That’s because it’s infrastructure. It’s very expensive, and needs to be publicly funded to be good - otherwise you have a death spiral of raising prices, neglecting maintenance, and losing passengers because it’s expensive and terrible
You can easily make it all back from taxes though… Good public transportation means anyone in a city can work, shop, or patronize anywhere, it makes the economy go brr
The best ones don’t bother, because collecting fares is expensive and slows everything down
You can have self funded infrastructure, it can work, but it just seems like a bad solution. It’s a weakness. All it takes is one leader throwing a wrench in the process, and the whole thing unbalances and you get a death spiral
But if it’s free? Even if maintenance is neglected for a time, there’s no feedback loop
The best ones don’t bother, because collecting fares is expensive and slows everything down
That’s simply untrue. the best public transit system on earth collects fees, and no, it doesn’t slow things down any significant level because it’s just tapping as you walk by
It’s a schedule that includes buses… You’re going to have the odd person who either isn’t ready, doesn’t have enough on their account, or doesn’t understand the system, and each one knocks the schedule off by 20-40 seconds. You’ve also got lines at the machines, you’ve got overhead to track all this… None of that is free, especially not the man hours
I’ve used really really great paid public transport… It just does not compare to when it’s also free. More people use it, people act less entitled, it’s just a better experience
That’s because it’s infrastructure. It’s very expensive, and needs to be publicly funded to be good - otherwise you have a death spiral of raising prices, neglecting maintenance, and losing passengers because it’s expensive and terrible
You can easily make it all back from taxes though… Good public transportation means anyone in a city can work, shop, or patronize anywhere, it makes the economy go brr
The best public transit systems can even make back their money just from low fairs alone due to shear ridership
The best ones don’t bother, because collecting fares is expensive and slows everything down
You can have self funded infrastructure, it can work, but it just seems like a bad solution. It’s a weakness. All it takes is one leader throwing a wrench in the process, and the whole thing unbalances and you get a death spiral
But if it’s free? Even if maintenance is neglected for a time, there’s no feedback loop
That’s simply untrue. the best public transit system on earth collects fees, and no, it doesn’t slow things down any significant level because it’s just tapping as you walk by
It’s a schedule that includes buses… You’re going to have the odd person who either isn’t ready, doesn’t have enough on their account, or doesn’t understand the system, and each one knocks the schedule off by 20-40 seconds. You’ve also got lines at the machines, you’ve got overhead to track all this… None of that is free, especially not the man hours
I’ve used really really great paid public transport… It just does not compare to when it’s also free. More people use it, people act less entitled, it’s just a better experience