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Comment by piperswe | Hacker News Reader

Going fare free would induce demand which would increase operating costs, so it's not that simple.

The other thing about going fare-free-- which people don't like to discuss but it is a real effect which has been measured-- is that it causes much more anti-social behavior on the bus, which decreases ridership among people who have only a slight preference for transit versus just driving their car. This not only makes traffic worse (which kinda defeats the whole purpose), it also tanks political support for transit, since fewer voters are using it and then they see no point in supporting it.

Can you point to where you found this measurement? This is the first I've heard of it.

I first heard of it from the transit union here in Seattle when they axed the downtown free bus zone like 10 years ago. There was some vague mention of the bus drivers in ... somewhere in Texas... like 30 years before that.

Beyond that I haven't heard much of it because as I understand it, there isn't much free transit anywhere big.

May I introduce you to the country of Luxembourg that offers free public transport - admittedly one of the smallest nations in Europe in area (2,586.4 km2 (998.6 sq mi)) and population (660,809), but bigger than many cities.

Also one of the wealthiest countries in the world, with a GDP per capita over 1.5x the United States.

Ok sure, the metro area here served by the bus is like 2.5 million or something.

Luxembourg does not have many homeless, one of the things making free a challenge in other places.

Seattle got rid of its downtown core free ride area in part because of disruptive and illegal behavior by riders.

Analemma_'s comment made it sound like some broad and well-studied thing. All I've seen is mention of a single city. This is not remotely enough to support the claim.

My claim was based on skimming an article that said fares ranged from about 10 to 50% of funding and I speculated that most probably tended toward 10% since most are small, and small ones depend on federal funding, special purpose taxes (Georgia has a lot of SPLOST[0] projects), and partnerships.

Smaller systems suffer from low ridership and might see more benefit from dropping fares. A full bus and an empty bus cost about as much to run, but a system of full buses is easier to bolster and improve because more people will support it.

And I don't see why this would be connected to behavior on buses and trains. Where is this research? At least for Seattle since everyone wants to focus on it for some reason. News articles for a single city are not research.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special-purpose_local-option_s...

I'm just stating that was the reason given by Metro and was the public perception at the time. I was among the public affected by it, and my anecdotal experience is that problems on the routes starting in Seattle and ending in the suburbs were fewer after the free fare zone was eliminated. It certainly doesn't consitute reasarch.

I seemed to remember reading something similar about Austin's buses when they went fare-free in the 80s. I found this linked in the Austin CapMetro wiki page: http://www.nctr.usf.edu/pdf/473-132.pdf

This reminds me of MetaFilter, where a one-time $5 payment is required to post. Just this small speedbump seems to do a pretty good job of keeping opportunistic trolls and vandals off the site. "Free" is too often an invitation to abuse.

Citation needed for that causes anti social behavior claim!

https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/warning-seattles-f...

They've since refused to ticket people who get on without paying. You can also see plenty of ASB.

Which sounds to me like a good reason to publicly fund it in the first place

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