Should Transit In Los Angeles Be Free?
One of Los Angeles' transportation commissioners advocates eliminating bus and train fares to help the urban poor and encourage ridership.
"Eliminating transit fares is the logical flip side to the anti-congestion pricing schemes so favored by economists. London, for instance, charges a daily fee equal to about $15.60 to drive in the traffic-chocked central city between 7 a.m. and 6 p.m. weekdays. Just as such fees on cars supposedly discourage driving, eliminating fares could encourage public transit use."
D. Malcolm Carson, an attorney and urban planner in private practice who serves on the city's Board of Transportation, points out that ridership on the regional transit system surged when fares were lowered in the early 1980s.
"Axing fares would lift a drag on the whole transit system. People could quickly get on or off buses at the front and back. Bus drivers could focus on being helpful, as opposed to being fare cops. New riders could give it a try without worrying about having "exact change." The ease and accessibility of a free system might even instill a feeling of "fun" to riding transit — not an insignificant factor in a city where people famously love to drive."
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Of course!!
After the billions spent on "free"ways, cars, gas, asthma and cancer treatment, spoiled streetlife and wasted time in traffic, it is a no-brainer that we should have free public transit.
Examples of free public transit in the U.S.:
* Emery-go-round in Emeryville, CA
http://www.emerygoround.com/
* Portland downtown free transit
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fareless_Square
Anyone know of more?
Cheers,
Ken
ps: shameless plug, see SustainLane Government for more transit and land use best practices:
http://sustainlane.us/
Revolutionary
This seems like a pretty novel idea to me -- has it been suggested or practiced elsewhere? Could be a model for all cities.
My only concern is that for mass transit to really work, the network needs to be comprehesive, not just affordable. Los Angeles does not yet have a comprehensive transit network -- there are many, many gaps to fill with rail.
It would be interesting to see a cost comparison between road building/maintenance and rail/transit.
why not? Roads are!
Why not have it be free to users? Roads are!
Roads aren't free
Roads aren't free. We pay taxes for them. In fact, people who don't even own cars pay road taxes so others can drive on them.
Simply put, roads and cars are public transportation.
And yes, mass transit should be free everywhere.
Roads Are Free
Roads (and parking) are free. Because people do not take into account the full cost of driving, they drive too much.
If transit and roads were free, people would travel too much on all modes. Because they do not take into account the cost of transportation:
- they would live long distances from work, even if the total cost of housing plus transit commute were greater than the cost of housing within walking distance of work.
- they would use regional shopping rather than local shopping, even if it costs $10 for the transportation that saves $5 on the cost of the product.
They would make wasteful choices because they don't pay directly for transportation, and they would have to pay taxes to subsidize this waste.
Yes, if people traveled too much on all modes, that would be better than traveling too much by car and avoiding transit.
But the ideal is to internalize all the costs of transportation, including roads, parking, environmental costs of the automobile, and the full cost of transit.
Then people would choose the the most economical forms of transportation - and they would be likely to live close to work, shop locally, and walk or bicycle to their nearby destinations (which is so easy, so economical and so sensible that it is not subsidized at all).
Charles Siegel
clarification
I totally agree with you. Which is a point I was attempting to make through a quickie sarcastic comment. Resulting in a sar-chasm. :-)