> The city profits through increased economic activity, but this is not easy to measure, especially not by SEPTA.

People won't take public transit if it isn't safe and not too unpleasant. So by keeping the system and unsafe, you lose people who are going to take transit into the center city to shop or see an event. They may end up driving to a suburban mall or movie theater instead.

> Some of the funding that goes into maintaining roads should go to reducing volume/wear on those roads (i.e. get more traffic off of the roads).

Yes, I agree. But I'd like to see riders chip in some money too. More importantly, I think legislators are more prone to fully fund the system if it isn't free for everyone.

> I don't think that enforcing a nominal fare would help with the homeless/drug issue at all. Look at the corridor to the PATCO from Walnut-Locust - that's "public space" and doesn't require a fare to get in.

We certainly could kick homeless people out of transit stations/public corridors when they set up camp, but someone (surely not someone who commutes on public transit everyday) made a decision not to for whatever reason. Assuming we have the resources, it wouldn't be that hard to chase the vast majority of people who aren't using the system away. I'm not advocating for harsh methods at all, but I do think we should put up some more barriers to having homeless kept out.