It’s a habit I wish I could pick up. As it stands right now I’d have to walk 45 miles (right past work) to find the nearest bus, and it doesnt go anywhere near where I work. But then again my politicians are religious weirdos who think Gawd is the answer to all life’s problems.
It’s one really important reason that kids should ride free as long as they’re full time students.
If you grow up driving everywhere it is very engrained.
I would say free for everyone, but short of that I’m a fan of free for residents of the greater metro region via card/app. Then your tourists can be charged to subsidize the residents assuming local politics aren’t completely corrupt.
this relies on having enough tourists that it’s worth the infrastructure for having fares, otherwise it’ll just cost more than it brings in.
Like i said, i prefer free for everyone which would make more sense in low-tourism locals.
Check out the municipal finances of lots of US cities. Auto infrastructure costs more than the taxes it generates from economic activity. The federal government fills a lot of funding gaps through grants with its deficit spending. Yes, free public transport would cost more than it brings in through direct revenues; it would still cost less than private car subsidies, and could be a net positive in economic activity stimulated, unlike the cars.
If it’s free for everyone you’ve gotta step up enforcement of civility rules. Otherwise it just turns into a crackhead dacha. If people don’t feel safe riding it’s defeated it’s purpose. Needs to be clean and safe.
Whether it’s free or not doesn’t impact that issue.
People have to travel, and if you’re referring to poor and/or unhoused folk. They can’t walk across city any easier than you can. When you’re in that situation you have to travel a lot to maintain access to government services. They’re going to use the cheapest transit either way.
Except they’re not using it for transportation. It’s just a place to be and do drugs. When I was living in a city a bit further south, the trains were out of control. People smoking and selling their drugs right at the station, sometimes on the train. Every woman I knew was scared to ride. The stations and trains were just filthy.
Once they started enforcing fares again it got so much better.
I’ve lived in cities with free transit without those problems. They just also had strong social welfare systems.
It’s not a problem inherent to free transit, it’s a result of failures in governance.
Right. And what I’m saying is the public transportation departments can’t carry that burden.
Neither am I 😊
Absolutely! Habits build early are more engrained and easier to maintain.
I would push it even further and say that public transport should be at a very low cost until 21 or so, to really put it on equal footing as cars and not give the impression that it’s only for kids. But that’s a detail.
Haha this is funny. On Thursday I’m going to EPFL, using public transport, for work.
We will be carrying our equipment on the train, as this is our collective habit in the team. We even bought a giant wheeled suitcase with custom inlays for 19 inch equipment last year :-)
Edit: Though I have to admit, we rented a car for going to CERN last winter, and another one for going to the south of Switzerland in spring, because there we just needed too much equipment on those occasions. Driving was annoying each time.
Yeah both my kids were scared to ride the school bus when they transitioned to middle school and their biomom wanted us to drive them back and forth because that’s what she did despite us living 20 minutes further away and not wanting to “traumatize” them with the school bus… we said no, they can learn to ride a bus like normal people and low and behold after a week they were over it, no one was traumatized and the concept of riding the bus isn’t scary anymore to them.
He’s right on one thing: they have to unlearn their habits. Lives depend on it.
It might be a learned habit, but also I simply don’t have the money to buy a car and pay for the monthly costs for one, so I’d use it anyway. Student loans won’t pay for themselves 😭
I would love to take public transport, if the public transport actually served my area.
What if we built walking and public transport options with the same zeal as we did lanes and parking lots? In contrast, can Americans even imagine a world in which government neglects private transport, and doesn’t assiduously build a path for cars to every conceivable destination?
In short, the lack of public transport is a deliberate policy choice, rather than a problem with public transport per se.
