5 ms·

Nitpicking, and you didn't read the article, either.

• protomyth 13y ago
  Yes, I read the article. I am just very sick of the concept of "free" being used when it puts an additional burden on everyone. The problem with collecting money is not unique to buses. Many businesses are struggling with higher fees and collection costs. The government is a paid service of the tax payer, no more holy than paying someone to mow your lawn. The sooner we realize the retroact of free is an illusion, the better. We need to pay for the infrastructure.
  • Gravityloss 13y ago
    With a tight enough definition, nothing is free, since it's always someone or something that spent resources creating the "thing" or service. And hence the word "free" can be erased from the dictionary.
  • mhurron 13y ago
    You're the only one who seems to have a problem with realizing that your taxes pay for government services. Everyone else has figured out that free in this case means you don't either plop some change in a box when you get on or are not buying a monthly pass.
    • derleth 13y ago
      > You're the only one who seems to have a problem with realizing that your taxes pay for government services. Them and the entirety of the Libertarian and Tea Parties, not to mention whatever Anarchists still exist.
      • Dylan16807 13y ago
        No. They have a problem with the taxes and the services, but they don't have a problem with realizing that taxes pay for services the way protomyth here seems to.
        • protomyth 13y ago
          I know taxes pay for services. That is my point. The services must be paid for. You can have the people using the service pay for them, have an alternate revenue stream (e.g. advertising), or have them subsidized by other tax payers. There is no free.
          • Dylan16807 13y ago
            You were bitching about the use of the word 'free city-provided service' as if people didn't realize that meant 'tax-based'. There is no reason to do that. It's arguing that a term everyone already understands is misleading. Just treat it like an idiom or something and stop being a distraction from the actual topic of discussion.
  • Luc 13y ago
    The article's last paragraph mentions bridge & tunnel fares and congestion charges as a suggested way of making up the lost revenue.
  • dragonwriter 13y ago
    > The government is a paid service of the tax payer Government (including, inter alia, the provision of public transit) is a paid service to the tax payer, but that's not the service we are talking about. We're talking about delivering transit rides to commuters, which is currently also in most places a paid service to the commuter, and the suggestion is to change it to a free service to the commuter. (Largely on the basis that making transit rides a paid service to the commuter is undermining the goal of government provision of public transit as a paid service to the taxpayer by discouraging utilization.)