That's great. It's only around 8 hours of work instead of 16.

Its still a lot of money at $16.50. 12 days a year you labor just for the opportunity to labor. Your point only makes it slightly better and doesn't really take away from my point - it's a lot of money for a good number of folks. You know, the folks that could really benefit.

A 50% discount is probably pretty hard to get - and you are still asking the poorest folks to pay 4 hours of labour for busses.

Minimum wage is only a reliable way of looking at this if it is linked to cost of living. I'd argue any sum is a lot for those on minimum wage.

To get the reduced rate many municipalities will require you to visit an office, somewhere you likely have to take transportation to, during office hours (aka working hours), and provide documentation to prove this.

This isn't really unknown either. There's a very good story anyone can look up about Dr. V in India and what it took for him to actually get the eye care he wanted to provide to the people who needed it.

In the digital world many of us know you want to deeply understand your user and design with them in mind. Same thing here in the meat space.