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There is a downside of making buses free, similar to the experience of cities which stopped enforcing "turnstile hopping" for trains, which is that it attracts a small number of hostile and malicious riders. An advantage of treating transit as a public good means this downside becomes an empirical question, not a moral one: Which approach leads to more ridership? In some cases, enforcing fares leads to more ridership by increasing safety and decreasing the amount of time spent cleaning up befouled surfaces.

by miltonlost5 hours ago|

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Sorry, I don't believe you that what would stop those "hostile and malicious riders" is the $2 fare to hop on.

by michaelmrose7 hours ago|

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Let's use Seattle as an example. We tap orca cards to pay to get on and recently debit cards. This doesn't in fact keep the crazy people from getting on without paying at all. Only cops/security actually prevent this and most of the time we do a whole lot of nothing.

We could offer free ridership but still use orca cards and ban people who misbehave or befoul the place. Whether we keep problem children off appears to be wholly orthogonal.

by johannes12343217 hours ago|

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That's the argument Mamdani makes to argue to make busses free. Taking the payment away would produce a lot more of reliability.

Over here in my European town this isn't an issue as we have a "trust based system" where tickets are only checked infrequently by spot inspections on the running bus and most people have a monthly pass. So it's just hop on and off.

by rsynnott5 hours ago|

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One compromise is to tap inside; some systems do this.

by bluGill7 hours ago|

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There are a lot of other ways to speed up payment. they are better as well imho

by mmooss7 hours ago|

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That is an accepted issue among bus planners. One solution, I think used at least in part of NYC is to pay at the bus stop, before you board. Related is enforcing boarding and paying in front and leaving via the back door, so the leavers don't delay the boarders.

by estebank5 hours ago|

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> enforcing boarding and paying in front and leaving via the back door, so the leavers don't delay the boarders.

In my experience, being able to pay at any of the doors increases throughput because people are not bunched up in a single door, neither to get on or off, Parallelizing (and load balancing!) the movement of people. Not having to tap to pay (either because it is free, because monthly passes don't require it or because you can pre-pay at a machine or online) would have some additional time gains at rush hour on popular lines.