, with Boeing and other companies, are like this. They consistently mess up, have quality and speed issues and overrun costs, and the government never exercises the option to cut their profit share, even when the overruns reach several times the original agreed upon cost.
seanmcdirmid 2y ago
Mobile day centers for the unhoused? Surely there is a more efficient way of going about that. A lot of people avoid the bus due to safety concerns, not due to paying the fare.
freetime2 2y ago
I think when you have a finite resource like seats on a bus, having a usage-based fee helps to promote more efficient usage. I have lived in communities where buses were free to ride, and it was a great option to get around. But these were relatively small and wealthy communities where demand for public transportation was relatively low. I'm not sure the same system could work in NYC.
- AnthonyMouse 2y ago
  There aren't really finite seats on a bus. The hardest problem with mass transit is being able to operate routes at enough frequency that people will use mass transit instead of driving because the next train is too long a wait. If you can get more people to ride it then you can justify more frequent service and further increase usage -- which gets more people out of cars, reduces pollution and traffic congestion, etc. These are public goods. And most buses are not going to be 100% full most of the time. So if you have an empty seat, the cost is zero. If you don't have an empty seat, now you can justify another bus/train, which reduces latency and causes several more people to take mass transit, which is good.
  - freetime2 2y ago
    > There aren't really finite seats on a bus. Huh - are you being serious? Of course the number of seats on a bus is finite. And the number of buses in a city are finite. The raw materials and energy used to produce and power the bus are finite. The pool of labor needed to drive and maintain the bus is finite. The tax revenue to fund all of this is finite. Yes, it is possible to add more buses. But doing so requires drawing from a finite pool of resources. So it makes sense to incentivize people to use public resources more efficiently. > And most buses are not going to be 100% full most of the time. So if you have an empty seat, the cost is zero. I think this is a very good argument for time-of-use based fares. (Of course you don't want to gouge people who are commuting to work/school, but if there's a way to incentivize people to spread out the load while still keeping things affordable, I think that would be a good thing). Just to be clear, since you have kind of made this about cars vs. mass transit, I'm not at all against mass transit. I'm in favor of applying the same principals to roads to incentivize people to use cars more efficiently as well. Tolls and parking meters (with time-of-use pricing), gasoline surcharges, etc.
pests 2y ago
In large parts of the country fire service is not provided by the city and you must contract and pay for your own.
dotnet00 2y ago
Fire departments aren't something open to a public which doesn't give a damn about it being shared property, (fire department equipment is typically only handled by the trained people employed by the department) nor do they typically involve much infrastructure that incurs constant wear and tear. The solution to the MTA being exceedingly wasteful and unwilling to enforce rules isn't to just make it easier for them to be even worse. If these people already feel such little civic responsibility for city infrastructure as to be skipping the fare and effectively taking advantage of everyone else, it's going to get much worse if it appears to them that they aren't even being asked to pay. Deciding to just make it 'free' would be the same as deciding just not to measure things that reveal inconvenient facts and celebrating that as having solved the problem.
- pclmulqdq 2y ago
  Not to mention that the fire department in many places will also send you a bill if you happen to use their services. It's usually a very small bill (a few hundred bucks for a service literally worth hundreds of thousands), and your insurance will usually cover it. If you need an ambulance ride, that bill can be thousands, but is covered by health insurance.
rayiner 2y ago
Even Sweden and Denmark have bus fare. If half the people are evading bus fare, then that’s a problem that needs to be fixed regardless of anything else you might do. It’s not likely that the people jumping the turnstiles are orderly and polite riders who help keep the system clean. You’ll just end up taxing everyone to create a system that’s unpleasant for normal people to use, which will destroy public support for those taxes. Toxic empathy, ironically, is antithetical to building functioning transit systems. To get buy-in from the public to direct tax dollars to transit, you need to have pleasant, orderly, clean systems that people who can afford to drive want to use instead of driving. You can’t get that if half your riders are law breakers.
- fulafel 2y ago
  Sweden and Denmark have low economic inequality and high income transfers. On the other hand nearby Estonia has less income transfers & higher inequality but free bus fares.
- OutOfHere 2y ago
  > Toxic empathy Do not forget that NYC charges a substantial income tax, and also a substantial sales tax. As such, the empathy is 100% justifiable.
  - rayiner 2y ago
    So do Sweden and Denmark, and they have bus fare on top of that. NYC uses that to subsidize 80% of the bus system and imposes user fees for the rest. The people who evade the fare are anti-social, and it’s toxic and ultimately detrimental to the goal of functional, widely used public transit to empathize with anti-social people. Even in my home country of Bangladesh, which is extremely poor and dysfunctionally anti-social, I would guess fare evasion isn’t as high as in NYC (including the people riding on top of the bus).
    - OutOfHere 2y ago
      > NYC uses that to subsidize 80% of the bus system Don't kid yourself. No one is going to pay 5x to ride the bus. It doesn't cost that much to offer a local bus ride. I don't think you realize where the money really goes. It goes to pay huge pensions, not to benefit the rider.
dgrin91 2y ago
The difference is that the fire department is only used for emergencies. If you call the fire department to help you get downtown you are probably getting a bill.
doublepg23 2y ago
It would be nice if we had a 100% income tax so the State could never run out of money to fund more programs for the anti-social.
yongjik 2y ago
The difference is nobody sees firefighters saving a homeless man and thinks "Eww gross I'd rather not have them saving lives next to me." When public transportation gets the reputation of being the place of juvenile delinquents and petty criminals, people start to ask why their tax money is spent on it, and it becomes a self-reinforcing cycle. I may sound like a cold bastard but I'd rather have public transportation system frequented by middle class families and commuters, because that's how you get these people to demand more public transportation.
- AnthonyMouse 2y ago
  The fare has to be low enough that poor people can afford it because they have to be able to use mass transit to get to work. Even the homeless need to be able to use it so they can e.g. get to a job interview. And a fare is not going to be a deterrent to juvenile delinquents because they're the ones jumping the turnstiles. But if you're not actually excluding the deplorables then the fare is just a regressive tax and a deterrent to mass transit use for everyone. The real problem is that you have unsheltered people without taking effective action against it and then the subway is a form of shelter. If you want to help them then you fix the zoning so more housing can be built, provide shelters, etc. If you want to be a cold bastard then you give them a one way ticket to a lower density city. Charging 10% of the cost of the transit system as a fare, which costs about as much to collect as it generates if not more, is neither of those things and counterproductive.
Ferret7446 2y ago
I think it's wrong of you to group "revenue generating" and "self funding" together like they are the same thing. Public transport should absolutely be self funding, if even partially, to provide the right value structure for both riders and the planning agency when choosing when/where to ride/set routes.
EasyMark 2y ago
Of course we should but I think you will quickly find yourself out on the street as a politician if you propose this. I don’t think proposing free anything these days goes over all with the public who often won’t benefit from it.

readthenotes1 2y ago

Where I live, the fare ticket's affordance is the ability to kick homeless off public transportation as it is the most comfortable place they have during hot summer days. I wish they would also kick off people who eat on the train and leave their mess behind, but they never confront nuisance-makers.

pests 2y ago
Did you know the homeless can also buy a ticket, even without a home?
- readthenotes1 2y ago
  Of course. But they have to have the money, and based on the number that flee ahead of the ticket checker, it's not a way many want to spend what they have.

VWWHFSfQ 2y ago

> just think about it as a critical piece of making a city work That's what the NYC MTA is... and they're $42 billion in debt. And they need to "borrow" another $23 billion from taxpayers to fund themselves for 2025-2030. [0] https://www.osc.ny.gov/files/reports/osdc/pdf/report-3-2025.pdf https://www.osc.ny.gov/files/reports/osdc/pdf/report-3-2025....

mikem170 2y ago
Did that have anything to do with the cancellation of congestion pricing? I heard that was supposed to generate $16 billion through 2030 for the MTA.
- uncanneyvalley 2y ago
  It has to do with the fact that “[a]t $2.5 billion per mile, construction costs for the 1.8-mile Phase 1 of the Second Avenue Subway were 8 to 12 times more expensive than similar subway projects in Italy, Istanbul, Sweden, Paris, Berlin and Spain”[0], repeated for every activity they undertake. [0] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-02-23/in-nyc-subway-a-case-study-in-runaway-transit-construction-costs https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-02-23/in-nyc-su...

nomel 2y ago

This would be fine if government projects like this had any sort of accountability. As is, these systems can become infinitely inefficient while claiming "we just need more money to fix it". Privatization seems to be the only way to enable accountability.

askvictor 2y ago
Privatization doesn't fix that; the state just ends up continuing to chuck money every time the companies (who are now in charge of critical infrastructure, and thus can't be allowed to fail) cry poor. It ends up being less efficient with a bunch of extra money flowing to the private sector. At least this is the Australian experience.
- laverya 2y ago
  Perhaps we need to try the Tokyo model, with multiple competing subway/rail companies. But unfortunately most cities are nowhere near the size and prosperity of Tokyo.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
- nomel 2y ago
  > the state just ends up continuing to chuck money every time Then that's not a private entity, that's a government funded contractor, with the government shelling out the money with no accountability.
heavyset_go 2y ago
The endless streams of private contractors blowing through deadlines, budgets and billions of dollars on government contracts doesn't really agree with that assertion.
- dotnet00 2y ago
  A lot of that happens because the government provides the contractors with an endless stream of money and refuses to use the accountability mechanisms in the contracts when they mismanage their tasks. As a currently popular example, most of the contracts around SLS, with Boeing and other companies, are like this. They consistently mess up, have quality and speed issues and overrun costs, and the government never exercises the option to cut their profit share, even when the overruns reach several times the original agreed upon cost.

seanmcdirmid 2y ago

Mobile day centers for the unhoused? Surely there is a more efficient way of going about that. A lot of people avoid the bus due to safety concerns, not due to paying the fare.

freetime2 2y ago

I think when you have a finite resource like seats on a bus, having a usage-based fee helps to promote more efficient usage. I have lived in communities where buses were free to ride, and it was a great option to get around. But these were relatively small and wealthy communities where demand for public transportation was relatively low. I'm not sure the same system could work in NYC.

AnthonyMouse 2y ago
There aren't really finite seats on a bus. The hardest problem with mass transit is being able to operate routes at enough frequency that people will use mass transit instead of driving because the next train is too long a wait. If you can get more people to ride it then you can justify more frequent service and further increase usage -- which gets more people out of cars, reduces pollution and traffic congestion, etc. These are public goods. And most buses are not going to be 100% full most of the time. So if you have an empty seat, the cost is zero. If you don't have an empty seat, now you can justify another bus/train, which reduces latency and causes several more people to take mass transit, which is good.
- freetime2 2y ago
  > There aren't really finite seats on a bus. Huh - are you being serious? Of course the number of seats on a bus is finite. And the number of buses in a city are finite. The raw materials and energy used to produce and power the bus are finite. The pool of labor needed to drive and maintain the bus is finite. The tax revenue to fund all of this is finite. Yes, it is possible to add more buses. But doing so requires drawing from a finite pool of resources. So it makes sense to incentivize people to use public resources more efficiently. > And most buses are not going to be 100% full most of the time. So if you have an empty seat, the cost is zero. I think this is a very good argument for time-of-use based fares. (Of course you don't want to gouge people who are commuting to work/school, but if there's a way to incentivize people to spread out the load while still keeping things affordable, I think that would be a good thing). Just to be clear, since you have kind of made this about cars vs. mass transit, I'm not at all against mass transit. I'm in favor of applying the same principals to roads to incentivize people to use cars more efficiently as well. Tolls and parking meters (with time-of-use pricing), gasoline surcharges, etc.

pests 2y ago

In large parts of the country fire service is not provided by the city and you must contract and pay for your own.

dotnet00 2y ago

Fire departments aren't something open to a public which doesn't give a damn about it being shared property, (fire department equipment is typically only handled by the trained people employed by the department) nor do they typically involve much infrastructure that incurs constant wear and tear. The solution to the MTA being exceedingly wasteful and unwilling to enforce rules isn't to just make it easier for them to be even worse. If these people already feel such little civic responsibility for city infrastructure as to be skipping the fare and effectively taking advantage of everyone else, it's going to get much worse if it appears to them that they aren't even being asked to pay. Deciding to just make it 'free' would be the same as deciding just not to measure things that reveal inconvenient facts and celebrating that as having solved the problem.

pclmulqdq 2y ago
Not to mention that the fire department in many places will also send you a bill if you happen to use their services. It's usually a very small bill (a few hundred bucks for a service literally worth hundreds of thousands), and your insurance will usually cover it. If you need an ambulance ride, that bill can be thousands, but is covered by health insurance.

rayiner 2y ago

Even Sweden and Denmark have bus fare. If half the people are evading bus fare, then that’s a problem that needs to be fixed regardless of anything else you might do. It’s not likely that the people jumping the turnstiles are orderly and polite riders who help keep the system clean. You’ll just end up taxing everyone to create a system that’s unpleasant for normal people to use, which will destroy public support for those taxes. Toxic empathy, ironically, is antithetical to building functioning transit systems. To get buy-in from the public to direct tax dollars to transit, you need to have pleasant, orderly, clean systems that people who can afford to drive want to use instead of driving. You can’t get that if half your riders are law breakers.

fulafel 2y ago
Sweden and Denmark have low economic inequality and high income transfers. On the other hand nearby Estonia has less income transfers & higher inequality but free bus fares.
OutOfHere 2y ago
> Toxic empathy Do not forget that NYC charges a substantial income tax, and also a substantial sales tax. As such, the empathy is 100% justifiable.
- rayiner 2y ago
  So do Sweden and Denmark, and they have bus fare on top of that. NYC uses that to subsidize 80% of the bus system and imposes user fees for the rest. The people who evade the fare are anti-social, and it’s toxic and ultimately detrimental to the goal of functional, widely used public transit to empathize with anti-social people. Even in my home country of Bangladesh, which is extremely poor and dysfunctionally anti-social, I would guess fare evasion isn’t as high as in NYC (including the people riding on top of the bus).
  - OutOfHere 2y ago
    > NYC uses that to subsidize 80% of the bus system Don't kid yourself. No one is going to pay 5x to ride the bus. It doesn't cost that much to offer a local bus ride. I don't think you realize where the money really goes. It goes to pay huge pensions, not to benefit the rider.

dgrin91 2y ago

The difference is that the fire department is only used for emergencies. If you call the fire department to help you get downtown you are probably getting a bill.

doublepg23 2y ago

It would be nice if we had a 100% income tax so the State could never run out of money to fund more programs for the anti-social.

yongjik 2y ago

The difference is nobody sees firefighters saving a homeless man and thinks "Eww gross I'd rather not have them saving lives next to me." When public transportation gets the reputation of being the place of juvenile delinquents and petty criminals, people start to ask why their tax money is spent on it, and it becomes a self-reinforcing cycle. I may sound like a cold bastard but I'd rather have public transportation system frequented by middle class families and commuters, because that's how you get these people to demand more public transportation.

AnthonyMouse 2y ago
The fare has to be low enough that poor people can afford it because they have to be able to use mass transit to get to work. Even the homeless need to be able to use it so they can e.g. get to a job interview. And a fare is not going to be a deterrent to juvenile delinquents because they're the ones jumping the turnstiles. But if you're not actually excluding the deplorables then the fare is just a regressive tax and a deterrent to mass transit use for everyone. The real problem is that you have unsheltered people without taking effective action against it and then the subway is a form of shelter. If you want to help them then you fix the zoning so more housing can be built, provide shelters, etc. If you want to be a cold bastard then you give them a one way ticket to a lower density city. Charging 10% of the cost of the transit system as a fare, which costs about as much to collect as it generates if not more, is neither of those things and counterproductive.

Ferret7446 2y ago

I think it's wrong of you to group "revenue generating" and "self funding" together like they are the same thing. Public transport should absolutely be self funding, if even partially, to provide the right value structure for both riders and the planning agency when choosing when/where to ride/set routes.

EasyMark 2y ago

Of course we should but I think you will quickly find yourself out on the street as a politician if you propose this. I don’t think proposing free anything these days goes over all with the public who often won’t benefit from it.