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LastBlueDog's avatar

You mention the issue of free buses leading to enshitification but don’t really reckon with the degree to which that enahitification reduces the utility of buses for riders. If a bus and car are equally convenient but I run a real risk of getting screamed at by an insane junkie on a bus I’m going to drive. So if you want buses to be free and actually useful you need to price in the cost of keeping them safe and pleasant.

Benjamin's avatar

I like the idea of free fares in both theory and practice -- we have free buses in my hometown, and it's great -- but my main concern is that in New York City and in other places it's not clear that it's the best marginal use of transit money and political capital. There's a finite pool of money that people are willing to spend on transit, generally, and so going fare-free trades off against service improvements.

I'm a bit puzzled by the safety argument against free fares, although this is admittedly because I generally feel pretty safe on public transit no matter what. But to the extent that I think about safety on public transit, it's that more riders -> more safety. I'm kind of skeptical that some of those riders being homeless/etc. could change it, unless it's 100% having effects on the homeless? And we also probably want the homeless people to have reliable transit to help them get out of homelessness! So you might be being a bit too generous to it.

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