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Comment by lquist | Hacker News Reader

Hmm...interesting article.

In SF, BART is pay-per-ride throughout the system, while MUNI is proof-of-payment in many locations. One thing that I've noticed is that there are significantly more homeless people on MUNI than on BART. As a rider, this negatively influences my experience and desire to ride (mostly because of potential for screaming/attacking).

Especially if public transportation is free, I can imagine that the homeless would take shelter there in case of inclement weather. Not a huge issue in SF, but comes into play in other cities.

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This would indeed happen if the issue of homelessness continues to be brushed aside the way it currently is in many places.

Interestingly, according to this study and others, it is actually cheaper to provide social housing for homeless people than dealing with the side-effects of brushing them aside.

http://www.homelesshub.ca/Library/View.aspx?id=55023

No doubt they would use buses as makeshift shelters. But that's a silly reason to not do a no-payment system. The solution is to improve the city's welfare system (e.g. shelters) since apparently it's inadequate.

The homeless population already exists: changing the metro to proof-of-payment or no-payment just concentrates them into the buses and subways.

It's not a silly reason to not do a no-payment system. It's unfortunate, perhaps, but it's pragmatic. Unless you could somehow organize a massive simultaneous restructure of the city's welfare system and its public transit system, you'll have to concede these problems.

No, it's pretty silly. It's effectively saying that the proper way to respond to strain placed on services by the homeless is to reduce the services the homeless have access to.

Pragmatism can still be wrongheaded.

Indeed, many of the "homeless" may have access to shelter-- it is more of a vagrancy problem. Vagrancy is an issue with any free public service or public space, from parks to libraries to train stations to free buses. You'd have to enforce limits to time on the buses and rules against sleeping and eating and that sort of thing.

SF welfare system is the reason there are so many homeless in that city.

What's the inverse of this? "If we cut welfare, the homeless will go somewhere else." Seems legit, but not everyone thinks it's right to export your problems like that. Especially when your problems are poor, sick human beings.

Some people see a system that attracts the poor and the sick as, if not a fait accompli, at least a damn good start. Now we could talk about the problems SF has with paying for everything, but that's the opposite of homelessness.

SF already has one of the most expensive programs in the country for providing shelter and services to the homeless. Homelessness is a national problem: if one city provides better services than others to get the homeless off the streets, it becomes attractive to homeless from other cities, who then basically get to free-ride on the city doing the spending.

44% of SF homeless have been in the city for less than 90 days[1]; the problem isn't that the city's welfare system is inadequate, it's that it's better than other nearby cities' systems.

[1] http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/matier-ross/article/Homeless-p...

This kind of argument is being made all across this thread so let me address it here.

The Economist is advocating free public transportation ceteris paribus. They are not arguing that public transportation should be made free AND that the social welfare state be completely revolutionized. I (and others) are pointing out the problems that will arise if this change is made without making any other changes.

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