Cities are ending fares on transit. Here’s why | Hacker News Reader

Cities are ending fares on transit. Here’s why

cnn.com

12 pointssowbug13 comments

I think that free public transport makes a lot of sense. Ticketing infrastructure costs a shockingly large amount of money (billions for large systems [1],[2]). Reducing those costs whilst improving uptake makes a lot of sense. Of course, you then lose the revenue from people paying for tickets, but that can be paid for with taxes (which generally have a more progressive structure than ticket prices anyway).

Free/simple tickets allow for better competition with private cars etc. When Germany made their €49 D-ticket for all public transport, it was immensely popular.

For an example, Portland OR's transit operator TriMet gets approximately double the amount of money from federal grants than it does tickets [3], but both of those pale in comparison to the amount of tax funding. It would make sense to just scrap fares altogether, and encourage more people to use the services.

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/jul/16/myki-... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oyster_card#Operator

Be careful, they might start forcing you to take the train everyday even if you have nowhere to go. Like they force children to go to school even if they don’t want to go, because the teachers pay depends on student attendance. They will literally lock up the parents for taking kids on a vacation.

Oh dear

There's also the huge convenience factor. Half the hassle of public transportation is figuring out how to pay for it... you can't ever just do the tap to pay thing, you either have to get cash and make change (not easy these days) or buy electronic fair from some terrible kiosk (half of which are broken at any given point), figure out exactly how much it would cost given X transfers of Y degrees, then scan the ticket somewhere non obvious at some combination of entry and exit, possibly hold onto the receipt to show a trolley operator at some point, and and and...

It's just such a pain, adding a layer of metacomplexity on top of figuring out the routes and transfers themselves (which Google Maps and other apps are thankfully good at). Taking away the payment headaches would be so much nicer. Even as someone who rarely takes transit anymore (sadly), I'd gladly pay more in taxes just to encourage ridership and make it easier whenever I do hop on.

Fwiw, most major cities that I have lived in now have tap to pay.

With a phone or credit card, not one of their special cards?

Yeah, London, Birmingham, NYC, PDX all have tap to pay these days and they support NFC credit/debit cards and Apple Pay/other mobile wallets

Was just in London for a day and being able to tap my phone with no app or anything was just dreamy. Ended up riding the underground several times without a care, whereas many years ago when I had to buy an Oyster card (?) I couldn’t be arsed.

So, enthusiastic agreement over here.

Ireland uses a special card. It's not that much of a pain to be honest. You can top the card up on your phone if you've got NFC and their app. But of course for a tourist, there's a certain amount of on-boarding that could be avoided if they just accepted traps directly from bank/credit cards or phones, and they wouldn't have to deal with replacement cards or an app.

Still, the card works on all public transport within the city, buses all over the country, and some commuter trains but not intercity trains (eg: I can go from Dublin to Belfast by tapping the card, but to be honest I'm probably gonna book that in advance anyway to guarantee a seat). Some smaller privately run bus operators also accept the card.

Amsterdam has tap to pay with CC, at least on busses... haven't tried the tram.

Reducing a small cost isn't going to get people to switch modes if the service isn't good, whereas people may well switch modes and pay the cost if the service is good.

Which is to say, people in the US mostly don't use transit because it mostly isn't a good option, not because it carries a small fee.

While reading the article, I can't help but get the impression that public transit in the US is for poor people. Lots of quotes and stats about income levels, hardships, etc. No wonder most US public transit is viewed as a last-resort solution for getting from point A to point B.

In London, Paris, Taipei, Hong Kong, Tokyo, and New York City, you see people from all walks of life on the subway and bus. I've even seen A-list celebrities waiting for NY trains. Riding isn't a referendum on one's social status.

I don't know which is the cart and which is the horse. I do support free public transit because congestion is a public nuisance that everyone should have an interest in reducing. But the marketing needs to emphasize something other than hardship, or else it'll continue to be associated with hardship.

It's not really the fault of the transit agencies. For decades the US has lived with the Automobile Culture and advertising-driving associations of cars with status and luxury. That dovetailed into the white-flight suburbs and far-flung roads and streets that necessitated a car. Malls built with cars in mind, out of walking distance from where people lived. Over the decades, especially since the 60s, one could equate 'hardship' and 'low social status' with being non-white and living in multi-family housing.

NYC and a couple of other cities in the US are the exceptions. Compare with LA, SF, Dallas, and most of Florida.

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