Posted on 01/15/2020 11:51:56 AM PST by karpov
LAWRENCE, Mass. — Dionisia Ramos gets on the 37 bus twice a day, rooting through her handbag to dig out the fare and drop it into the slot, so it came as shock several months ago when the bus driver reached out his hand to stop her.
“You don’t have to pay,” he said. “It’s free for the next two years.”
Ms. Ramos had never heard of anything like this: Someone was paying her bus fare? At 55, she lives on a monthly unemployment check for $235. So saving $2.40 a day, for her trip to and from community college, past the hulking mills of Lawrence’s industrial past — that meant something.
Since a pilot program began in September, use of the buses has grown by 24 percent, and the only criticism Ms. Ramos has of the city’s experiment with fare-free transit is that it’s not permanent.
“Transportation should be free,” she said. “It’s a basic need. It’s not a luxury.”
That argument is bubbling up in lots of places these days, as city officials cast about for big ideas to combat inequality and reduce carbon emissions. Some among them cast transportation as a pure public good, more like policing and less like toll roads.
The City Council in Worcester, Massachusetts’ second-largest city, expressed strong support last week for waiving fares for its buses, a move that would cost between $2 and $3 million a year in lost fares. And fare-free transit is the splashiest policy recommendation of Michelle Wu, a Boston City Council member who is expected by many to run for mayor in 2021.
Larger experiments are underway in other parts of the country. The cities of Kansas City, Mo., and Olympia, Wash., both declared that their buses would become fare-free this year.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Understandable. There is a value to the Fire Department to me however. The bus system, not so much.
The New York Times should be free. The paper should also include coupons for free coffee and crumpets while reading the newspaper. Anyone in the world who wants to read the Times should have it delivered free to their doorstep. The NYT should also pay for a free Mercedes, so those who want to pick up a copy from the newsstand don’t need to take public transport. The Times should also pay for a birdcage to line the bottom with the NYT and a parrot to use the birdcage.
Also Senior Citizens rode free (I don’t know what sort of hoops they had to jump through to get a ride free card) - one explanation I heard was that they would be less inclined to drive if they could ride public transit.
That’s a fallacious argument. Every taxpayer pays for the bus — whether or not they use it. Users pay a tiny fraction of the costs to actually use it. If users didn’t pay anything, then taxpayers (both users and non-users) would have to pay more. If you’re a user, you’re not paying twice — you are benefiting from the huge subsidy provided by non-using taxpayers.
Urban transit buses do not reduce carbon emissions -- quite the opposite, in fact. In practice, transit buses use more fuel per passenger mile, than most private automobiles. That's mainly because buses travel mostly empty, most of the day. The additional stops also burn additional fuel.
Ms Ramos thinks transportation should be free? Ok...how about the driver’s wages? Should they do it FREE, Ms Ramos? What about the fuel that drives the buses? Free to you and LIBERALS means you will be STEALING from the PRODUCERS, Me Ramos.
Here’s a better idea, get rid of the asshole who think they are being treated so unfairly. Free ticket to whine somewhere else
I take the bus at times. Depending on the route, the busses can be clean to trashy. Here in Tampa, the busses on some routes runs from 4 am to 12 midnight.
Where I live, all of 4.6% is fares revenue. A bus pass costs over $75/mo. My car costs less to drive to and from work, including insurance.
Nuff said.
So saving $2.40 a day, for her trip to and from community college,
MA doesn’t give student bus passes to community college students? Social Services isn’t giving bus passes to the unemployed in training programs? No pass programs for the very low income? No senior-rides program?
The old style traffic circle (especially with traffic lights) were a horrific hazard, as you would enter at full speed, then suddenly have to stop if a light was red. Not safe at all. Modern roundabouts have NO lights on them. Instead, everyone entering the circle must yield (give way) to traffic already in the circle. Traffic in the circle has right of way.
It works remarkably well, and traffic flow is much smoother.
Watch a couple of these videos to see what I'm on about.
Road tolls, fuel excise...
i don’t get it, why don’t they also make food education and housing free? maybe they hate poor people
nothing is free.....everyone else will pay, pay,pay....around here we have those two part buses that are almost completely empty....the drivers get a wonderful sweet pension though......
Low income inequality is a function of inequality
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