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guy_guyerson t1_jb4u15x wrote

Reply to comment by bluGill in Study reveals that although private automobiles continue to be the dominant travel mode in American cities, the share of car trips has slightly and steadily decreased since its peak in 2001. In contrast, the share of transit, non-motorized, and taxicab trips has steadily increased by giuliomagnifico

> and it means more money is meeded from someplace.

Not always, often it just breaks even because the cost of transacting, securing payments, payment equipment, enforcing anti-turnstyle jumping, etc end up eating most of the payments received.

This is probably less the case now that public transit is less cash-based, but it's still a consideration.

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bluGill t1_jb4zxt5 wrote

Not in most places with transit. You can look up the budgets of US transit organizations, small town transit you are correct, but for anything bigger fares are significant sources of money (10% being significant).

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NotSoSecretMissives t1_jb6g6kl wrote

I mean take for example, Massachusetts, there are ~5 million tax payers and the MBTA, public transit system that collects the most fares in the state, collects ~675 million in fares. Even if you spread that equally to every tax payer that is only $135 per person for the entire year. There is zero reason to include collection systems except to punish transit users.

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bluGill t1_jb6k5dm wrote

Where is that 675 million going to come from? Whatever you answer, why not give them that, plus keep the 675million from fares and expand service. I guarantee most riders would prefer better service to zero cost fares.

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NotSoSecretMissives t1_jb6pf49 wrote

I agree that's what a lot of riders would say, but it's a complete waste of human resources. If something like transit is such a public good (users and non-users), there's no reason to put an additional burden on those that choose to use the service when it's such a low cost when distributed across the population. Taxes are the most efficient way to fund public services. All that said, public transit should receive way more funding.

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