Defecto “free” ridership has really hurt the local public transport system in the SF Bay Area.
Quite a lot of people refuse to take public transit due to risks of being harassed or witnessing open drug use. Easy to dismiss that as a guy personally, but I definitely think that creates an environment that’s hostile to many people who need to use or would otherwise be using public transit.
On the other hand, Margerite bus at Stanford has been free for decades, and it’s never been a significant issue there.
So it’s very difficult to generalize across different systems that have their own unique issues.
We have free transit in Albuquerque. It’s basically turned into a rolling homeless shelter. They hired security to manage it. My dad was one of those. He was attacked by someone using drugs on the bus and had the back of his hand bit off in a brutal attack. The busses here are VERY dangerous and I’d never step foot on one again.
I ride the Albuquerque buses to and from work. The worst I’ve seen is an intoxicated guy being thrown off by the driver. I’ve also seen a couple people kicked off for riding a full route, which I guess is how they keep people from riding all day. For reference, I’m a smallish woman, usually carrying a messenger bag. I’ve never been bothered.
What happened to @Dandylion’s dad is horrifying, though. That is exactly the kind of stuff that keeps me off public transit as well. “It never happened to me” isn’t really a valid argument.
I was thinking more like that solving the homelessness problem needs to be a part of improving public transit, and cities in general. Nothing made me want a personal vehicle more than being forced to ride public transit. Every day I’d look at the people passing us by in cars and say to myself “One day, that is gonna be me!”
It’s true that you’ll probably see something unpleasant on public transit once in a while but most folks aren’t going to share the experience of someone who is literally tasked with engaging with and managing the people causing problems on the bus.
It’s unfortunate though because in my experience transit feels a lot more pleasant when there are at least a decent amount of people riding with you. When people start to feel unsafe and stop riding, it can drive further people away if they have other transportation options.
Eeh? I’m a woman, I don’t have this problem on transit at all, either in Chicagoland or in SF. First of all, witnessing open drug use isn’t, like, the end of the world; it might make you uncomfortable, but it’s not dangerous.
Being harassed is a real fear, but I find that I’m more often harassed while I’m just walking around than in a bus, train, or the muni, and when I’m on board transit there are cameras and an operator to potentially step in!
Public transit is a public good. If seeing poor people and drug users makes us uncomfortable, the solution is to address the root causes of poverty and addiction, not to force poor people off of public transit.
You might not, and neither do I have a problem with it. I grew up low income and rode plenty of “sketchy” bus lines where fights would break out. I know when to remove yourself from danger.
Plenty of people I know have, or at least have that perception. My S/Os parents visited from out of the country, and they were harassed by someone screaming racist epithets at them and got scared, and ended up taking Uber the rest of the time they were here. They are old, retired, and we didn’t want to risk them getting uncomfortable. Obviously we have the privilege of doing that, but not everyone does.
Again, it’s not about being poor, it’s about antisocial behavior that destroys the public spaces. That goes for rich assholes too.
In Chicago the whole system was designed for you to pay before you get on. There’s a turnstile to get into the station, and you can only get on the front of the bus and tap before you enter. So fares are actually a large percentage of the budget (I looked it up, it’s about 35% pre-pandemic, post pandemic the numbers got all weird). I have no idea why the system is designed in SF where you can essentially “jump” on for free and never pay.
Speed, space, and cost usually. With busses it is way faster to board if you can just open all the doors at a busy stop and everyone paid on the platform or online. They just get on and sit down and go. The busses in Chicago let you pay by credit card (tap) to get on, which is not particularly common in the US, which helps with this.
It’s also much more expensive and challenging to build a system separated by fare and non fare zone. CTA runs a very old system that was designed ages ago so its pretty easy to keep it that way. Many newly built systems are dealing with expensive right of way acquisition and high construction cost. It’s way easier just to slap a few pay stations around and call it a day. Most people pay to ride voluntarily anyway, and those that can’t afford it weren’t going to pay if there was a fence in the way.
Source: enthusiastic about public transit and city politics, feel free to correct me please
They do that regardless of whether there are fares. In my neck of the woods, the suburbanites have fought like hell against installing light rail to connect downtown with the greater metro area because they’re worried about the “crime train”. Who cares if it would improve commuting for the majority of the population?
The Jobs act of 2021 is dumping tons of money into rail services and rail infrastructure at many different levels. And businesses are doing what they can to get a piece of that spending.
Would be great to see some sustained support for this kind of infrastructure. I had the opportunity to go to Tokyo, and one of the things that amazed me the most was the (train-based) public transportation system.
I’m so sick of these lying, perverted assholes. This isn’t “their opinion”, this is stochastic terrorism deliberately meant to put LGBT people in physical danger by associating them with pedophilia. It’s the exact kind of hatred the Nazis fomented against Jewish people. They know it’s not true, lying is a means to an end.
These people are genuine extremists who have to be stopped. It infuriates me that so many people still try to play the “both sides” bullshit. Democrats aren’t openly talking about eliminating entire groups of people, like Mark Rubio did.
I’m so fucking tired of this culture war bullshit. This is what my tax dollars are getting wasted on? No. I don’t approve of that. There should be a way for me to say “If you’re gonna keep wasting my money with this farce, I’m out. No more money for you.”
For God’s sake. This is just getting exhausting and depressing. Worry about the fucking economy, not rainbow t-shirts, you embarrassment to the human species
I wonder why the WP bothered to call it “New England floods” when the article only talks about one state in New England. New York is not part of New England, but half the article focuses on that state.
That’s very much a regional view. Out west, no one bats an eye if you end New England at the Mason-Dixon line.
This sort of thing happens all the time. An Arizonan will never place Texas in the Southwest, but Virginians in my experience are a coin toss on South or Southwest. And then here we just split the difference and do SXSW.
I live in Tacoma, Washington, and we also just put into effect that no one under 18 needs to pay for public transit. It’s entirely free with a special Orca card. It seems like the whole state is on the path to making it free for everyone some day.
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