Iowa City made its buses free. Traffic cleared, and so did the air

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/11/18/climate/iowa-city-free-buses.html

by bookofjoe • 8 months ago

505 564 8 months ago

nytimes.com

https://archive.ph/lEmzI

RicoElectrico• 8 months ago

I am impressed there was no report of conservative backlash.

3eb7988a1663• 8 months ago

That is a particularly fine line to walk for the modern conservative. Government should not be picking winners, except for the very targeted tariffs that just happen to benefit company X or Y.

blitzar• 8 months ago

Government should not be picking winners ... the company with the biggest bribe wins.

trollbridge6• 8 months ago

I would note that based on my experience in Africa, there were a lot of private buses being operated, ridership was high, and the buses were cheap.

In America we have very few private intra-city buses, ridership is low, and the buses are very expensive when you consider how much goes to them in the way of subsidies.

exasperaited• 8 months ago

Shouldn't be picking winners -- unless you can bully them for a cut of the business, of course.

PopePompus• 8 months ago

Iowa City is the bluest of Iowa cities. It's a university town.

jerlam2• 8 months ago

That tracks, it's a situation where most people are going to the same place so public transit has a huge advantage.

I am surprised that the bus wasn't already free; in my college town and the one near it (both had their own bus line), fares are free for all undergraduates.

themafia• 8 months ago

I'm conservative. I think buses should be free. Then they'll actually get used and all the secondary benefits they were supposed to bring will be much more easily realized.

You need public transport in major cities. Not everyone can or should drive.

You need private transportation almost everywhere. Not everyone should be forced to ride public transport just because it exists.

As long as people have an actual choice that's not manipulated in some way then I think the system is fine. It has a public function and it provides immediate and secondary benefits.

b3ing• 8 months ago

I guess once the car companies find out about this, they’ll start lobbying the local government and put an end to this

boothby• 8 months ago

That's how we lost public transit the first time. Here's hoping local government knows their history.

bediger4000• 8 months ago

United States vs National City Lines, Inc. 1947.

Is it cheaper to lobby or to create an incompetent monopoly to ruin things?

id00• 8 months ago

In Brisbane, Australia they run a 6-month trial to make all public transport trips to be 50c (that includes buses, metro, ferries). It was so successful and widely loved that it was a no-brainier for it to be extended indefinitely

II2II2• 8 months ago

The real benefits come from eliminating fares.

While I have never lived in a place with free transit, I have lived in places where it was possible to board trains without passing through fare gates and certain busses through the rear exit. It is amazing how much faster boarding is. They probably face some lost fares, but the benefit of faster travel times outweigh the cost.

I also think that those criticizing free fares are disingenuous. None of those cities had problems with (insert stereotypical undesirable group) using public transit. If anything, there were fewer issues because everyone was more inclined to behave since there were more eyes on the trains and busses.

EDIT: it's also worth noting that collecting money costs money. That's especially noticeable when upgrading to (or to new) electronic fare systems, but it's also true when using things like tickets and cash. It probably doesn't mean such in the cities I've lived in ($3+ fares), but I'll bet it accounts for a lot more in cities that charge $0.50 or $1 fares.

wat100009• 8 months ago

In most systems, fares just about cover the cost of collecting fares. They contribute little if anything to operating expenses. Their effect is to limit usage. That could be desirable, but usually not.

mixmastamyk3• 8 months ago

I’ve lived in civilized places, but uncivilized is probably more common: https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2023-03-14/horror-t...

Aurornis4• 8 months ago

I also think that those criticizing free fares are disingenuous. None of those cities had problems with (insert stereotypical undesirable group) using public transit.

I’ve lived in two cities with free fare zones: Subsections of public transport where no fares are collected, but if you want to go outside of the zone you need to buy a ticket.

The free fare zones were far more likely to have people causing problems. It’s not just “undesirable groups”. It’s people stealing your stuff if you aren’t paying attention, stalking women, creating messes, or just harassing people who want to be left alone.

Then you’d leave the free fare zone and see almost none of that. It was night and day different. This was within the same city, same mode of transport. The only difference was that one vehicle had someone maybe checking your fare 1/10 times and writing a ticket if you didn’t have it, while the other you were guaranteed not to encounter anyone checking tickets and could ride as long as you wanted.

I don’t think it’s fair to dismiss anyone concerned about this. Unless you have sufficient enforcement to go along with it and the enforcers are empowered to deal with people who are causing problems, having free fares can be a real problem.

It was nice to not have to deal with ticket purchases when going to a sporting event or meeting up with friends at a bar, but this was mostly before apps came along anyway. I don’t go out as much now that I’m older but using the apps to buy tickets is trivially easy. Even the tickets by stations will accept tap to pay from phones making it much more convenient than my younger days.

dwd2• 8 months ago

When you have the electronic ticketing system already in place like Brisbane it makes sense to use it to monitor usage, so you can precisely see each journey, and better plan scheduling and expansion. For example, you would be able to see how many people pass through the two CBD stations crossing the North/South divide in the network. The new Cross River Rail expansion for example will be the first line that doesn't pass through Central.

protocolture2• 8 months ago

The real benefits come from eliminating fares.

IIRC the 50 cent fares allow them to still charge ridiculous fines for fare evasion, keeping the Queensland Rail rentacops in business.

Most non metro stations only have tap on pillars and no fare gates anyway, and I think the inner city fare gates that still exist are on the list for removal.

The 50 cents also allowed them to track the changing usage profile and justify it by the explosion of use. Its basically self reporting that you used the system, and the origin and destination of your trip. Otherwise they would need to install foot traffic counters at train and bus stations and still end up with incomplete data.

It wasnt just super popular, it was that the data showed such a dramatic uptick in usage, which carried over to numbers of cars removed from the roads etc.

Probably took 5 minutes out of my normal commute, and that's in reduced vehicle traffic, I don't use the system at all except to take my kiddo to the museum on weekends. Benefits tracked to all punters results in an absolutely untouchable policy change.

mdnahas• 8 months ago

None of those cities had problems with (insert stereotypical undesirable group) using public transit.

Austin. Tried it and rolled it back.

It was before my time here but I’ve heard: Homeless camped on the buses. Bored teens hung out on the buses riding nowhere and making trouble. Bus drivers demanded the change back.

I’m an economist and YIMBY activist. Only 10% to 15% of the Austin bus system budget comes from fares. (Most is a 1% sales tax.) I’d love to make the buses free. But it has negatives.

dwd2• 8 months ago

I think the cost saving will be realised by not having to expand the road network as quickly if they convince people to use public transport. The cost of land acquisition/resumption along with the improbability of widening some central bottlenecks like Coronation Drive, the SE Arterial and the hell-hole that is Hale Street.

Personally, the $1 commute from the Sunshine Coast has been very good. I occasionally drive in but the Bruce Hwy has been a constant process of widening each section as they barely keep up with the traffic increases.

I think what you will see is a lot more people moving out to residential areas north of Brisbane seeking cheaper housing as they can take advantage of the almost free travel. Especially if they eventually build the Rail/Light Rail through South Caloundra to Maroochydore.

JKCalhoun3• 8 months ago

Kansas City added a single light rail line through downtown and made it, initially, free.

It has been so wildly popular, bringing happy Kansas Citians to the restaurants and clubs downtown that the business owners begged KC to keep it free.

Still free and I believe they are extending it.

I would love to see K.C. bring back some of the jazz nightlife that once charged downtown. (Though it might have been the availability of liquor there during Prohibition too.)

Mistletoe• 8 months ago

All I see in this thread are people saying it won't work and then people giving examples of it actually working quite well. The scientific method is telling us something here...

coffeecantcode2• 8 months ago

Between Green Lady Lounge, the Black Dolphin, the Phoenix, and a couple of cool spots on 18th and Vine, Kansas City’s jazz nightlife is becoming increasingly popular again among younger crowds. KC also just finished extending their street car system down past the Plaza to UMKC’s campus as well, mostly in preparation for hosting the World Cup.

I moved from Iowa City to Kansas City after college so I have been spoiled with public transit.

touwer• 8 months ago

Paris, Amsterdam, Kopenhagen, Utrecht did it with bikes https://www.ethicalmarkets.com/paris-air-pollution-is-down-5...

mlok• 8 months ago

I just love cycling in Paris (apart from winter...) the experience is amazing, and the city is beautiful. It's a joy to experience the city this way.

Both bicycles & free transports would be even better !

Animats• 8 months ago

Do they clear out each bus at some end point of the route, so homeless people can't live on the bus?

smelendez2• 8 months ago

Having a fare wouldn’t affect this much. It’s not too hard to get someone to spot you a couple of bucks at a bus stop.

Honestly it’s not that big a deal if someone sleeps on the bus. Homeless, drunk, tired from work, whatever.

jerlam2• 8 months ago

Bus drivers don't seem too excited to enforce the fare either. They're not exactly law enforcement; it might be dangerous and it would delay everyone else on the bus.

mixmastamyk3• 8 months ago

Everyone, but especially the working poor deserve a civilized way to get to work. Without screaming, smelly, sleeping, druggies taking up the seats. Or worse.

If you’re appalled by the idea, you may not be aware: https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2023-03-14/horror-t...

LAMetro recently woke up and started cleaning this up. Not sure how long it will take before ridership fully returns.

pixl97• 8 months ago

When I was younger and lived near Iowa City homelessness was nearly unseen. Not sure what it's like these days.

nozzlegear2• 8 months ago

I don't live in Iowa City but do live in Iowa; the (visible) homelessness population is still nearly zero. I have to imagine that anyone who finds themselves homeless for long enough will eventually find a way to move indoors (couch surfing, shelters) and become less visible or, if possible, leave the state entirely for warmer climes. Winters just aren't survivable here for the "traditional" homelessness we think of when we envision camps of people in California metros.

wahern• 8 months ago

Iowa City is in Johnson County. A 2024 point-in-time count of the chronic homeless population--the highly visible population noticeably encountered in public spaces--in Johnson and Washington Counties combined is less than 200 people. See https://opportunityiowa.gov/media/5390/download?inline#page=... There are also only 13 bus routes, and it's a college town with a significant percentage of price-sensitive student ridership (i.e. highly elastic demand) that either wouldn't qualify or wouldn't bother applying for fare subsidies or passes (common in major metro regions). The context is incomparable to major coastal cities.

We know free transit works in many cases. There are plenty of examples. But it's rare to compare and contrast the contexts. (But, see, e.g., this 2012 National Academy of Sciences report: https://cvtdbus.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/2012-07-TCRP-...) It's far easier to promote free transit than it is to address underlying issues, like regulatory barriers to housing production and infrastructure projects, that limit organic improvements to social welfare and which are likely to cause free transit to fail long-term in large, diverse metro areas.

Zigurd• 8 months ago

Last time I visited New York I was lucky to have a companion who knew all the ways to get around including the free bus lines. The people using these buses were no different from those using buses and other public transportation that charged fares.

Ipso facto, eliminating fare collection eliminates crime. Fare evasion as a crime amounts to make-work for cops. Not all value, and often least of all value in public goods, is derived from charging at the point of use.

deoxykev• 8 months ago

I live there in that city. There are hardly any homeless at all here. Not like other cities at least. I could see it being a major problem in other places.

trollbridge6• 8 months ago

It does seem that it should be possible to offer "free buses" without having to also offer "free hotels inside of the free buses". As an example, I can go to a local store and experience free parking or go to my nearby town and park for free downtown. I can't, however, park and sleep overnight in my car in that shopping centre or in that town.

Why can't buses be regulated the same way?

righthand3• 8 months ago

Homeless people aren’t living in the bus. Cool your stigmas. It’s weird your biggest concern is the people who need the most help. Life must be pretty good for you to attack those in need.

bethekidyouwant• 8 months ago

Be honest, do you take the bus to work ?

komali22• 8 months ago

Whenever I hear about this criticism of free public transit I always wonder why the question isn't "how do we keep homeless people from living on our busses" and is instead "why don't these homeless people have some place to live that isn't a bus?"

cheema332• 8 months ago

I always wonder why the question isn't "how do we keep homeless people from living on our busses"

Similar questions get asked often enough. The problem is that there aren't any easy answers or solutions. Cities have tried different things but none that appear to work for medium to large sized cities.

If you see a city employ a workable solution that can used as a model and be deployed everywhere, that would be awesome.

nobody99993• 8 months ago

Whenever I hear about this criticism of free public transit I always wonder why the question isn't "how do we keep homeless people from living on our busses" and is instead "why don't these homeless people have some place to live that isn't a bus?"

Exactly. and asking the wrong question is nothing new either. there were plenty of folks wondering aloud about how to "get rid of" the homeless people back in the 1980s in NYC (then the homeless population there was ~50,000).

Usually it was some sort of "arrest/detain them all, then reroute them to shelters." The shelters being places where they can be warehoused and victimized over and over again without disturbing the normies or, heaven forfend, the tourists!

Only once did I see the right question being asked. I've searched and searched but have been unable to find the article online. It's an op-ed piece from the Village Voice, circa 1987 by Nat Hentoff or Dan Ridgeway entitled" What Do Homeless People Want?"

Fortunately the question posed in the title is answered in the very first sentence of the body: "Homes, mostly."

Why is it that we're not asking (or acting upon the obvious answers to) the right questions? That's not really rhetorical, although the answers will likely be pretty ugly.

Here in the US we can* do better, and we should do better. This is not a new issue that requires new solutions. Give homeless people, you know, homes.

But that's evil and wrong and absolutely Stalinism that will end up with tens of millions dead, right? Please.

havblue• 8 months ago

This is just an anecdote, but I got the sense from living in North Liberty, near Iowa City, that the police didn't have much to do. That is, I was pulled over for minor things like going 5 over the speed limit and running a yellow light (when I could have conceivably stopped).

So when I see stories like this I compare it to people suggesting we adopt a Scandinavian public school policy, it worked for them why not us, proposal.

wat100009• 8 months ago

Whenever this is discussed where I live, drivers come out of the woodwork to oppose it. And of course they also complain endlessly about traffic. It amuses me to no end.

yegle• 8 months ago

I live in the SF Bay Area. For a family weekend day trip to SF, taking BART costs $50+, and we always elect to just drive.

I wonder how much the traffic would improve in/out of SF if BART is cheaper.

raybb2• 8 months ago

If you have any transfers as part of that to muni or other services you'll be happy to know that they'll be much cheaper/free starting in December.

https://clipper2.hikingbytransit.com/

bombcar3• 8 months ago

So many public transit options just absolutely fall about if you have more than the standard 1.5 kids.

It adds up super fast; even “kids ride free with parent” would go a long way.

ericmay6• 8 months ago

Perhaps, but with more transit options that means fewer people on the road which is good for those who have 2+ children to lug around.

On a side note we should drop the public bit of this because it implies a bus is “publicly funded” but highways aren’t. Both are subsidized by the taxpayer.

outside12342• 8 months ago

We just need to subsidize public transport like we subsidize roads.

rootusrootus2• 8 months ago

Isn't most public transit already subsidized?

zbrozek• 8 months ago

When I had a solar-charged EV, taking transit to SF only made sense if I was going by myself and didn't need to do any transfers. Any additional people or modes and it was always better to drive.

skylurk7• 8 months ago

I've found this to be the case nearly everywhere I've travelled, regardless of the kind of vehicle.

The only exceptions are the places with free public transit and expensive parking, like Luxembourg.

throwaway20373• 8 months ago

This is misleading. How far is your drive from home to your destination in SF? I bet the total cost of ownership per kilometer driven far exceeds the BART fare.

skylurk7• 8 months ago

Like many households, they probably have a car already for other reasons.

To me this is big reason why transit has to be basically free to attract riders. It has to compete with marginal cost per kilometer of private car use, not total cost.

matt-p5• 8 months ago

All public transport should be like $1. You need to charge something to keep the crackheads out, but it should not be enough that people think 'oh I better walk/cycle/drive instead to save money'

tehjoker• 8 months ago

why not go in the other direction and get them housing and healthcare so they can be treated like people and will also not disrupt your ride

people from outside the US often think it’s a land of fabulously rich ppl and are aghast at how we treat our citizens

matt-p5• 8 months ago

I'm pro paying for them to get whatever housing and healthcare they need via taxes, just like everyone else. It's not like it's that simple though. Giving someone a house and a doctor will not get them off heroin on its own and may not even help them very much at all honestly.

chairmansteve2• 8 months ago

Easier to charge a dollar. Solve the simple problem first.

Then tackle the more complex.

ggfdh• 8 months ago

people from outside the US often think it’s a land of fabulously rich ppl and are aghast at how we treat our citizens

We can have concern for residents who feel justifiably unsafe and uncomfortable on public transit as well as homeless riders.

whatsupdog2• 8 months ago

Do you really think people are homeless because of lack of housing? Have you seen what becomes of a house when homeless people are moved into one? A huge percentage of homeless are homeless by choice.

jfengel• 8 months ago

Or maybe you could take serious steps for the homeless as well.

matt-p5• 8 months ago

That would be amazing and is worth serious effort and resources. However I wonder if you could find one country that's managed to do this successfully (eradication not reduction)? It's often not really about housing and healthcare, it's about addiction, mental health, childhood trauma..

nothrabannosir• 8 months ago

In public transport? Or are you changing the subject?

rogerrogerr2• 8 months ago

What would happen if you had to tap a card/phone to get in to the subway system (and this was enforced, no jumping turnstiles), and then have to tap it to get out too.

Then if someone is habitually in the system for a significantly longer time than it reasonably takes to travel from point A to B, deactivate their access.

o11c3• 8 months ago

Edge case: what if your phone does while in transit, and you can't charge it?

mixmastamyk3• 8 months ago

Tap to enter/exit is already a thing. Rarely enforced here, however. Emergency exits and all that.

filoleg• 8 months ago

What would happen if you had to tap a card/phone to get in to the subway system (and this was enforced, no jumping turnstiles), and then have to tap it to get out too.

Not sure about the "measure how long the subway rider has been in the subway system for a continuous period of time" feature, but otherwise that's how subway in Japan works. You gotta tap on your way in and out of the current system you are riding on (as there are multiple competing subway system companies running together even within a given city, often enough with their stops being near each other).

Their reason for doing so is a bit different though. In NYC, your ride is a flat fee, as long as you don't exit subway, no matter where you are going. In Japan, your ride cost is determined by your actual route, as some parts of it have different rates. They actually need to know where you exited in order to calculate the final cost of your ride.

Hnrobert423• 8 months ago

DC is tap in tap out. But you can buy a single trip ticket. It would be sort of dystopian if we had to give up anonymous public transit access to prevent homeless folks from staying warm.

beAbU2• 8 months ago

This is how it works on the Gautrain in Pretoria/Johannesburg in South Africa.

You scan when you enter the system, and you scan when you exit. Your fare is calculated based on where you enter and exit. If you stay in the system longer than some define period of time, you are automatically charged the maximum fare, regardless of where you got on and off.

You can either scan with a dedicated train fare card, your debit/credit card and also NFC mobile payment.

The buses linked to the train service and the parking uses the same payment system, so you get automatic discounted bus fares and parking fees if you actually use the train as well, but you can park and use the bus without taking the train.

It works quite well.

o11c3• 8 months ago

From experience, $1 is not enough to keep out the people who spend the whole trip talking about where they want to go to jail for the winter.

And $1 is already expensive enough that if the destination is within 5-10 miles, driving is cheaper if you already have a car and parking, so you are keeping that class of people out.

Though really I find the main reason people don't take the bus is that there aren't enough buses (in time or space) for where/when people really want to go. This is an `m×n` problem.

PlunderBunny• 8 months ago

How are you calculating driving any distance as being cheaper than $1? Surely if you factor in wear-and-tear on the car, you couldn't even get out of the driveway without eating that $1.

plorkyeran• 8 months ago

Driving 5 miles costs a lot more than $1.

tim3332• 8 months ago

In Portland they make the busses free in the central area but charge a bit outside that, partly to stop homeless sleeping in the busses.

geophph2• 8 months ago

This went away years ago

drob518• 8 months ago

Why do we want to prevent people from walking?

jaredklewis4• 8 months ago

This would happen naturally except that most US cities have made it illegal to build anything without gobs of parking attached, so car drivers like myself get a government handout.

In Tokyo, parking is managed by the market, so it’s incredibly expensive. So it’s always cheaper to take public transit without artificially low public transit prices.

toast02• 8 months ago

Downtown any big city is accessible by car, but parking fees keep most people away. At least, I won't willingly drive to destinations inside downtown of a big city, unless it's something special that can't be managed otherwise.

josephcsible6• 8 months ago

most US cities have made it illegal to build anything without gobs of parking attached

No they haven't. Places with "gobs of parking" are suburban Walmarts. Pretty much every city is super short on parking.

FloorEgg• 8 months ago

Iowa city is a gem of a college town. Beautiful, vibrant and really nice people.

Maybe this program wouldn't work everywhere. Makes sense it would work there.

cheema332• 8 months ago

Corvallis, Oregon is another college town where buses are free within the city and also to some other cities including Eugene and McMinnville.

geophph2• 8 months ago

Fares end up being a trade off between service area and ridership. Eliminating fares tends to mean cuts to service for the same budget, so your service area would drop. Alternatively, having fares will allow for some more service, to cover more area but some people might not ride. Becomes dependent then on the goals of the transit system.

mtoner23• 8 months ago

Iowa city doesn't even run buses on the weekends/holidays. I really don't think this should be a model for real urban centers

righthand3• 8 months ago

Good thing there are plenty of other cities with free bus lines and no one saying “no we have to do everything exactly like Iowa City”!

SapporoChris• 8 months ago

https://www.icgov.org/government/departments-and-divisions/t...

Most of the routes run Monday thru Saturday. Schedules are something that are easily changed to support demand.

deadbolt• 8 months ago

So there is nothing to learn her at all?

panick21_10• 8 months ago

If you want to look at successful systems, would you look at Paris, London, Berlin, Tokio, Münich, Zürich .... or Iowa City?

yesfitz• 8 months ago

Models are typically smaller scale/scope... So a "real urban center" could probably easily provide service that smaller cities can't.

As to why Iowa City doesn't run on Sundays and Federal Holidays:

The University is about half the population of the city. The University runs a separate "Cambus" system[1] (that the community can also use) and after-hours routes for students[2].

We're also still in relatively early days of finding out how Iowa City residents use public transit when there's no barrier. For instance, they stopped running the downtown shuttle and reduced the number of stops downtown[3] because downtown is relatively dense, walkable, and student-heavy (i.e. mostly young, healthy, ambulatory people) and served by the University.

There's also a growing interest in adding service to nearby towns and adding Sunday service, even if it's in a limited capacity.

1: https://transportation.uiowa.edu/cambus/cambus-service-calen... 2: https://safety.uiowa.edu/nite-ride 3: https://www.icgov.org/Home/Components/News/News/2165/390

mlmonkey2• 8 months ago

San Francisco's Muni (light rail + bus) system has a budget of about $1.2B and its ticket revenues are about $200M. That means, 5/6th of the budget is subsidized by the taxpayers of SF. There is no reason why Muni can't be free. Surely a city with a budget of $15B can find $200M (about 1.5% of budget) to make up for the shortfall?

It would directly help the taxpayers of the City. But obviously nobody wants that (sarcasm)!

Example: the City has been trying to get rid of the RVs parked illegally on the streets, dumping their effluents and engine oil all over the City streets. To get these RVs off the streets, the City is spending $36M+ (and counting). So money can be found for the homeless, the RV dwelllers, etc. but not for the city's lawful residents and taxpayers.

Spooky237• 8 months ago

Without nominal costs, buses turn into mobile benches for unhoused people and druggies. It’s the same story as what happens with libraries.

crazygringo8• 8 months ago

They're already mobile benches for unhoused people and druggies. They just get on anyways already and don't pay the fare. And the driver does nothing because they don't want to get in a fight. (Unless a passenger threatens others, then they get the police involved.)

Making the buses free isn't going to produce any more of it.

mlmonkey2• 8 months ago

You think it's presence of a fare that prevents homeless people from getting on a bus?? Even the light rail has ways to get on without paying, and the homeless know them.

darth_avocado• 8 months ago

You clearly haven’t used MUNI. Homeless are already riding the buses without paying, and I’ve rarely seen them camp in them. Most bus drivers know these people on a first name basis and very few of them are actually do anything beyond going from place to place.

And if you’re from San Francisco and use MUNI, you’ll also know that half the people don’t pay anyway. There’s no reason to make people pay.

Hnrobert423• 8 months ago

I take the bus a lot in DC. People get on without paying all the time. If someone just wants to sit on the bus, the fee is not what's stopping them.

m4632• 8 months ago

What if busses are a solution for the carless people. (un-carred?)

mmooss12• 8 months ago

More fear mongering about the 'other'. Not immigrants or religous groups or racial groups this time, but unhoused and addicted people.

The dangerous people are the ones spreading fear - that leads to horrible things. I've had no problem with unhoused people who I am around almost every day. Why would I?

All the fear mongering is wrong. You have nothing to fear but fear itself.

rahimnathwani• 8 months ago

Sadly, there's very little enforcement of fares on SF buses.

cycomanic• 8 months ago

Here is an idea: Fix your homelessness problem and don't let other policies be guided by the best way to keep homeless people out of sight.

int0x29• 8 months ago

Have you ever ridden Muni? The fares are mostly dodged. This would change next to nothing.

sudosysgen5• 8 months ago

This is completely false - a drug addict will simply get on the bus without paying. The fine for fare evasion won't even change the calculus one iota.

eru28• 8 months ago

That means, 5/6th of the budget is subsidized by the taxpayers of SF. There is no reason why Muni can't be free.

You'd still want to charge for congestion. Ie when a particular bus (or rather bus route) is reliably full at a particular time of the day, gradually raise prices until it's just below capacity.

Basically, you want to transport the maximum number of passengers while making it so that any single person who wants to get on the bus (at prevailing prices) still can.

Instead of a bespoke dynamic system that adjust prices dynamically, you might want to keep it simple and just have a simple peak / off-peak distinction.

_aavaa_2• 8 months ago

Oh, hear me out, add more buses so that those people don’t have to get into a car and create traffic.

manquer• 8 months ago

The net revenue would be lower than $200M. There are substantial costs associated with ticket revenue collection, from the % payment gateways charge, the maintenance and replacement cost the devices and turnstiles hardware, all the software and people who have to manage and enforce the system.

The issue with SF (unlike Iowa city) is that free for all everybody is going to be harder sell to voters when there is large amount of out of city traffic -travelers and greater Bay Area residents who do not pay city taxes.

What is more realistic is extend subsidies to all residents of the city beyond the current programs for youth/seniors/homeless/low income etc.

awillen• 8 months ago

So money can be found for the homeless, the RV dwelllers, etc. but not for the city's lawful residents and taxpayers.

But it's those lawful residents and taxpayers paying for it if you make it free anyway. They're just paying through their taxes rather than through fares. So still all taxpayer money, just non-riding taxpayers subsidizing riding taxpayers. Why is that better?

saghm3• 8 months ago

Example: the City has been trying to get rid of the RVs parked illegally on the streets, dumping their effluents and engine oil all over the City streets. To get these RVs off the streets, the City is spending $36M+ (and counting). So money can be found for the homeless, the RV dwelllers, etc. but not for the city's lawful residents and taxpayers.

I'd have to assume that the ones who are driving the political political pressure for this money to be spent as it is are the so-called "lawful residents and taxpayers"; I'm sure the groups you mention facing extra scrutiny would be happy for that money to go towards the buses instead. It's not hard to imagine that certain issues like RV parking get outsized attention pretty much for the exact same reason that the buses don't.

mvdtnz• 8 months ago

There is no reason why Muni can't be free. Surely a city with a budget of $15B can find $200M (about 1.5% of budget) to make up for the shortfall?

How many other $200M projects should they just "find" budget for? Only the one you like?

Aloisius3• 8 months ago

SF's budget doesn't contain $15B of money it can use for whatever it wants. Most of it isn't discretionary, either because of voter mandates or by federal/state government requirements and has to go to specific programs. A good chunk is actually city businesses (hospitals, airport, utility, port, etc.) which mostly break even.

SF was able to spend money trying to getting rid of RVs because it was living on emergency money from the state and shifting capital expenditure priorities around (capital expenditures costs are offset mostly by the asset you're buying, at least in the short term).

That emergency money is gone now, so now we're living in an era of budget cuts, though given SF's history, I full expect it to spend money recklessly and hope revenue turns around, but even they aren't so far gone to add $300M in operating expenditures to make MUNI free with no plan for a source of revenue to make up the difference.

scoofy• 8 months ago

SF Muni is literally so deep in a financial hole, service may be cut in half next summer if they don't pass a sizable spending measure (the last two both failed). SFMTA faces a deficit of about $320 million starting next year... and that will grow. The system has already been bailed out by the state. We now going to get a $750 million loan is just to keep the system functioning until the measure has a chance to pass.

This platitude of "Muni should be free" has no bearing on reality when the system is literally collapsing as we speak.

https://www.sfmta.com/project-updates/sfmtas-financial-crisi...

https://sfstandard.com/2025/09/10/routes-eliminated-trains-o...

https://www.sfexaminer.com/news/politics/bay-area-transit-ba...

tylervigen• 8 months ago

The MVTA in Minnesota operates with 90% subsidies, so only 10% of revenue is from fares.

It feels like there could be some societal benefit to similarly reducing the number of busses and just making them free. (Today most busses are only at 10-30% capacity). This seems to support that idea.

afuchs• 8 months ago

... It feels like there could be some societal benefit to similarly reducing the number of busses and just making them free. (Today most busses are only at 10-30% capacity). ...

Public transit systems need to consider a lot of trade offs when they plan how to use the resources they have.

Optimizing for cost like this can make the busses less practical to use and less attractive to potential riders.

If a bus stop is only visited by a bus once an hour, then the average amount of time someone needs to wait for a bus to visit that bus stop is 30 minutes (assuming a uniform distribution for when that person arrives at the bus stop). If the bus stop is visited by a bus every 20 minutes, then that person would only need to wait at that bus stop for an average of 10 minutes.

The average time of a trip on this bus will be roughly equal to: the time to walk to the bus stop + the time spent waiting for the bus + the time the bus takes to reach the closest stop to the destination + the time to walk to the destination.

From that, reducing the number of busses that visit that bus stop increases the average amount of time for trips which originate from that bus stop.

A factor which impacts usage of public transit system is how quickly it can get someone to some arbitrary destination.

So, cutting the amount of busses a public transit system runs can reduce costs but also reduces how attractive that public transit system is to potential riders because of the increase in the amount of time an average trip takes.

That increases the use of other forms of transportation, assuming that people don't forgo trips entirely (e.g., staying home instead of going to a bar and getting a DUI, or eating at a hotel's restaurant to avoid spending $60-80 on taxis or Uber for a single meal).

wenc• 8 months ago

This is one of those NYTimes "solutions journalism" pieces meant to celebrate the program rather than truly analyze it.

You can pick free, or scalable, or financially sustainable (and without sustainability, a political shift will kill it), but you cannot have all three at once. The minute you push on one, second-order effects pop up somewhere else.

It is a classic wicked problem: solving it literally changes the problem.

Big-city transit has an equilibrium point, and it is incredibly stable. Every serious transit city in the world ends up in the same place: charge fares, subsidize low-income riders, and fund the basic system with taxes.

That equilibrium is stable for a reason. Every major city that tries free transit at scale will eventually snap back to it, because it is the only configuration that does not implode under feedback loops. It keeps demand reasonable, service reliable, and the politics tolerable.

eru28• 8 months ago

I mostly agree.

You can pick free, or scalable, or financially sustainable (and without sustainability, a political shift will kill it), but you cannot have all three at once.

Real polities are of finite size, so you don't need (infinitely) scalable.

Here in Singapore we could sustainably afford to make public transport free, if we wanted to.

However I agree with you that charging for public transport is the right thing to do. (And to charge users of government provided services in general for everything, and to give poor people money.) If nothing else, you at least want to charge for congestion at peak hours, so that there's always an epsilon of capacity left even at rush hour, so any single person who wants to board the train at prevailing prices can do so.

fragmede4• 8 months ago

charging for public transport is the right thing to do

It's a simple matter of supply and demand so even if the transit system operates on tokens but those tokens are given away for free, my weird brain would still want to the system to exist to track how the system is being used.

littlecosmic2• 8 months ago

In Singapore there is no MRT congestion prices only for private cars, right? Trains get crowded but still workable. It’s not clear if people would start working 6am to 3pm or something if you did. Overall I think charging money made more sense when there were more private, profit seeking companies involved as it’s the name of the game… buts it’s cheap enough that it’s hard for someone with an ok job the get bothered about it

lazylizard• 8 months ago

on the other hand. gdp is ~200 days of work. 1 day is 0.5% gdp. 1 hour (assuming 8hr day) is 0.06% gdp. gdp/capita is nearly us$90k. 1hr of work is >us$5k!

it might be more cost effective to expand public transport to transport every singaporean to where he/she needs to be on time, than to make them wait..

blks2• 8 months ago

Charging more for publicity transit during peak hours won’t make people use it less, there’s a reason why so many people commute during peak hours

anubistheta• 8 months ago

It didn't work out well when the NYC MTA tried fare free rides. https://www.mta.info/document/147096 Dwell time and customer journey time decreased. The bus speeds were lower on the fare free routes.

If public transport provides value to people, they should pay for some of it. 30 day unlimited ride pass in only $132.

wat100009• 8 months ago

We rarely apply this principle to roads, and I never see anyone clamoring to change that.

trial35• 8 months ago

why highlight bus speeds being 2.2% slower but not that ridership went up 30%? which, to me, feels like an obvious correlation to dwell time.

jeromegv2• 8 months ago

If roads provide value to people, they should pay for some of it. Right?

guptadagger• 8 months ago

I dont' know how you reached the "didn't work out well" conclusion, both metrics you mentioned were commensurate with systemwide metrics, meaning fare-free didn't have much of an impact on these routes. Ultimately, ridership increased

mmooss12• 8 months ago

only $132

If you don't know that's a lot for some people ...

they should pay for some of it

They do. It must be paid for, and all government money comes from the citizens.

Broken_Hippo6• 8 months ago

"Only $132"

That is 16 hours of work if you make $8 an hour. You obviously make more than that if you can say "only $132"

ggherbobooh• 8 months ago

Milwaukee hop

gnarlouse3• 8 months ago

As somebody who grew up in the area, Iowa City has a near-nil homelessness problem.

bluGill9• 8 months ago

I live just down the road in des moines and there is a homeless problem. It is mostly out of sight but it is there.

echelon• 8 months ago

It's 23 deg F in Iowa City in a few days. It's not even winter yet. I think this has everything to do with it.

Meanwhile it's 70 deg F here in Atlanta. California and Florida have even warmer temps.

mmooss12• 8 months ago

What is your point? The assumed demonization of people because they lack homes is a false assumption. I've spent plenty of time around people who apparently lack housing (I don't ask), including on public transit. I don't find they behave better or worse than others, on average.

saghm3• 8 months ago

For what it's worth, the New York Times has spent most of this year actively trying to dissuade people from voting for the mayoral candidate in New York that had free buses as one of the more widely known parts of his platform. I'm not saying there's not an agenda in them publishing this article, but I suspect it has a lot less to do with a predilection for "solutions journalism" as much as trying to backtrack their pretty noticeable opposition to the incoming mayor that ostensibly came from them not being as far leftward as he is.

JumpCrisscross8• 8 months ago

the New York Times has spent most of this year actively trying to dissuade people from voting for the mayoral candidate in New York that had free buses as one of the more widely known parts of his platform

The Times editorial board repeatedly wrote anti-Mamdani opinion pieces. But speaking as a non-NYC New York Times reader I never saw it unless it was sent to me by a New Yorker--it simply wasn't commentary that was highlighted unless you were specifically trying to follow the NYC election. (And to the extent they criticised his candidacy, it wasn't in rejecting free busses.)

mmooss12• 8 months ago

Big-city transit has an equilibrium point, and it is incredibly stable. Every serious transit city in the world ends up in the same place

You're cherry-picking your own examples. It worked in Iowa City.

Y Combinator and much of SV would be out of business if innovators followed that thinking. One reason is that people do come up with new ideas; that's how the world changes. The other is that the world changes, and what didn't work before now works - costs change and value changes, and now it's worthwhile. For example, with congestion pricing and other rapidly increasong costs of NYC car ownership, there's more value in free transit.

Oddly, it's the thinking advocated by many HN posts, denigrating the innovation under discussion as impossible, useless, etc.

without sustainability, a political shift will kill it

That can be said of many things. A political shift could kill military funding in the US.

chii2• 8 months ago

A political shift could kill military funding in the US.

and lose the very thing that keeps the US top dog. You're implying that political shifts could happen to shift _anything_.

That's not true for things of fundamental importance. So is transit of fundamental importance?

saithound5• 8 months ago

You're cherry-picking your own examples. It worked in Iowa City.

Indeed, it worked in Brisbane (a metro area comparable to Baltimore in the U.S.) and Lanzhou (comparable to Boston-Cambridge-Newton): congestion was reduced, the environment benefited, and usage increased in many cities that dislodged from that equilibrium and switched to a free-of-charge or symbolic-charge model.

I don't think GP's claim stands, for transit cities big or small.

littlecosmic2• 8 months ago

Maybe the military should pillage all the places it goes to self-fund?

littlestymaar2• 8 months ago

Oddly, it's the thinking advocated by many HN posts, denigrating the innovation under discussion as impossible, useless, etc.

A significant fraction of HN has been raised with the idea that “natural” innovation can only arise from the private sector competing on a market, and every attempt at public-funded out-of-market innovation is seen as “unnatural” and doomed to fail.

And like all religion, it's pretty hopeless to refute it with rational arguments.

bko2• 8 months ago

I don't get your comparison to VC model. Sure it's temping to sell $10 for $5 and many VCs fund this business for a while. But the difference is there isn't an infinite backstop. It's not really new or innovative to give things away from "free" and fund it through some other means. But that's the problem. There's a disconnect with the service and what it costs.

You should charge roughly what it costs to operate because that's information. People should ask why it costs so much. People should consider alternatives. Trying to remove prices is like fighting climate change by removing thermometers.

kamaal2• 8 months ago

Bangalore(+State of Karnataka) is currently having free transit, but only for women.

Which seems to have drawn anger from Meninist circles.

People who support this say, it gives more mobility to women from poor and lower middle class households, and hence better employment opportunities, increased family incomes and by the effect taxes as well.

People who criticise this say, the expenses for free rides are offloaded to already burdened tax payers, who quite honestly in the Indian system get nothing in return. These forever increasing free perks for sets of people who won't contribute anything back, at the expense of ever increasing burden on people who are expected to pay without expecting anything in return, won't end well.

watwut3• 8 months ago

Why are women considered to be people who "wont contribute anything back"?

But also, why are women specifically traveling for free? What was the original argument?

JumpCrisscross8• 8 months ago

Big-city transit has an equilibrium

Iowa City isn’t a big city. Most American cities aren’t.

I lived in New York. We had paid subways and busses and that didn’t stop them from being abused like park benches—enforcement did. (And to be clear, the minority creating a mess for others were all over the place. Homeless. Hooligans. Mentally ill who got lost.)

I now live in a small Wyoming town. We have free downtown rideshare. (It’s just slower than Uber.)

gabinator• 8 months ago

I visited NYC and San Francisco. It's appalling and unacceptable in this day and age.

My small northern Minnesota town is far from perfect, but we don't let our neighbors and kids become fent zombies on the main drag. That's not a lifestyle that we want to enable or perpetuate. I do not understand the mental hurdles that Berkley-educated 'scholars' jump through to rationalize letting people suffer the most potent and deadly forms of addiction. The penal system is the last net to catch these people before they die from OD or blood-borne pathogenc or the consequences of criminal activity. And the "empathetic" west coast intellectuals say "legalize the drugs". Absolute lunacy

Gud3• 8 months ago

You are making a lot of assertions. Meanwhile, I travel globally for work and my preferred mode of transportation is walking and public transport(ideally tram).

There are BIG DIFFERENCES between how well different cities handle this. There is no "equilibrium", only wise(or unwise) governance.

How do you explain Luxembourg? They've had free public transport for 5 years now.

xdkyx• 8 months ago

Luxembourg is an outlier and more of an edge case, then something that can be dissected and applied to other countries/cities.

AlotOfReading2• 8 months ago

Consider the case of roads as a system of transit. Fuel taxes and licensing costs don't remotely cover the infrastructure costs, and roads predated them by decades. They're obviously scalable. They're not remotely sustainable financially (and effectively free to access) yet they remain stubbornly resilient even in the face of massive political shifts.

Why is that equilibrium impossible for other transportation infrastructure?

soerxpso3• 8 months ago

Roads are cheaper than busses.

iso16313• 8 months ago

Fuel taxes and licensing costs don't remotely cover the infrastructure costs

In which country? Because they certainly do in the UK - about £10b a year on maintenance vs £33b a year from road taxes. Half that maintenance comes from local property taxation and half from the central exchequer

If you include the societal costs from road accidents it's nearer, with estimates putting all costs from accidents including lost productivity at £35b a year. Throw in global warming and you find drivers only cover about half the costs.

But then people who argue societal costs need to be included never seem to acknowledge the societal benefits of a road network.

jayd16• 8 months ago

Paved roads fails your test but we have those in abundance. I'm not sure this is a useful way to dismiss things.

eternauta3k• 8 months ago

The answer is transactions costs, many countries charge for roads where it's practical (not in the city).

matwood3• 8 months ago

financially sustainable (and without sustainability, a political shift will kill it)

Fiscally sustainable is a BS excuse often put forward by conservatives to not fund the things they don't want funded. Most things the government runs are not fiscally sustainable on their own, but they provide some sort of societal value. See things like the military, police, fire departments, etc...

A political shift could certain still kill it, but let's not pretend it has anything to do with fiscal policy.

Braxton19802• 8 months ago

That equilibrium is stable for a reason. Every major city that tries free transit at scale will eventually snap back to it

What about US school bus programs. They have existed in many areas for decades.

belter• 8 months ago

Every major city that tries free transit at scale will eventually snap back to it, because it is the only configuration that does not implode under feedback loops.

Less Jevons Paradox and more Theory of Constraints...

Five million people are not going to descend on Iowa City because buses are free. Luxembourg has full free public transport from buses to trains, with no feedback loops. Same in Tallinn, Estonia capital where is free for residents.

krageon• 8 months ago

You are objectively wrong. Public transit scales the same way free and paid (i.e. based on demand). The cost for free countrywide public transport in a country with very high quality public transportation (so not the US) is about 8k per person, per year. This isn't some insurmountable amount of money - it's not even particularly costly when you compare it to what the infrastructure costs are for cars (mostly related to accident mitigation. Especially bad in the US).

fragmede4• 8 months ago

Every serious transit city in the world ends up in the same place

If we look to Asia, we see that's not the only way things can work. Hong Kong, Taipei, Singapore, Tokyo, Osaka, are serious transit cities in my book, and their way is to have property development, diversified business models, or operating in extremely dense corridors where demand is high enough to cover costs through fares alone.

But you're right that "just run trains and collect fares" doesn't work and has to be subsidized everywhere else. The question is, how do you account for the subsidies that cars get. The cost to invade Iraq isn't usually accounted for when screaming about how much it costs to fund public transportation out of tax money.

lanthissa• 8 months ago

sounds smart, but this a false premise because its not zero sum and theres this magical thing called taxes that allow you to reap the benefits of a more productive system.

If you have free public transit and that enables more economic activity or more disposable income to be funneled into services that boost the tax rake of the city the gains can offset the cost. This is an equation none of us have the info to do as randos online and its pointless to claim otherwise.

and even if your point was true free buses are a partial subsidy to low income people like you suggest in nyc its busses are a predominantly taken by low income individuals (source https://blog.tstc.org/2014/04/11/nyc-bus-riders-tend-to-be-o... subway nearly everyone, and ride share has their own tax as well.

iso16313• 8 months ago

Waiting for Tallinn to collapse. It's been 12 years now.

throwaway0352• 8 months ago

charge fares, subsidize low-income riders, and fund the basic system with taxes.

Car traffic is also expensive. Highways, parking, and maintenance are massively subsidized through taxes, and they consume far more space per traveler making cities more congested and polluted.

Cities with good public transport also tend to be more walkable, which has health benefits and could provide significant impact to healthcare costs.

According to this article, every $1 invested in public transit generates about $5 in economic returns:

https://govfacts.org/housing-infrastructure/transportation/p...

xnx• 8 months ago

A transit ride in the US might be $12 of subsidies and a $2 fare. Making the ride $14 of subsidies isn't a big difference. There are even situations where eliminating fares saves money because of the overhead.

That said we'd probably be better off if we eliminated subsidies and introduced competition.

freen4• 8 months ago

Exact same argument was made against the interstate highway system.

Now it is lauded as one of the highest ROI investments the US govt ever made.

If you really want to do the math: if we value all urban land equivalently, what is the subsidy provided by free parking? In NYC, it’s astronomical.

Free transit is trivial to fund if you actually care about humans being productive.

Not everyone does: harder to capture rents that way.

mapt• 8 months ago

The thing about public bus systems is that none of them are financially sustainable. If they were, you wouldn't need a government to run them.

My local system collects about 1/3rd of the annual operational costs and none of the (sizable) capital & infrastructural costs in fares.

The choice to collect insufficient fares versus collecting no fares at all, has secondary effects - fewer people choose to ride, spending any money is a psychological nudge against taking the trip, especially if you're not sure how much money you're going to have to spend. The car historically appears to be ~free, while the bus demands exact change in an impatient voice. You can solve the change issue with cards, but you could also just not charge fares.

Let's say you double ridership by taking away fares. This doubling adds approximately nothing to your considerable costs, but you get twice as much direct social benefit, and the price you pay for it is having to cover ~100% of the program cost using taxes instead of ~90%. On top of this you get secondary social benefit - buses move people so much more efficiently than cars that traffic speeds up dramatically, and you don't need to perform continuous expansion of the road network to accommodate ever-growing traffic problems. The labor value of those hours stuck in traffic alone covers the whole program, even if that value isn't something you can practically "capture" for some kind of profit.

port11• 8 months ago

IIRC the Flemish bus system is profitable. So is the public train company, even if marginally so.

What I dislike about GP's comment is that it obfuscates that mostly it's the lower classes that ride the bus, and paying it with fares takes away from the potential to redistribute tax money that harmonises the way we all live together.

Like you've said: buses move people more efficiently, and once they're on the road they're better off being closer to full since that won't dramatically change the fuel they're burning. Plus less cars, etc.

rightbyte• 8 months ago

You can pick free, or scalable, or financially sustainable (and without sustainability, a political shift will kill it), but you cannot have all three at once.

You can't name three things, rule out any combination that includes more than two things, and call it a day.

The gas saved is less resources wasted, savings which to a large part are taxable. Etc.

casey2• 8 months ago

politically unpopular

You mean capitalists will stir up a shitfit if they aren't allowed to profit from someones misfortune. The proper amount of traffic on roads should be close to 0. All LA would have to do is offer more and free bus rides and charge for driving in the city and everyone would save hours of their life for no cost.

taurath• 8 months ago

Do you have examples of cities that have tried and snapped back along with reasons it can’t work, since you speak with such certainty?

JeremyNT• 8 months ago

You can pick free, or scalable, or financially sustainable (and without sustainability, a political shift will kill it), but you cannot have all three at once. The minute you push on one, second-order effects pop up somewhere else.

What is your basis for this assertion? One could simply increase the tax rate on high income earners and large property holders and readily fund fare free transportation in a financially sustainable and scalable way.

I believe the unstated mechanism of failure here is "it will piss off the wealthy and they will kill it" - which, at some point, needs to stop being true about literally everything in our society, or some extremely unpleasant consequences will manifest.

rkagerer• 8 months ago

Civilization figured out how to make water relatively cheap and widespread (at least in developed countries). We can do the same for transportation.

rsynnott2• 8 months ago

So, in Ireland, which has a historically pretty terrible public transport system, the government has been fairly aggressively cutting fares. A journey which cost me about 6 euro literally 20 years ago (about 9 euro in today's money) now costs 2 euro, transport is free for kids under 8 and extremely cheap for people under 25, and so on. And it has _worked_; public transport utilisation is dramatically up.

Now, maybe there's a point where it stops working as you reduce fares. But it's not particularly _clear_ that that is the case.

estimator7292• 8 months ago

Just say that you think poor people are gross and that public transit as a concept is beneath your contempt

inglor_cz• 8 months ago

Here in Czechia, I lived in two cities with a great public transport system. Prague and Ostrava. Ostrava, despite being much poorer, is actually often voted to have the best system in CZ, because the management is really creative and diligent here and they often pull off miracles with a relatively small purse.

That said, yes, it is a major burden on municipal finances. The taxpayer here is mostly OK with it, but compromises have to be done, such as fixing sidewalks when they really fall apart and not a day sooner. Maths cannot really be wished away.

Important factors that plague the entire system:

* fluctuations in cost of energy. The Russo-Ukrainian war, European Green Deal etc. Getting a multi-year contract for electricity that can be used as a basis for budgeting has become impossible,

* driver wages. Drivers can move around the EU and they indeed often do, being a wandering folk almost by definition. Thus every city in the EU competes with Stockholm, Amsterdam or Milan on wages, while having half or less the economic power of those metropolises. So you have to find a precarious balance between "paying your drivers so little that they leave for greener pastures" and "paying your drivers so much that the budget cannot tolerate it".

Full self-driving could alleviate the second problem. Robots don't eat and don't pay any rent.

m4632• 8 months ago

I think if you treat the bus including "externalities", the bus problem might be very smart.

What if you include road construction and widening, road repair costs, impact of traffic on commerce and taxes, and more nebulous stuff like pollution, quality of life, noise, etc.?

cyberax2• 8 months ago

The article is dishonest. A better title would be: "Making transit free in Iowa City did not significantly increase the ridership (just 18% over the 2019 level), while imposing more taxes on everyone".

They claim to have removed 5200 cars, out of area of 500000 people ("Iowa City-Cedar Rapids statistical region"). The increase is pitiful, from 6.7% of people using transit to 7.2% with the rest being car commutes.

Neither has it "cleared the traffic". Iowa City is also a well-run city, with just a 17-minute average commute time, indicating that it has no congestion to speak of.

estabn2• 8 months ago

I agree. You can't compare the transit system of Iowa City (population less than 75,000) to that of New York City (population 8,500,000).

Marsymars9• 8 months ago

"More taxes on everyone" also is dishonest. Every individual is paying more in "taxes", but the net amount of money collected from the population of the city for the cost of providing transit is decreased. (Since the cost of fare collection disappears. Or if the net amount of money doesn't decrease, they're presumably spending what was formerly spent on fare collection on additional service.)

cyberax2• 8 months ago

No, it's not. Fares are not taxes, so while some people might end up paying less (no fare), the overall amount of tax did go up.

honkycat• 8 months ago

Meanwhile PDX is letting homeless people ride certain bus rides for free.

It is a fucking nightmare. I'm a liberal guy but the amount of bums make the transit here unusable.

terminalshort2• 8 months ago

The truth that nobody wants to admit is that if you build a system that anybody can use, nobody will want to use it.

miki123211• 8 months ago

Why is public transit so expensive in general?

In Europe, if you're a group of 2-5 adults with no discounts, it's often cheaper to take a car than to use the bus / train. That makes no sense.

mcdonje2• 8 months ago

Because you're paying humans' wages to operate the system, and there isn't a carbon tax.

sltkr• 8 months ago

Excise taxes on fuel already exceed carbon taxes.

At the IMF suggested rate of €65 per tonne of CO2, a liter of fuel that produces 2.3 kg CO2 would cost €0.15 per liter, while European excise taxes on fuel average around €0.55.

soloridindan• 8 months ago

Not only that, it can be infeasible for a single-passenger as well. There's only the train available here, and I need to be ~400km away every couple months. Most of the time tickets are ~40€, but sometimes they're 200€+ one-way, even if you book weeks in advance. It makes it infeasible to plan anything when prices may fluctuate so wildly.

As a comparison, my 2009 diesel gets me there at around 4,7L/100km, but let's round it to 5, at average cost of fuel 1,65€/L that's 33€, for a single passenger, and I can leave whenever I want, have any sort of holdup and just go.

skylurk7• 8 months ago

if you're a group of 2-5 adults

even a taxi or ride share may come out cheaper than public transit too.

Part of it is public transit like trains and trams have to maintain their own infrastructure.

Not sure about buses, I would guess these are way cheaper to operate. In many parts of the world they are cheap, private and profitable, e.g. https://old.reddit.com/r/Detroit/comments/1l5pt2a/detroit_th...

beAbU2• 8 months ago

Irish Rail wants to charge me €15-€20 for a single trip from Wexford to Dublin, a 150km trip that would cost roughly €5 when taking my EV and can be an hour quicker with nice traffic. Buses aren't much better.

Sure, parking and wear/tear on my car needs to be factored in, but the moment I'm not travelling alone, the public transport costs are completely blown out the water. A trip to the big city for me and my wife will be €60 when taking the train, and with the car it will be about €20-€30 depending on where I park.

It's crazy frustrating, because I would LOVE to take public transport more.

mrosett• 8 months ago

I'm calling BS on this one.

The claimed increase in ridership is modest (18%) off a low baseline (0 service on weekends) and occurred over a long time period (pre-pandemic to today.) They also expanded service during that period, which probably fully explains the increase in ridership. Certainly the reduction in fare ($1-->0) is nice for some people, but it's hard to imagine that it is actually decisive for a large portion of trips.

The estimates of traffic reduction and CO2 reduction just quote the city's numbers without establishing that "traffic cleared, and so did the air."

Key paragraphs:

In 2021, the city starting [sic] running more buses, streamlining routes and seriously considering waiving the $1 fares. In 2023, the City Council voted to pay for a two-year fare-free pilot with Covid-19 relief funds.

...

Ridership eventually grew to 118 percent of prepandemic levels, compared to the average nationally transit ridership-recovery levels of 85 percent.

yalogin• 8 months ago

In a country like the US there are many opportunities like this to improve the overall status but other than small hyper local changes nothing will happen at a large scale because the powers be will not let it happen.

Problem is politcians and aspiring politicians/media influencers have figured out that the money is not in solving problems but keeping it in the news and agitating people. They will never do anything to solve problems but keep throwing wrenches and never let it be solved. Well, if it’s solved they need to find a new problem, worse still, what if people now expect things to be actually solved!

hyperman1• 8 months ago

In my country, the elderly used to ride for free on busses and trams. 15 years ago I was involved in this problem where some decided to get on a bus or tram in the morning, go back and forth all day, bring a lunchbox, and go home just in time for the favorite soap series. They got free heating and some social contact.

It turned out, in my region, about 1/3 of public transport capacity was lost on them on peak hours. Also, some decided a specific seat was 'theirs' and started verbally abusing 'seat thiefs', throwing their stuff around, or even hitting them with canes. They also drove everyone bonkers by begging drivers to speed up or change routes so they would be home in time for their favorite soap series.

At the time, not much was done about it. The busses and trams forced everyone off at the terminus, made a round, enforced being empty while pausing a bit, and then the elderly were allowed back on, but at least places got shuffled and others got a chance for a seat. There was great gnashing of teeth about this decision.

I still feel double about it. It is very sad how this was a great life quality improvement for these people, but public transport is not the right medium for fixing this.

liampulles• 8 months ago

TANSTAAFL, New York Times

ZeroGravitas• 8 months ago

I read an old study that claimed driving a mile cost society 20 cents and cycling a mile had 20 cents of societal benefits.

I'd imagine public transport is similar so we should move the Overton window towards bus and train tickets entering you into a lottery funded by charging cars for entry to, and for parking in, downtown areas.

throw0101a2• 8 months ago

I read an old study that claimed driving a mile cost society 20 cents and cycling a mile had 20 cents of societal benefits.

"The Social Cost of Automobility, Cycling and Walking in the European Union":

* https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S09218...

* https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolecon.2018.12.016

* Via: https://medium.com/strava-metro/whats-the-cost-of-choosing-t...

nielsbot2• 8 months ago

I mentioned this video in another comment but I thought it was informative so sharing here:

“The truth about Zohran’s free busses” by Breaking Points:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P275SobdE-s

clickbait headline (of course) but gives a lot of facts about the proposal and talks about other places they’ve tried it.

freen4• 8 months ago

Free public roads and highways? Free public parking? Good, normal, should be encouraged. Add a lane or two to the highway? Always a good idea! (hint: it never is)

Free public transit? KILL IT WITH FIRE!!! It will never work (those places it did are aberrations)

Go look up: 1. Jevons paradox (induced demand): More road capacity → more traffic. 2. Marchetti’s constant (30-minute city): Average commute time is stable; faster modes → sprawl. 3. Downs–Thomson paradox (transit sets highway speed): Car speeds improve only if transit gets better. 4. Braess’s paradox (network effect): Adding a new road can worsen traffic for everyone.

coffeecantcode2• 8 months ago

Moving from Iowa City to Kansas City I can say that free public transit works quite well. In Iowa City the campus bus system (Cambus) has all of its busses operated by students who go out and get their CDL and get great job experience, on top of it being one of the highest paid campus jobs for students.

Kansas City’s street car system is an incredible testament to this as well. It’s clean, safe, and for the most part quite efficient. And with its recent extension down to UMKC’s campus it’s now a viable transportation method for a lot of people in the heart of Kansas City. Keeping it clean and safe after more than doubling the size of its route might be a bigger lift now, but as long as the city sticks with it post-World Cup I see it continuing to grow.

insane_dreamer• 8 months ago

IMO the key issue to adoption of public transport is not just the cost (which can be subsidized either for everyone or for lower income riders), but the extent of the network and the frequency of buses/trains. Higher density cities with extensive networks have high ridership, cities that are spread out with endless suburbs and who didn't build a good rail network covering the suburbs (looking at you, LA) don't regardless of whether it's free to ride or not.

ethagknight• 8 months ago

I seriously long for a free transit solution in my city, Memphis. We already pay for 90% of the operating cost anyway via various taxes, and fareboxes frequently cost more than they bring in. If I am a citizen paying property taxes in the city, why charge me $1.75 to hop on a bus?

However- it shouldnt be simply "free".. it should be "free with a pass, which is free" and a pass is easy to get, tied to your ID, and easy to revoke. No pass? thats fine, pay the $3 to ride. bus driver yanked your pass because you were peeing on the seat or intimidating other riders? You can ride again, for $3. Concerned about security or privacy? No problem, Pay $3.

Before the majority of law abiding citizens and travelers, passes are easy and free to get.

EtienneDeLyon• 8 months ago

That's a little racist.

Iowa City made its buses free. Traffic cleared, and so did the air

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