7 ms·

It's amazing how much bureaucracy they're willing to spend money on to means-test a fundamental service. If you just made transit free at the point of service y

It's amazing how much bureaucracy they're willing to spend money on to means-test a fundamental service. If you just made transit free at the point of service you wouldn't have free cards for all under 16, and some over 16, and all over 60, and discount fares for people in poverty. Cities spend so much money outsourcing the IT for fare collection, and the administration of budget programs, and ultimately the experience is worse for the end users. It's a real case of the politically connected hoovering up tens of millions of dollars because suburban voters can't stomach a poor person getting to ride the bus for free.

cdot2 2y ago
All of this IT infrastructure exists to ensure the exact opposite of what you said. It ensures that rich people don't get to ride the bus for free.
- whiplash451 2y ago
  Not the opposite, but the complementary, to be precise.
- truckerbill 2y ago
  The point is it’s easier to just tax wealth a bit more and let everyone get on the bloody train… It’s mostly people just going to work/school, makes sense to be free
  - KaiserPro 2y ago
    > easier to just tax wealth a bit more and let everyone get on the bloody train I mean its not. If it was, they would have done it. Wealth taxes are really fucking hard to do equitably, at least at first. For example OAPs tend to live in very expensive hosues. take rotherhithe for example one could have bought a house in the 90s for shit all, and now its worth the best part of 1.4 million. so now you're levying a 5% tax on a pensioner, or worse still a young couple mortgaged to the fucker. Now, but what about the super asset rich I hear you say? Well, they'll transfer all they own into a corporation. They can't tax assets like that on business because it'll crash the economy super quick.
    - bdndndndbve 2y ago
      We need a housing policy reset, the OAPs shouldn't have the majority of their retirement assets tied up in a 1.4M illiquid house. They need an affordable off-ramp to downsize, and we need to build more affordable housing to deflate the market. This is wildly unpopular because lots of people are already over-leveraged trying to get onto the property ladder, but objectively it's the correct course to start to unfuck things. The purpose of a house or apartment should be shelter for a family, not a retirement plan or an investment for a corporation.
      - ghusto 2y ago
        Okay Mao.
        fragmede 2y ago
        > This is wildly unpopular. Case in point. No one's suggesting confiscating anything, yet some people can't contain themselves at the suggestion that maybe housing policy is broken.
        ghusto 2y ago
        The policy of people paying for homes then keeping those homes, even when, gasp, they get old?! Demanding that older people "downsize" is a policy, and not one that's very savoury.
      - KaiserPro 2y ago
        > more affordable housing to deflate the market hard yes > affordable off-ramp to downsize, I mean yes, but the hidden cost is moving outside of your support network. Downsizing is often very lucrative.
        avianlyric 2y ago
        > I mean yes, but the hidden cost is moving outside of your support network. Downsizing is often very lucrative. If we had a sensible housing policy, it would be possible to downsize within your local community. Towns and villages would be made up of a good mix of different types of housing, for different parts of life. Then people could move into appropriately sized houses without having to leave their support networks.
- bdndndndbve 2y ago
  Ah yes all those billionaires trying to jump the turnstiles. Between that and trying to sleep under bridges they're a menace.
- eesmith 2y ago
  Rich people get to use the library for free. Rich people get to visit Hyde Park for free. I've no problem letting them also ride the bus for free.
- paganel 2y ago
  What's the problem with rich people riding the bus for free? All bus-riding should be as close to free as possible.
avianlyric 2y ago
TfL has built most of its fare collection systems in-house, indeed it licenses its fare collect technologies to other cities like New York. Also it’s not within TfLs or London Mayors gift to provide free transit, TfL is almost unique in that its costs are almost entirely covered by farebox collections, and they receive little to zero government subsidy. If London made transit free, they have to find an additional £7 billion a year to cover the operating costs (most of which is mundane stuff like keeping the trains working). Total London council tax (which is the only form of tax the London mayor can control), raises about £37 billion a year. So making transit in the city free would involve increasing council tax by an additional ~20%, and council tax is a notoriously regressive tax that disproportionately impacts the poor more than anyone else. Additionally TfL is already extremely efficient, it was audited by the previous government in an attempt to find further ammunition to discredit the London Mayor, but it seems they couldn’t find any inefficiencies worth publishing. So there isn’t much wiggle room to reduce TfL operating costs. Regardless of how you slice it, there isn’t a practical way to provide free transit in London, and certainly removing the cost of the bureaucracy for means testing isn’t going to move the needle on the simple economic facts.
- kiba 2y ago
  Tax cars further. They take up way more space than the average pedestrian and required more infrastructure to support and maintain.
  - avianlyric 2y ago
    Even that won’t get close. Existing London car taxes only raise around £0.2 billion annually. Not a chance in hell you can raise that by 3500% without either public unrest, or such a dramatic change in behaviour that tax collection amounts drop, instead of raise (although I would personally love a car free London).
    - rahimnathwani 2y ago
      Are you counting fuel duties here, or only road tax?
carapace 2y ago
> In Gavin Newsom’s book Citizenville he talked about how, after becoming [San Francisco] mayor, he discovered that fare collection cost as much as the revenue generated from fares. He started the process of making the bus free but was told by so many advisors that the busses would become “dumpsters on wheels,” from a combination of homeless people using them for shelter and people not respecting services that are free, that the plan was scrapped. ~ https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21808851 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21808851
- KaiserPro 2y ago
  YEs, but in london a large part of it's budget come from ticket sales.
- LexGray 2y ago
  I would guess that technology has already caught up with that. Tie it all to a phone app to track abuse and give a city services only data plan to anyone who asks. Give it a basic three strikes where the driver logs complaints or you need a remedial how to properly use city services class. Given the license tracking already going on for bridge tolls the infrastructure may already be there.
- avianlyric 2y ago
  Don’t compare TfL to buses or the BART in San Fransisco. The transit system the TfL operates makes US transit look like a toy. London busses arrive every 5 mins not every 30 mins. At high throughput bus stops busses arrive pretty back-to-back continuously. Trains arrive every 90secs not every 15mins, often the next train is waiting just outside the station for the previous train to depart. There are over 500 different bus services in London managed by TfL. 11 Tube lines covering over 200 miles of track and 272 stations. 6 suburban rail lines covering over 100 miles of track and a 113 station. TfL is a major operation, and its fare collection system is one of the most efficient and technically capable systems in the world. So good they sell it to other cities like New York. I can absolutely guarantee that the cost of TfL fare collection system will be an insignificant fraction of the £2.2 billion that TfL collects annually.
  - 2y ago
akira2501 2y ago
> can't stomach a poor person getting to ride the bus for free. If you don't accurately measure ridership you can't accurately serve that ridership. You'll waste money on useless services and you'll waste peoples time by not creating necessary services. The system needs to exist. It probably doesn't need to be outsourced. We're well past the internet revolution and it's time for these core competencies to be reabsorbed by government departments. Or it's time for private companies to be held liable for their complete and total failures to serve the public. Ideally it should just be a system that lets you scan your identification card or drivers license. If you're of the correct age it should serve as a transportation pass. Simple. Compliant. Captures useful data.
- ThePowerOfFuet 2y ago
  >Ideally it should just be a system that lets you scan your identification card or drivers license. If you're of the correct age it should serve as a transportation pass. Simple. Compliant. Captures useful data. Privacy nightmare, and disenfranchises those with no paperwork.
  - akira2501 2y ago
    > Privacy nightmare The current system doesn't do this somehow? You're taking _public_ transport. Presuming privacy from the operator to be a thing is odd. > and disenfranchises those with no paperwork. Then if they want free public transport they should get free papers. I'm not sure the goal of an "identityless public society filled with free rides" is at all worthwhile or even agreed upon to be good.
    - avianlyric 2y ago
      What free papers? The UK has no national identity card, so there is no officially recognised “free paper”. Both passports and driving licenses cost money.
      - akira2501 2y ago
mbirth 2y ago
With that many tourists using and abusing London public transport, why should only Londoners pay for the service (via taxes - the money must come from somewhere)?

cdot2 2y ago

All of this IT infrastructure exists to ensure the exact opposite of what you said. It ensures that rich people don't get to ride the bus for free.

whiplash451 2y ago
Not the opposite, but the complementary, to be precise.
truckerbill 2y ago
The point is it’s easier to just tax wealth a bit more and let everyone get on the bloody train… It’s mostly people just going to work/school, makes sense to be free
- KaiserPro 2y ago
  > easier to just tax wealth a bit more and let everyone get on the bloody train I mean its not. If it was, they would have done it. Wealth taxes are really fucking hard to do equitably, at least at first. For example OAPs tend to live in very expensive hosues. take rotherhithe for example one could have bought a house in the 90s for shit all, and now its worth the best part of 1.4 million. so now you're levying a 5% tax on a pensioner, or worse still a young couple mortgaged to the fucker. Now, but what about the super asset rich I hear you say? Well, they'll transfer all they own into a corporation. They can't tax assets like that on business because it'll crash the economy super quick.
  - bdndndndbve 2y ago
    We need a housing policy reset, the OAPs shouldn't have the majority of their retirement assets tied up in a 1.4M illiquid house. They need an affordable off-ramp to downsize, and we need to build more affordable housing to deflate the market. This is wildly unpopular because lots of people are already over-leveraged trying to get onto the property ladder, but objectively it's the correct course to start to unfuck things. The purpose of a house or apartment should be shelter for a family, not a retirement plan or an investment for a corporation.
    - ghusto 2y ago
      Okay Mao.
      - fragmede 2y ago
        > This is wildly unpopular. Case in point. No one's suggesting confiscating anything, yet some people can't contain themselves at the suggestion that maybe housing policy is broken.
        ghusto 2y ago
        The policy of people paying for homes then keeping those homes, even when, gasp, they get old?! Demanding that older people "downsize" is a policy, and not one that's very savoury.
    - KaiserPro 2y ago
      > more affordable housing to deflate the market hard yes > affordable off-ramp to downsize, I mean yes, but the hidden cost is moving outside of your support network. Downsizing is often very lucrative.
      - avianlyric 2y ago
        > I mean yes, but the hidden cost is moving outside of your support network. Downsizing is often very lucrative. If we had a sensible housing policy, it would be possible to downsize within your local community. Towns and villages would be made up of a good mix of different types of housing, for different parts of life. Then people could move into appropriately sized houses without having to leave their support networks.
bdndndndbve 2y ago
Ah yes all those billionaires trying to jump the turnstiles. Between that and trying to sleep under bridges they're a menace.
eesmith 2y ago
Rich people get to use the library for free. Rich people get to visit Hyde Park for free. I've no problem letting them also ride the bus for free.
paganel 2y ago
What's the problem with rich people riding the bus for free? All bus-riding should be as close to free as possible.

avianlyric 2y ago

TfL has built most of its fare collection systems in-house, indeed it licenses its fare collect technologies to other cities like New York. Also it’s not within TfLs or London Mayors gift to provide free transit, TfL is almost unique in that its costs are almost entirely covered by farebox collections, and they receive little to zero government subsidy. If London made transit free, they have to find an additional £7 billion a year to cover the operating costs (most of which is mundane stuff like keeping the trains working). Total London council tax (which is the only form of tax the London mayor can control), raises about £37 billion a year. So making transit in the city free would involve increasing council tax by an additional ~20%, and council tax is a notoriously regressive tax that disproportionately impacts the poor more than anyone else. Additionally TfL is already extremely efficient, it was audited by the previous government in an attempt to find further ammunition to discredit the London Mayor, but it seems they couldn’t find any inefficiencies worth publishing. So there isn’t much wiggle room to reduce TfL operating costs. Regardless of how you slice it, there isn’t a practical way to provide free transit in London, and certainly removing the cost of the bureaucracy for means testing isn’t going to move the needle on the simple economic facts.

kiba 2y ago
Tax cars further. They take up way more space than the average pedestrian and required more infrastructure to support and maintain.
- avianlyric 2y ago
  Even that won’t get close. Existing London car taxes only raise around £0.2 billion annually. Not a chance in hell you can raise that by 3500% without either public unrest, or such a dramatic change in behaviour that tax collection amounts drop, instead of raise (although I would personally love a car free London).
  - rahimnathwani 2y ago
    Are you counting fuel duties here, or only road tax?

carapace 2y ago

> In Gavin Newsom’s book Citizenville he talked about how, after becoming [San Francisco] mayor, he discovered that fare collection cost as much as the revenue generated from fares. He started the process of making the bus free but was told by so many advisors that the busses would become “dumpsters on wheels,” from a combination of homeless people using them for shelter and people not respecting services that are free, that the plan was scrapped. ~ https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21808851 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21808851

KaiserPro 2y ago
YEs, but in london a large part of it's budget come from ticket sales.
LexGray 2y ago
I would guess that technology has already caught up with that. Tie it all to a phone app to track abuse and give a city services only data plan to anyone who asks. Give it a basic three strikes where the driver logs complaints or you need a remedial how to properly use city services class. Given the license tracking already going on for bridge tolls the infrastructure may already be there.
avianlyric 2y ago
Don’t compare TfL to buses or the BART in San Fransisco. The transit system the TfL operates makes US transit look like a toy. London busses arrive every 5 mins not every 30 mins. At high throughput bus stops busses arrive pretty back-to-back continuously. Trains arrive every 90secs not every 15mins, often the next train is waiting just outside the station for the previous train to depart. There are over 500 different bus services in London managed by TfL. 11 Tube lines covering over 200 miles of track and 272 stations. 6 suburban rail lines covering over 100 miles of track and a 113 station. TfL is a major operation, and its fare collection system is one of the most efficient and technically capable systems in the world. So good they sell it to other cities like New York. I can absolutely guarantee that the cost of TfL fare collection system will be an insignificant fraction of the £2.2 billion that TfL collects annually.
- 2y ago

akira2501 2y ago

> can't stomach a poor person getting to ride the bus for free. If you don't accurately measure ridership you can't accurately serve that ridership. You'll waste money on useless services and you'll waste peoples time by not creating necessary services. The system needs to exist. It probably doesn't need to be outsourced. We're well past the internet revolution and it's time for these core competencies to be reabsorbed by government departments. Or it's time for private companies to be held liable for their complete and total failures to serve the public. Ideally it should just be a system that lets you scan your identification card or drivers license. If you're of the correct age it should serve as a transportation pass. Simple. Compliant. Captures useful data.

ThePowerOfFuet 2y ago
>Ideally it should just be a system that lets you scan your identification card or drivers license. If you're of the correct age it should serve as a transportation pass. Simple. Compliant. Captures useful data. Privacy nightmare, and disenfranchises those with no paperwork.
- akira2501 2y ago
  > Privacy nightmare The current system doesn't do this somehow? You're taking _public_ transport. Presuming privacy from the operator to be a thing is odd. > and disenfranchises those with no paperwork. Then if they want free public transport they should get free papers. I'm not sure the goal of an "identityless public society filled with free rides" is at all worthwhile or even agreed upon to be good.
  - avianlyric 2y ago
    What free papers? The UK has no national identity card, so there is no officially recognised “free paper”. Both passports and driving licenses cost money.
    - akira2501 2y ago

mbirth 2y ago

With that many tourists using and abusing London public transport, why should only Londoners pay for the service (via taxes - the money must come from somewhere)?