HERE IS THE BEST PART FIRST:

Brian Kane, deputy director of the MBTA Advisory Board, which oversees expenditures on Boston’s public transit system, said bus fares in Boston brought in $109 million in 2019 and $117 million in 2018.

“There’s no such thing as free,” Kane said. “Someone has to pay. Boston has the highest-paid bus drivers in the country. They’re not going to work for free. The fuelers, the mechanics — they’re not going to work for free.” Advocates of free transit have suggested that the cost could be offset by a gas tax increase; but replacing $109 million would mean raising the gas tax by 3 1/2 cents, Kane said. And all the while, he said, the system is straining to cope with the current demands.

“I hate to be the guy who says, ‘eat your peas,’” he said. “But that’s where we are.”

Lawrence is a city located in Massachusetts with a population of 79,860 (down from 79,942 the year before).

Mayor Daniel Rivera of Lawrence, intrigued after hearing his friend Wu speak about fare-free transit, asked his regional transit authority how much was collected on three of the city’s most-used bus lines.

The answer was such a small amount — $225,000 — that he could offset it from the city’s surplus cash reserves.

“What I like is the doability of this, the simplicity of it,” Rivera said. “We are already subsidizing this mode of transportation, so the final mile is very short. It isn’t a service people need to pay for; it’s a public good.”

Around 100 cities in the world offer free public transit, the vast majority of them in Europe, especially France and Poland.

A handful of experiments in the United States in recent decades, including in the cities of Denver and Austin, were viewed as unsuccessful, because there was little evidence that they removed cars from the road; new riders tended to be poor people who did not own cars, according to a 2012 review by the National Academies Press.

But in another sense, they were successful: They increased ridership right away, with rises between 20% and 60% in the first few months. That statistic accounts for its revival among a new wave of urban progressives, who see transit as a key factor in social and racial inequality.

“Think about who is using our buses: It’s black people, folks who live in communities where there are deep, deep concentrations of poverty,” said Kim Janey, who was sworn in last week as the president of Boston’s City Council and has proposed waiving fares on a key route through some of the city’s low-income neighborhoods.

chicagotribune free-public-transit


That Bus Guy Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Shamwow Democrat Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > It's "free give-away" time in the USA!
> >
> > Free residency to Central Americans and
> Mexicans
> > who cross the border.
> >
> > Free college to whiny 20-somethings.
> >
> > Free school for all your anchor babies.
> >
> > Free right to vote.
> >
> > Free debt forgiveness to whiny 20-somethings
> with
> > student loans.
> >
> > Free homes for the homeless.
> >
> > Free transit.
> >
> > All paid for by 40 and 50 somethings who owe
> > society reparations.
> >
> > At election time, remember who gave you the
> free
> > sh*t and vote accordingly.
>
> A major operational benefit of not having to
> collect fares is that the amount of time that bus
> and rail transit vehicles are stopped is greatly
> reduced. This would save travelers huge amounts
> of time, particularly systems serving lots of
> tourists (who are unfamiliar with fare policies)
> like the F line in San Francisco.
>
> There is also a substantial cost to transit
> agencies to collect currency from fareboxes
>
> On the other hand, a $200 million loss in funding
> is substantial. I never read about those who
> advocate for fareless transit having realistic
> solutions for covering such large shortfalls in
> revenue
>
> As for you Shamwow, too bad you lack the ability,
> interest and sobriety to focus on that and just
> post a bunch of ideological garbage.

When New York or Chicago