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Seattle used to have an area of downtown where you could ride the bus for free. (You could ride within the area free, but paid if you rode out of the area or started your ride outside of the area.)

Busses became makeshift homeless shelters, which probably ended up driving away actual commuters.

Seattle also bought fancy self-cleaning toilets many years ago in order to give tourists a place to go and to reduce public urination by the homeless.

They ended up selling those toilets on eBay a few years later because the toilets had become a place for addicts to shoot up and for prostitutes to take their customers.

Free is probably a bad idea...

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Public spaces, aka the commons, is where all of society's problems manifest.

Homeless people sleeping on buses is caused by, wait for it, homelessness. Not free buses.

Sex workers turning tricks in public bathrooms is caused by, wait for it, prostitution being illegal.

Crazy stinky people accosting people in public are caused by, wait for it, kicking mentally ill people to curb to fend for themselves.

Freeride zones and public toilets are currently impractical. Because they're being sabotaged by larger issues. But they're still good ideas, both empirically and morally.

I don't think the issues are as cut and dry as you make them seem. I'd be willing to bet many of the prostitutes who are providing their services illegally would never be able to do so legally - as much more desirable people would begin to offer competing services. Believe it or not, many people also choose to be homeless; whether or not this is a result of another issue like drugs or mental illness is irrelevant. Many mentally ill people would rather deal with the disease than the treatment.

No doubt we could do more to aid societies issues, but it's unlikely that we'll ever fully resolve many of them.

I am by no means an expert on prostitution, but I don't think it's the illegality of prostitution that keeps many women from entering the market.

It could be the reason of many, while not being the reason of most.

If comedy central has ever taught me anything, it is that there is still illegal prostitution in Reno, Nevada. ;)

Oddly enough, prostitution is illegal in Reno, Navada and Las Vegas. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prostitution_in_Nevada

Which probably increases the amount of illegal prostitution in those areas.

Huh, I knew it was illegal in Vegas but I thought it was legal in Reno. TIL.

knew it was illegal in Vegas but I thought it was legal in Reno.

I'm sure the Reno Sheriff's department hears that a lot...

I believe the state law is that in any county where the population is under 400,000 residents, prostitution is legal, which rules out the main large cities in Nevada. I live in neighboring Utah, so I learn some interesting factoids about our neighbor once in a while.

Oddly enough, if you read the link that you posted, you'd learn that contrary to your statement, prostitution is illegal in Reno and Las Vegas, and in fact in great swathes of Nevada (in particular, it's illegal in the areas where most NV residents live).

You may have read his link, but you certainly didn't read his comment.

Hmn. Apparently you are correct.

Illegality also leads to a potentially unsafe operation. Without legalizing something, there can't be any regulation of the industry. Prostitutes are obviously wary of calling the cops in the event that they are abused, mistreated, robbed, or whatever else.

Legalizing prostitution allows its workers to fall under police protection.

Illegality also leads to money hiding endeavors and tax fraud. Illegal sex workers are wary of setting up a real shop where they could implement security methods, or a guard to stand at the door in a brothel type operation.

Legalizing prostitution allows for better taxation, and less in the way of illicit venues.

I'm sure you're right in that every woman wouldn't turn to prostitution just because it became legal, but at least part of that should be attributed to the inherent danger of working in an illegal market with zero marketplace or police protections. We (hopefully) wouldn't see a huge spike in legitimate prostitution if it were legalized, but we would almost certainly see an uptick.

> I'm sure you're right in that every woman wouldn't turn to prostitution just because it became legal

Prostitution is legal where I live (Australia) and I can confirm that not every woman has turned to prostitution.

> Prostitution is legal where I live (Australia) and I can confirm that not every woman has turned to prostitution.

Indeed! It's the same in New Zealand.

As attractive as it may be (in terms of income) there are always inherent risks that come with every occupation.

And here in Holland.

It even stimulates tourism. I wonder what would happen to the Amsterdam economy if legalization of softdrugs and prostitution becomes the global norm.

Germany fully legalized and regulated prostitution some years ago. The last thing I've heard is that it's lead to an increase in illegal prostitution practices (taffickin, coercion) because the regulation is not enforced well and it's easy to have illegal practices behind a legal front.

Obviously, this should be solvable through better regulation enforcement - but there doesn't seem to be the political will to pay for that...

You'd hear that whether it was true or not, unfortunately; there are a lot of anti-trafficking activists who are ideologically wedded to banning prostitution and don't care too much about facts or whether it's actually benefical.

> We (hopefully) wouldn't see a huge spike in legitimate prostitution if it were legalized, but we would almost certainly see an uptick.

Maybe in the short-term; it would probably somewhat increase the rate of entry. But removing the powerlessness that comes from illegality would probably also make it much more common for people to be able to move up and out of it and one to other things once they'd entered.

  many people also choose to be homeless; whether or not this is 
  a result of another issue like drugs or mental illness 
  is irrelevant.

This statement is an oxymoron. If anyone chooses to be homeless their reason is relevant: otherwise they haven't made a choice.

  Many mentally ill people would rather deal with the disease than the treatment.

This is hyperbole. It is also plain wrong.

Mental illness is not a lifestyle choice. No-one who has experienced mental illness would choose to live with it. Those that do live with it often don't live for long.

Many mentally ill people are incurable. Many mentally ill people are too ill to find treatment.

Nobody chooses to live on public transport. The mentally ill are vastly more likely to be the victims of crime: assault, battery, rape. If you were confused and persecuted and in fear for your life: where would you go to seek safety?

Seeking refuge from persecution and violence is not my idea of 'choice'.

There's already very "desirable people" working as prostitutes. Most likely, if you're meeting up in a public bathroom, and it's not part of the thrill, it's because of economic issues.

It is legal here in the UK. I have heard that it is common for women working as prostitutes to declare themselves unemployed in order to get free housing.

They use this free housing as their "business premesis".

Paying for sex, and being paid for sex, are not illegal in the UK. But there are some very strict laws that people need to be aware of.

Both people need to be over the age of 18.

There needs to be no element of coercion. The paying person is guilty of an offence if the sex worker is coerced even if the payer is not aware of any coercion.

There needs to be no trafficking. The UK uses a stricter definition of trafficking, which can include someone voluntarily coming to the UK. It also includes travel within the country.

There's some other stuff too about premises used as brothels and about pimps.

Your comments about use of Housing Benefit are weird and wrong and not worth responding to.

I only have hearsay to go on, but why do you think it is wrong?

Others points I believe are correct.

Because housing benefit doesn't work like that. It's idiotic to think that it does.

Most HB fraud is criminal gangs using fake id, or individuals who are cohabiting but claiming as singles.

Huh? I have claimed housing benefit when genuinely unemployed in the past (though not for some years). All they need is proof of address, some form of ID ,a statement of earnings/benefits and details of any dependents etc.

If you operate a cash only business with no paperwork there will always be a temptation to under report earnings.

So yeah, a certain proportion of those who operate cash-only businesses - gardeners, builders, whatever - fraudulently under-report their earnings. A proportion of those will also fraudulently claim benefits, though less than you might think - if you're going to do benefit fraud it makes more sense to do it on a larger scale, you're risking the same penalties and getting more income. But in any case, it's misleading to talk as though this were in any way specific to prostitution.

It's not really legal in the UK.

True it's legal to pay for sex, but it's illegal to offer sex for payment, or to live off immoral earnings.

It is only illegal to live off somebody else's immoral earnings (i.e pimping / running a brothel). It's also illegal to solicit in a public place (i.e kerb crawling).

It's certainly not illegal to respond to an advert offering paid sex or to place such an advert. I have no idea what the law would be regards propositioning people at random.

Edit: Paying for the services of someone who is coerced into prostitution against their will is also illegal.

Source: http://sw5.info/law/punters/

Immoral earnings? Based on who'se morals? I hope it's not actually worded that way.

Here's the act (http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2003/42/part/1/crosshead...)

It actually is! I presume it implies the morals of the Church of England.

Or the inherent moral view of legislation.

I know. A shocking concept: law has underlying moral values like "it's bad to kill people" and "stealing people's cars is wrong" and so on.

Yeah but murder is written into the law directly and so is theft, not some abstract notion of morality that differs from person to person and culture to culture.

So if paying so sex is made illegal, what happens if you pay your wife for sex? Not sure how this works in other countries, I guess it must be clarified somehow? In the UK it's very common for laws to be vague.

If those people can't be legal prostitutes because they are out competed, that doesn't mean that they will continue being illegal prostitutes in public bathrooms. It's certainly plausible that having legal and more desirable options will drastically reduce the number of them using free toilets.

The reason homeless people sleep on buses instead of in hotels is that hotels cost money, while buses are cheap. There are far fewer homeless people clogging the buses now that they cost money again.

You can wax on about how what we really need to solve is homelessness itself, but I am not hearing any solutions to that. We need solutions, not platitudes. Dissolving the free-zone was a solution.

> We need solutions, not platitudes. Dissolving the free-zone was a solution.

Dissolving the free-zone was a solution to the problem of having to deal with homeless people, not the problem of homelessness itself. I agree we need solutions and not platitudes, but we also have to be cognizant of how our "solutions" merely decrease the salience of pervasive ills rather than attempting to tackle them head-on.

Homelessness is a problem for the homeless. Homeless people sleeping on the buses are a problem for commuters. Sometimes you're just looking to get to work without having to put on a show of saving the world.

> Sometimes you're just looking to get to work without having to put on a show of saving the world.

Agreed. You do not need to be in "Save the World!" mode at all times.

> Homelessness is a problem for the homeless. Homeless people sleeping on the buses are a problem for commuters.

Disagreed. Homelessness is a problem for everyone. While homeless people exist, they will necessarily cause problems for the rest of the society. Here are my takes on it:

1. Homelessness is a spot in society. If you take all the non-homeless people in your community and move to a brand new piece of land that is completely isolated from the rest of the world, new homeless people will appear. This is because being homeless is inherent to certain societal setups and the percentage of homeless population can be determined "at compile time" via static analysis of the rules and initial state of the society.

2. The homeless/poor/hungry are a problem for everyone and everyone pays the cost. It is rarely direct (e.g.: not everyone gets mugged), but often indirect. For example, your car or renter's or homeowner's insurance is higher. You have to pay for a security guard in your apartment building. You have to pay for your bus ticket. You have to buy a more expensive bike chain.

3. Given #1 and #2, it is in everyone's best interest to solve the problems of homelessness/poverty/hunger.

I am not saying that we should drop everything and not stop until it is solved. I am saying that it should be a pretty high priority and that the question of whether we tackle it should be "yes".

Homelessness is a problem for the homeless.

That is a matter of opinion. Other people think it is a problem of society.

Can't we kick the homeless off the buses?

It isn't the job of transit to tackle homelessness itself. Their priority is transit... because they are transit. Their job is to provide clean, safe, effective transportation, not rolling makeshift homeless shelters.

That being said, transit doesn't operate in a vacuum. Problems like homelessness aren't going to be addressed by only one sector, because every sector can say "it's not my problem".

Its not the job of government to handle transit alone.

It isn't the job of government to handle transit alone.

It was a solution to what? You encountering people that offend you by their very existence? It's not a solution to anything, just a way of making a problem more invisible. One could argue the reverse actually, that the more visible and pervasive and nuisance-causing homeless people are, the more likely it is that actual solutions will be offered (housing first policies, wrap-around social services, etc) (Indeed, this has been explored as a hypothesis: http://www.bridgewaypartners.com/Portals/0/Documents/leverag... )

> "It was a solution to what?"

I'm going with what @scarmig says:

"confined space with a homeless person who is likely unhygienic, drugged up, or (non-exclusive) mentally unstable." https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5907142

Countless times I have seen homeless people harass commuters (particularly women), straight up threaten people, "soil" the bus seats, leave unsanitary waste and debris on buses, and occupy more space than a single person requires. Resolving situations typically involves the bus driver pulling over and waiting for a police officer to arrive, though typically situations go unresolved. This is not merely a matter of aesthetics; pervasive abuse of transit systems by homeless people interferes with a transit departments ability to do their job (which is providing safe, clean, and effective transportation to people with places to go).

By all means, dedicate all the effort that you want to solving homelessness. Just don't use transit as your tool, it is preoccupied trying to be transit.

Getting threatened with physical violence by a mentally ill homeless person on the LA Metro (and having the subway operator literally tell me to shut up and get off the intercom when I reported it) is the reason I don't take the subway anymore.

It was a solution to the problem that people couldn't get where they needed to go because downtown buses was always full of homeless people, who needed somewhere warm to get out of the weather, but didn't actually need to go anywhere. Metro's job is to operate a transportation system, not to operate a homeless shelter, and the fact that homeless people were riding back and forth across the downtown ride free zone made it much more difficult for Metro to do its actual job.

It may reassure you to know that a local social services group now operates a free "Downtown Circulator" bus which runs in a loop around the area of the old ride free zone. Any homeless or impoverished people who actually need to travel around the downtown area for free can still do so.

Easy fix. Leave some busses standing around for homeless people to inhabit. Way cheaper because they don't need gas and maintenance beyond cleaning.

That would basically just be a relocatable homeless shelter. Homeless people apparently don't like homeless shelters because even they don't like being around lots of other homeless people.

Do you have any support for that claim? My experience in Chicago and Baltimore is that homeless shelters are packed. People do the daily 4:30 line-up to get a bunk, and those who don't get in find a place in the alley to try again tomorrow. None of them seem particularly bothered by the smell of their neighbors, they're more interested in the smell of soup.

Anecdata: I am homeless. I will not go to a shelter. I have a compromised immune system. I am on the street to get well. I have goals. Etc. I do my best to avoid most other homeless people. They are typically unclean, unhealthy, have super poor boundaries and think I should want a hug merely because I am also homeless...etc..ad nauseum.

I run a small website where I am trying to put together ideas on how the homeless can solve their own problems. I am not looking for a handout. I think one of my biggest problems is the Othering of the label I have. But I had that problem long before I had this particular label. Anyway, I think on that a lot and learning to "behave normally" after a lifetime of never managing that looks to me like one of the big things I most need.

Edit: The homeless website whereof I speak: http://sandiegohomelesssurvivalguide.blogspot.com/

Thank you for replying. Godspeed.

Periodically in my local paper there are articles where the reporter is scratching his head trying to figure out why there are people on the streets when we have open beds in the shelters.

The people on the streets say they'd rather be there than in the shelter. Some of it is because the shelters don't let you bring in weapons and don't allow people in who are under the influence. But some of these guys are homeless because they're an extreme case of a person who doesn't like to be told what to do.

No, only what I have heard claimed, which is mainly that homeless shelters are seen as an absolute last resort because they are typically less safe than the streets.

edit: http://www.npr.org/2012/12/06/166666265/why-some-homeless-ch...

Sounds like a reason to improve the homeless shelters.

It is, of course. Buses up on cinder-blocks is not the way to do it.

Agreed.

There is no one on the streets. here in Amsterdam. There are plenty of free shelters (the whole red light district is basically only red light windows and shelters) and it works

Are the homeless living in shelters in Amsterdam actually fixing their issues and getting back into the workforce and becoming prosperous though?

Whereas those on Seattle buses were?

No, but the success rate in homelessness rehabilitation isn't relative to any other places success rate, it is in terms of itself.

I followed you up until ...

> But they're still good ideas, both empirically and morally.

No. They're bad ideas because they don't work, for reasons you mentioned!

Certainly we should strive to resolve all of those issues!

However, until we do, we should be mindful that they are issues and deal with the problems that they cause like adults. For now, free buses are a terrible idea. Once we take care of the issues you mentioned, they might be a wonderful idea. Sadly, we live in the now, not in the future.

San Francisco, CA offers free bus passes to the homeless population, making busses essentially free. Source: I was homeless in San Francisco for a bit.

This is absolutely right and to the point.

As a different data point, in Manchester (UK) there are 3 free bus routes around the city. They are used quite heavily and work extremely well. There seems to be no problem with homeless people using them as shelters. I would love to see them expanded.

One stark contrast between these busses and the ones that charge is the time it takes to get people onto the bus. After getting used to the free version, getting on a paid bus feels glacial when it's busy. Seeing queues of busses feels wrong. I can't help but wonder how much better the transport system would be if you took out the time it takes to take payment and give tickets to people and just let them on.

You don't really have the speed problem in London where you can pay by contactless oyster or contactless credit/debit card though.

It's still way too slow to tap in as people fumble for cards and the general latency between the tap and acceptance.

Might be that there are a lot less homeless in Manchester, or the UK generally.

I wonder what the numbers are.

Significantly higher if perusing this wikipedia article is anything to go by: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homelessness#Statistics_for_de...

UK: about 10K USA: about 650k

USA has about 6 times UK population, so if their populations were equal the UK would have about 60K, or one tenth of the problem.

Note: This is just guesswork just perusing that article and taking guesses at populations(60mil and 330mil). Also, it looks like countries define homelessness slightly differently, but I don't have time to read through that part of it now, so I'm bookmarking it for later.

The next question is, why is it so much higher in America?

Homelessness is a moral as well as practical problem. How can more than half a million people have no home in the richest country on earth?

Because (most of) the people of the richest country on earth believe that any form of tax-financed welfare is "socialism", which is evil, and the only reason they're the richest country on earth is diligent avoidance of "socialism".

Wasn't the point of the grand parent's post that, per capita, it isn't higher in the US as compared to the UK?

UK: 10K USA: 650k - US has 6 times the population of the UK so it look like the problems is ~10 times worse in the US.

The problem wasn't that those things were free, but that homelessness and poverty are systemic issues that aren't actually meaningfully tackled. Even in places with token free transit systems, the homeless still occupy those spaces and will continue to do so.

Homelessness and poverty are different issues: although some people might not want to ride with simply poor people, that's a miniscule group compared with those who don't want to be in a confined space with a homeless person who is likely unhygienic, drugged up, or (non-exclusive) mentally unstable.

Saying "free would work much better if there weren't homeless people" is probably true, but that is a pretty big supposition in lots of cities. Those cities without a homeless problem should feel free to experiment with free transit.

> Homelessness and poverty are different issues: although some people might not want to ride with simply poor people, that's a miniscule group compared with those who don't want to be in a confined space with a homeless person who is likely unhygienic, drugged up, or (non-exclusive) mentally unstable.

Homelessness and poverty are related, but you are right in that stigma against the homeless and/or the poor makes a barrier in people's perception of taking mass transit. Some places with robust mass transit have better outcomes than others, so this is something that has to have available options to combat that in culture.

> Saying "free would work much better if there weren't homeless people" is probably true, but that is a pretty big supposition in lots of cities. Those cities without a homeless problem should feel free to experiment with free transit.

I'm not saying its a either or proposition, but making free mass transit needs to be coupled with other actions and policies that also help to deal with homeless by providing more stable shelter, facilities, economic opportunity, etc. Of course, there is no city in the US that does not have a homeless population, so that is always going to be a factor.

Those are two separate issues. Few people other than caricature billionaires from 80s movies would care about impoverished people riding the buses. Homeless people camping out on them is another matter entirely.

For anyone in Seattle here -- I'm assuming you're all familiar with the infamous 358; godbless the Aurora corridor between Lynnwood and Downtown

But seriously -- I think the visibility of homelessness on mass transit is a great reminder personally that there is a massive need for policy shifts that continually aim to decrease homelessness, which is otherwise just a statistic to many.

Available public and semi public spaces are very directly related to homelessness and mass transit is such a space. I've lived in a variety of places and people still continue to use mass transit even if occupied by someone who is homeless. The issue is that doing something for members of society by undertaking free transit has to be coupled with tactics that address the inequalities that allow homelessness to be pervasive or to consume resources that aren't really meant to deal with homelessness.

I'm having some trouble parsing your last sentence, but I think I agree. We need to have programs that tackle homelessness, but asking programs that have other mission statements to bear this burden is asking too much. Tackling homelessness itself is not the job of a transit department; their job is providing clean, safe, and effective transportation.

Totally agree. I just like to point out that transit systems do have a relationship with homelessness, but of course they are not suited to completely handle that social problem and there needs to be a more comprehensive approach to address social inequality.

> Seattle used to have an area of downtown where you could ride the bus for free. (You could ride within the area free, but paid if you rode out of the area or started your ride outside of the area.)

We have this in Perth, Western Australia—we call them "CAT" (Central Area Transit) buses. Any bus within the CBD is also free though ("Free Transit Zone"; FTZ), which is great if you're heading to a client's office and want to take the bus down the Terrace.

Our CAT buses and FTZ have existed for years and have not become makeshift homeless shelters. My evidence is only anecdotal (across ~10 years), but I've never seen any homeless people setting up shop on a bus.

There are obviously other factors at play here (transport police, better welfare system, 1.9m vs 3.9m people) that are likely making it different from Seattle, however (and these also reinforce your argument).

Aah, CBD means "central business district" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_business_district), I had to look that one up despite your diligence in explaining your TLAs. :)

"Busses became makeshift homeless shelters, which probably ended up driving away actual commuters."

As someone who used the free ride busses in Seattle almost every day.... that's really not true. Yes, sometimes homeless people were on them. But you know, sometimes there are homeless people in the subway in NYC - that doesn't really stop people from using it.

And the 358 is a great example of a bus that isn't free, but has lots of homeless/druggies on it.

It definitely did not drive away commuters from using the bus.

I lived in Seattle during the time that you're describing, and you're massively overstating the case.

Even the dirtiest line in the free-ride zone was cleaner than your average SF MUNI line. Maybe that's not a fair comparison, but it's fairer than suggesting that free buses are bad simply because someone might abuse them.

Also, a $2 fare isn't a huge impediment to someone who wants to turn the bus into a shelter. In fact, the worst buses in Seattle for that sort of thing tended to be the airport lines, because you could hop on one of those, and sleep for an hour or two for only a few bucks. By comparison, the free-ride lines were always packed, and made for poor places to sleep. Cost isn't the only consideration.

I have always felt that 1) public transportation should have basic hygiene requirements for all users. 2) one of the most important things that municipalities should provide are hygienic services; showers and scrubs / scrub-like free clothing to homeless.

Providing basic hygiene would go a long way to helping homeless and poor.

Finally, if you're going to provide these amenities, you need to staff for them appropriately - and have them maintained and supported with rules of use enforced.

Given the massive amount of financial waste we have, I don't accept "that's too expensive to do something like this". If it costs money, for things we need, take the money from the damn defense budget.

>Busses became makeshift homeless shelters

In the context of NYC: as it is there is little stopping a homeless person from jumping a turnstile and spending all day or night on the 24 hour subway system. But it's fairly rare to see this (I believe it used to be much more common). I imagine on a bus, where there is always a city employee monitoring things, it would be even more rare.

Seattle bus drivers (like bus drivers in many places I imagine) do not have enforcement teeth. When I lived there there was an infamous case where several teenagers viciously beat a bus driver. Plexiglass dividers were installed soon afterward to protect drivers from their own passengers.

The homeless aren't scared of a bus driver. Nor are passengers - on some routes in the evenings people would jump on via the back doors and refuse to pay fare. The bus driver would refuse to move the bus until they came forward and paid the fare. The bus driver always lost.

The reason why these problems aren't endemic in NYC is because NYC has actual enforcement via the NYPD. The police is widespread and available enough that no one tries to fuck around with the system too hard. In Seattle the SPD never show up to these things unless violence erupts.

The NYPD also has, for better or worse, a traditionally less soft stance on vagrancy and fare jumping.

Isn't that because they famously implemented the broken windows theory?

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broken_windows_theory#New_Yor...

Yeah, it's hard to argue against the results. The broken windows theory, by reasonable accounts, has contributed greatly to making NYC a much better place to live than it was before - even when accounting for the general nation-wide crime reduction that occurred in the same era.

As someone who grew up in a very liberal part of the west coast, it's hard to admit, but authoritarianism and ubiquitous police presence has done wonders for this city. It certainly unseats some assumptions.

The trouble with the success of broken windows in NYC though, is that it has created a culture where increasingly authoritarian policies are tolerated, and results proving their efficacy often not provided.

Except that it's not quite as clean-cut as we'd like it to be: http://www.newrepublic.com/blog/timothy-noah/101318/broken-w...

Bit more detail: http://blogcritics.org/policing-urban-crimes-the-broken-wind...

Even more on wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broken_windows_theory#Criticism...

One thing I have noticed is that NYC has a lot more homeless people on the streets than just a few years ago, or at least more such people that are visible in the urban landscape. I don't know why, and my colleagues don't, either, but there seems to be an increase in the number of homeless people in general [1], which may explain it.

[1] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/03/05/nyc-homelessness-ri...

One problem is that the theory doesn't necessarily help every city. Seattle for instance is not exactly a city that I would consider to have many "broken windows" that need fixing. At least there isn't visible rampant petty crime. I'm not sure what they would crack down on.

Most of Seattle's busses are double-length, so there's a heck of a long way between the driver and whatever shenanigans may be going on in the back.

We had a fareless area in downtown Portland for many years. It was no sketchier than the routes going to the 'burbs, and it wouldn't have made sense as a "makeshift homeless shelter", since the free part was only a few miles. My understanding of why they started charging is that our country suddenly ran itself out of money paying for simultaneous stupid wars and giant tax cuts for wealthy people, and our city couldn't pick up the slack any other way.

You say "homeless people", I say "George Bush", I guess.

For whatever reason, Seattle seems to have a particularly huge homeless population. They're far more noticeable (and more aggressive) there than they are in other cities I've lived in. Or maybe they're more concentrated or something, I dunno.

Anyway, although other cities have homeless problems, in Seattle it often seemed like public places would be swamped with virtual armies of them, and dealing with that is a real issue.

[Disclaimer: I haven't actually lived in Seattle for 20 years, and have only visited since.]

If you have a homeless population that sizable and aggressive, you have bigger problems to worry about than people stinking up free buses.

So free buses are a bad idea because the driver didn't enforce the use of the bus for travelling.

Why are only self-cleaning toilets a bad idea? Again, policing would have solved that. Or a door timer. Or blue lighting.

The Dalek Ovens (as I call them) in Canberra, Australia, have a regular hourly cleaning cycle. You get plenty of warning to get out, and then they turn on the hoses. I presume it reduces their utility as a form of cheap housing.

Blue lighting?

Here's a page with images and some description

(http://architectures.danlockton.co.uk/2006/10/28/a-vein-atte...)

It might be the type of lighting that makes it much harder to find a vein to inject, making it much less useful for taking drugs.

Certain lighting (most often used in public bathrooms) makes it very hard to see your veins & shoot up.

UV fluorescents make it harder to find a vein.

Live in downtown Seattle here. Although I enjoyed not paying for bus rides while it was free, I'm much happier with the service now that payment is required.

As a side note, the wait time for paying was reduced drastically once the Orca Card system (rfid based bus pass) went into use. From my experience, with the Orca Card the wait times for paying aren't that much longer compared to the free bus method. It's only when a group of tourists get on the bus and pay with coins is it noticeable.

Yeah, I'm not sure why the Economist built their argument around a problem with payment times that is basically solved on every bus service I've ever used on a regular basis (even the one without RFID had a "no change given" policy and most users had bus passes). There are arguments for subsidising public transport but "inconvenience of paying" isn't one of the more credible ones.

There's a half way house here. Passenger's could pay a nominal fee for the right to ride the bus. They are issued with a card. If people abuse the bus service the card can be revoked. This way many more people could afford to use the bus but there is still some control on who can use it.

Doesn't eliminate the non-trivial cost of enforcing access control, which is a major part of the point.

But still lower congestion in the city and improves workers mobility wich is the main benefit of free public transportation.

I doubt that bus fares are a contributing factor for why some people commute by car instead of bus. Driving a car probably costs more when you count gas and parking costs.

Yea, providing free services to well-off people is always complicated by poor people trying to take advantage of them.

The free ride area also had major consequences for outbound buses during peak hours. If a bus started in downtown and went elsewhere, riders had to pay as they left the bus. Seattle still doesn't allow you to pay at any door on a bus, only at the front with the driver. A crowded bus meant people could not easily get to the front; either the bus sat while people squeezed down the length of the bus, or they simply got off at the rear and didn't pay.

An alternative solution, of course, is to incentivize use of RFID bus passes (already in heavy use), install RFID readers at all doors, and speed up boarding all-around.

If people aren't aware, the free ride zone went away because Metro got strapped for cash, not because of the homeless shelter issue.

Proof of payment systems also attract homeless. They don't have tickets but they also don't have money to pay fine so they don't give damn. They are not a huge problem. Group of normal commuters can stink almost as bad as homeless person. Security is not an issue since all busses have security cameras.

Er, help the homeless get somewhere to live? If they are that much of a problem several useful services are affected, tells me there is a terrible homeless issue that needs dealing with. They are homeless "people" right?

Here in Miami we have a free trolley (school bus size) system that extends along the greater downtown areas and some of the northern and southern suburbs. They are extremely clean and I VERY rarely see homeless on it (we have a rather large population too), I've been picked up at stops where homeless, also waiting (or trying to sleep), people didn't even attempt to get on board. In contrast, our free light rail system is full of homeless. they just ride all day 'cause its air conditioned and unmanned with few security patrols (they mainly utilize cameras on board and at stations). Perhaps this case maybe the solution is for a harsh rule system and driver enforcement, if they're too dirty/smelly don't let them on, and/or kick them off after X number of stops. I'm not sure what the policies are here, I base my assumptions on the way I've seen driver yell at patrons to pick up their trash etc. it seems like they actually care about the trolley.

That's an interesting point. The problem doesn't stem from things being free as much as from people's perception of free things.

My former professor, who specialized in developing public relations campaigns for social causes, used to say that it's best to avoid words like "public" and "free" because it makes people think of lower-quality things — public rest rooms, for instance.

It's better for campaigns to use language that doesn't conjure these associations — or, in some cases, charge a nominal fee.

For example, a nonprofit whose mission was to give away condoms in Africa ended up charging a small price for each condom; message testing showed that the audience didn't trust free contraception, so, ironically, charging for the product made it more accessible.

The homeless didn't seem to be an issue in the "Fareless Square" in Portland, Oregon, at least the times I visited. (It existed from 1975 to 2012, and was discontinued because the local transit authority was short on cash.)

You give the tourists nice toilets.

You then put sharps bins in some other toilets in less nice areas of the city.

The problem is when the public "owns" a space, this is the equivalent of no one owning it. This is why public bathrooms are among the most disgusting places you can visit. I remember visiting France where they charge to use the toilets, and they're waaaaay more pleasant to use.

Ownership=>care

For buses, the solution is simple: Make everyone get off at the end of each route. For crosstown buses in Manhattan, that would mean you get approximately 25 minutes on the bus before you are kicked off. Most homeless would probably prefer to sleep on the streets than move that frequently.

I think it is more an implementation problem. Boston has a couple area with "free" buses, in the senses that Colleges, Hospitals and Businesses in a particular are sponsor those buses and their members ride for "free". In theory you should show your ID card, but they pick everybody. I have not seen homeless or stinky people. Maybe targeting the workforce, and workers could sponsor their family member, which will have for effect to extend the "free" ride to everyone leaving in a house with at least one person paying taxes. I don't know, part of this sound discriminating, but it ould be a start

I heard that a similar thing happened in another city, I think it was Sacramento. Maybe they should charge a quarter instead of making things free. This would make things close-to-free, but keep it from attracting lots of homeless.

The point of the whole free argument isn't making it easier to ride, it is to remove the overhead of having to gate access. If the bus just let people on and off and never had to do an exchange over riding it they would be more efficient.

A nominal fee like a quarter might be a good idea. I lived in Santa Monica when their buses were 25 cents and don't recall many issues with homeless or other people abusing it.

It depends on the location. In my neighborhood in SF there was a guy who dressed up like a giant viking warlock with a leather pouch of coins that he would hand out to any homeless person who needed fare for the N-Judah.

The Seattle transit system has been running out of money. They cut free rides to get a bit of change back. We're just not taxing enough to support it.

For what it's worth, there is still a free shuttle "bus" that runs in a loop encompassing Pioneer Square, Downtown and Belltown. It is designed to provide transportation from homeless shelters to drug rehabs, needle exchanges, etc.

Downtown Salt Lake City, Utah still is a free ride zone, also. :)

I worked at 3rd and Pine McDonalds in downtown Seattle for about a year while at UW, and I went to grad school at the U of U in SLC.

Downtown SLC is quite different in size from Seattle; you could walk the ride-free area in SLC in about 30 minutes, the ride free area in Seattle is much larger, more like 1.5 hours. Also, SLC didn't have many homeless people, while Seattle attracted most of the homeless people from the PNW, including lots from the nearby reservations and even Alaska (Alaska exports their homeless problems to us and LA).

You can walk the length of the Seattle free ride zone (Jackson to Bell) in less than 30 minutes (1.3 miles). 15 minutes from the waterfront to the convention center.

That McDonalds though --how did you survive?

Try walking Bell Town to the International District station. It was longer north/south than east/west.

I worked there in '94 when it was more rundown than it was today. The smell (malt liquor, unwashed clothes, urine) was difficult to handle at first but I got used to it, my coworkers were also pretty cool (mostly filipino/a immigrants) so it wasn't so bad.

Can you give some citations on this Alaska thing? I don't know whether I can consider that bizarre or a good idea. Having people freeze to death on the streets of Anchorage is pretty awful though.

Alaska actually has a huge homeless problem, they are like #5 or something ranked nationally. Life is very expensive there, and you can quickly fall through all the safety nets (especially but not just native American Indians/Alaskans). It makes sense that many would just give up; and its easy enough to get out by plane.

My mom (a Ketchikaner) told me this, but I can't find any references; my experiences are also about 20 years out of date now.

I lived there for 20+ years, headed up again in a couple weeks. The homeless issue is nowhere near as bad as e.g. Portland, where I am now. Nationally the state is ranked 10th for the percent of its population who are homeless. [0] It is not easy to get out by plane, especially if you don't have a job or an apartment lined up before you want to move. What I wanted citations for is this concept of "exporting" homeless persons; I'm still a resident of the state and if you were not being facetious about the concept, I have more than an academic interest in such a program. Mostly I don't think it's true.

[0] http://justice.uaa.alaska.edu/forum/26/2summer2009/b_homeles...

Isn't Portland (where I was born) bigger than the entire population of Alaska? For some reason, Oregon and Washington also score badly on homeless problems along with Alaska, probably given...our great weather?

Search for "blue ticket", it might not be practiced anymore, I'm not sure; but I believe there was still something like that going on in the 80s at least, and it was definitely a thing while my mom was growing up.

I remember some of the homeless in Seattle were from Alaska, how they got there...I'm sure if you ask a charity you can get a bus/plane ticket in winter easily enough, even if the gov doesn't do it for you.

Seattle has relatively affordable airfare to Anchorage.

Some part of it must be cultural. The entire west coast seems to score badly. I can't find a lot on "blue tickets" except to suggest that it hasn't been done since the 80s.

To go from ANC to SEA by bus you'd be taking 3 different bus lines, for a total price of ~$425 and probably a week of travel time.

http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=population+of+portland+...

Vancouver BC also has a large homeless population, so I can see it being a part of west coast culture (and of course, California...). There is something to be said about the boom/bust natures of the logging (skid row!) and fishing industries that probably feed into the problem.

Buses out of Alaska aren't cheap, its much cheaper to fly these days. You can get a ticket to Seattle for < $300. "blue tickets" seem to be ingrained in Alaskan culture, its a word that is understood very well up there; people like Palin use it to trash talk others they want to go. You are right the overt practice is probably not acceptable today, but the philosophy still holds.

I agree. The solution is a token fee.

Odd. My immediate conclusion from your story was that Seattle was a bad idea.

The best way to increase ridership is to make buses significantly more expensive than they are, not less. That way the crazy, drug-addicted scum won't be able to afford a ticket, and then decent people can use them without being hassled by dudes who have steel plates in their heads and smell like pee.

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