You can pick free, or scalable, or financially sustainable (and without sustainability, a political shift will kill it), but you cannot have all three at once. The minute you push on one, second-order effects pop up somewhere else.

It is a classic wicked problem: solving it literally changes the problem.

Big-city transit has an equilibrium point, and it is incredibly stable. Every serious transit city in the world ends up in the same place: charge fares, subsidize low-income riders, and fund the basic system with taxes.

That equilibrium is stable for a reason. Every major city that tries free transit at scale will eventually snap back to it, because it is the only configuration that does not implode under feedback loops. It keeps demand reasonable, service reliable, and the politics tolerable.

It would directly help the taxpayers of the City. But obviously nobody wants that (sarcasm)!

Example: the City has been trying to get rid of the RVs parked illegally on the streets, dumping their effluents and engine oil all over the City streets. To get these RVs off the streets, the City is spending $36M+ (and counting). So money can be found for the homeless, the RV dwelllers, etc. but not for the city's lawful residents and taxpayers.

I wonder how much the traffic would improve in/out of SF if BART is cheaper.

In Europe, if you're a group of 2-5 adults with no discounts, it's often cheaper to take a car than to use the bus / train. That makes no sense.

It turned out, in my region, about 1/3 of public transport capacity was lost on them on peak hours. Also, some decided a specific seat was 'theirs' and started verbally abusing 'seat thiefs', throwing their stuff around, or even hitting them with canes. They also drove everyone bonkers by begging drivers to speed up or change routes so they would be home in time for their favorite soap series.

At the time, not much was done about it. The busses and trams forced everyone off at the terminus, made a round, enforced being empty while pausing a bit, and then the elderly were allowed back on, but at least places got shuffled and others got a chance for a seat. There was great gnashing of teeth about this decision.

I still feel double about it. It is very sad how this was a great life quality improvement for these people, but public transport is not the right medium for fixing this.

Problem is politcians and aspiring politicians/media influencers have figured out that the money is not in solving problems but keeping it in the news and agitating people. They will never do anything to solve problems but keep throwing wrenches and never let it be solved. Well, if it’s solved they need to find a new problem, worse still, what if people now expect things to be actually solved!

I'd imagine public transport is similar so we should move the Overton window towards bus and train tickets entering you into a lottery funded by charging cars for entry to, and for parking in, downtown areas.

Maybe this program wouldn't work everywhere. Makes sense it would work there.

However- it shouldnt be simply "free".. it should be "free with a pass, which is free" and a pass is easy to get, tied to your ID, and easy to revoke. No pass? thats fine, pay the $3 to ride. bus driver yanked your pass because you were peeing on the seat or intimidating other riders? You can ride again, for $3. Concerned about security or privacy? No problem, Pay $3.

Before the majority of law abiding citizens and travelers, passes are easy and free to get.

Kansas City’s street car system is an incredible testament to this as well. It’s clean, safe, and for the most part quite efficient. And with its recent extension down to UMKC’s campus it’s now a viable transportation method for a lot of people in the heart of Kansas City. Keeping it clean and safe after more than doubling the size of its route might be a bigger lift now, but as long as the city sticks with it post-World Cup I see it continuing to grow.

It feels like there could be some societal benefit to similarly reducing the number of busses and just making them free. (Today most busses are only at 10-30% capacity). This seems to support that idea.

“The truth about Zohran’s free busses” by Breaking Points:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P275SobdE-s

clickbait headline (of course) but gives a lot of facts about the proposal and talks about other places they’ve tried it.

The claimed increase in ridership is modest (18%) off a low baseline (0 service on weekends) and occurred over a long time period (pre-pandemic to today.) They also expanded service during that period, which probably fully explains the increase in ridership. Certainly the reduction in fare ($1-->0) is nice for some people, but it's hard to imagine that it is actually decisive for a large portion of trips.

The estimates of traffic reduction and CO2 reduction just quote the city's numbers without establishing that "traffic cleared, and so did the air."

Key paragraphs:

> In 2021, the city starting [sic] running more buses, streamlining routes and seriously considering waiving the $1 fares. In 2023, the City Council voted to pay for a two-year fare-free pilot with Covid-19 relief funds.

...

> Ridership eventually grew to 118 percent of prepandemic levels, compared to the average nationally transit ridership-recovery levels of 85 percent.

Free public transit? KILL IT WITH FIRE!!! It will never work (those places it did are aberrations)

Go look up: 1. Jevons paradox (induced demand): More road capacity → more traffic. 2. Marchetti’s constant (30-minute city): Average commute time is stable; faster modes → sprawl. 3. Downs–Thomson paradox (transit sets highway speed): Car speeds improve only if transit gets better. 4. Braess’s paradox (network effect): Adding a new road can worsen traffic for everyone.

It is a fucking nightmare. I'm a liberal guy but the amount of bums make the transit here unusable.

They claim to have removed 5200 cars, out of area of 500000 people ("Iowa City-Cedar Rapids statistical region"). The increase is pitiful, from 6.7% of people using transit to 7.2% with the rest being car commutes.

Neither has it "cleared the traffic". Iowa City is also a well-run city, with just a 17-minute average commute time, indicating that it has no congestion to speak of.