Nah definitely not. If you're that desperate where are you even going on the subway? I've literally seen homeless people pay the fare. The only time I'd consider it justifiable is if you're in a rush, the train is right their, and your payment isn't working. Otherwise like what, where you gonna go and what you gonna do if you can't even afford $2.75?
If it was free, conservatives would put more effort into killing it off like they did in the 60s and 70s when they killed off trains and subways in a bunch of cities, killed off the trolley systems in several cities, etc. Otherwise their donors would lose too much money on people switching from driving. But yeah, it's almost entirely funded by taxes anyway. Would be logical to make it 100% funded, but keeping a small fare keeps it a smaller target of conservatives.
Yes bad actors are always a problem. So I guess we should never do anything substantial to reform the system because rightwing shitheads will try to sabotage it.
Local mass transit should be free. It is already really heavily subsidized, often almost entirely subsidized, so it wouldn’t cost as much as you think.
I'm curious how much of the budget is covered by fares. I think here in Europe it tends to be roughly 50%. But the trains are much better than NYC and the fares are cheaper.
Yes it is. Luckily we have a system of taxation. By ‘free’ I mean of course ‘at the point of use’.
We could provide 100% subsidies for mass transportation for probably around 100 years before we would approach equity with the subsidies we have given to fossil fuels and private transportation.
Lmfao, I'm pretty sure the idea is that it will return them more money than it costs. You just want free subway rides or something? It's fucking $2.75 to go ANYWHERE.
I hope that's cause you moved out of NYC 15 uears ago. Otherwise fuck you, this is why we can't have nice things. Why do some people only accept paying for things if we force it out of their paycheck instead of just when they use it?