It’s not surprising that free rides can juice ridership numbers for systems struggling to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic and the resulting shift to at-home work. The question is whether such policies are financially sustainable — or fair, given that higher-income riders benefit too.
I live in a place with a functionally free bus line. I thought it was great and used to ride it all the time, but then the local homeless figured it out and now every time I get on, the seats are covered in filth and there’s usually someone who smells absolutely vile. They don’t get on to go anywhere; they get on because they have nowhere else to go. They just hang out on the bus.
Obviously the real solution is to give homeless people a proper place to stay, improve mental health care, and all that good stuff. I hate the cycle of moving people from once place to another. But in the meantime, making bus lines free can make them a horrendous experience for everyone else.
Edit, also the solution to the article’s actual point of fairness in fares seems simple to me. Make it free and just have a progressive tax that pays for it
Yeah, I don’t get the funding issues either. There are many of us who’d want to pay more taxes to EXPAND service deeper into the burbs. Too bad politicians only typically hear the “cut the taxes” constituents…