5 ms·

Subway fares disproportionately penalize the poor and force them into encounters with police. Transit should be free.

staringback 1y ago
[flagged]
micromacrofoot 1y ago
I'll get on my soapbox every time to also point out that a fareless system is also cheaper for everyone to operate. Operating and maintaining fare systems costs millions of dollars (hundreds of millions when they upgrade the system), enforcing and gating fares reduces system efficiency. Rolling those costs into taxes instead will always cost less than collecting at point of operation. Fares are already too low to cover operational costs, so at this point it's practically theater.
- parpfish 1y ago
  If you removed fares, you’d turn the subway into a mobile homeless shelter and everyone would stop using it
  - micromacrofoot 1y ago
    True, this is why central park doesn't exist anymore. Maybe if they charged admission they could bring it back.
lurk2 1y ago
> Transit should be free. Users should pay for the services they use.
- giraffe_lady 1y ago
  They do, in taxes. Or do you expect the police, highway system, fire dept etc to turn a profit as well?
  - bko 1y ago
    People should pay for services they use. Highway system is mostly funded through gasoline tax, which although not perfect, is pretty good proxy for how much you use public roads. Regarding police, private security does exist and works pretty well. Whether you're installing an alarm on your home or paying off-duty police to escort you around, it's an option and often provides better service and more options due to the profit incentive. I wish more public services had a profit incentive as long as there was a choice. Like with fire insurance, I can choose my coverage and its priced competitively. The insurance company also has an incentive to not have your house burn down, so they mandate you have fire detectors and other such preventative measures. Seems like a pretty good system.
    - giraffe_lady 1y ago
      > People should pay for services they use. You say this like it's a fact I have to accept but it simply isn't. It's an ideological position I wasn't convinced of at the beginning of this conversation and still am not.
      - bko 1y ago
        I think "pay for something you use" is not an ideological position. This is a lesson we teach 3 year olds. "That's not yours" is in fact one of the very first lessons we teach children. And it's not specific to any one culture or country. Pretty basic stuff.
        deleted 1y ago
        [deleted]
    - sagarm 1y ago
      The highway system does not pay for itself with usage fees; last I checked 50% of its funding came from the general fund.
  - lurk2 1y ago
    People who can’t afford to pay for a bus ticket are not paying taxes.
- micromacrofoot 1y ago
  I wish I could see this comment, but I don't have a ycombinator pro account
  - lurk2 1y ago
    If Hacker News charged users by the post we wouldn’t have to view these sorts of inane comments.
    - micromacrofoot 1y ago
      you underestimate me
bko 1y ago
Enforcement of many laws disproportionately penalize the poor. Should we live in a lawless society? On the "free transit" point, unless you convince bus drivers and train operators and the tens of thousands of people that operate MTA to work for nothing, then it cannot be free. It can be paid for by someone else (e.g. taxpayers), but in general if you have a third party paying for something, you run into big problems related to expense growth, under investment, and inefficient use of resources in general. Seeing your fare go up due to bloated expenses and mismanagement is an important signal. Hiding it and hoping everyone is honest and diligent with resources is naive.

[flagged]

I'll get on my soapbox every time to also point out that a fareless system is also cheaper for everyone to operate. Operating and maintaining fare systems costs millions of dollars (hundreds of millions when they upgrade the system), enforcing and gating fares reduces system efficiency. Rolling those costs into taxes instead will always cost less than collecting at point of operation. Fares are already too low to cover operational costs, so at this point it's practically theater.

parpfish 1y ago
If you removed fares, you’d turn the subway into a mobile homeless shelter and everyone would stop using it
- micromacrofoot 1y ago
  True, this is why central park doesn't exist anymore. Maybe if they charged admission they could bring it back.

lurk2 1y ago

> Transit should be free. Users should pay for the services they use.

giraffe_lady 1y ago
They do, in taxes. Or do you expect the police, highway system, fire dept etc to turn a profit as well?
- bko 1y ago
  People should pay for services they use. Highway system is mostly funded through gasoline tax, which although not perfect, is pretty good proxy for how much you use public roads. Regarding police, private security does exist and works pretty well. Whether you're installing an alarm on your home or paying off-duty police to escort you around, it's an option and often provides better service and more options due to the profit incentive. I wish more public services had a profit incentive as long as there was a choice. Like with fire insurance, I can choose my coverage and its priced competitively. The insurance company also has an incentive to not have your house burn down, so they mandate you have fire detectors and other such preventative measures. Seems like a pretty good system.
  - giraffe_lady 1y ago
    > People should pay for services they use. You say this like it's a fact I have to accept but it simply isn't. It's an ideological position I wasn't convinced of at the beginning of this conversation and still am not.
    - bko 1y ago
      I think "pay for something you use" is not an ideological position. This is a lesson we teach 3 year olds. "That's not yours" is in fact one of the very first lessons we teach children. And it's not specific to any one culture or country. Pretty basic stuff.
      - deleted 1y ago
        [deleted]
  - sagarm 1y ago
    The highway system does not pay for itself with usage fees; last I checked 50% of its funding came from the general fund.
- lurk2 1y ago
  People who can’t afford to pay for a bus ticket are not paying taxes.
micromacrofoot 1y ago
I wish I could see this comment, but I don't have a ycombinator pro account
- lurk2 1y ago
  If Hacker News charged users by the post we wouldn’t have to view these sorts of inane comments.
  - micromacrofoot 1y ago
    you underestimate me

bko 1y ago

Enforcement of many laws disproportionately penalize the poor. Should we live in a lawless society? On the "free transit" point, unless you convince bus drivers and train operators and the tens of thousands of people that operate MTA to work for nothing, then it cannot be free. It can be paid for by someone else (e.g. taxpayers), but in general if you have a third party paying for something, you run into big problems related to expense growth, under investment, and inefficient use of resources in general. Seeing your fare go up due to bloated expenses and mismanagement is an important signal. Hiding it and hoping everyone is honest and diligent with resources is naive.