It’s worth reading this article from The Transport Politic, which looks at the ways some transit systems seek to promote social equity through transit discounts. While all five of the transit systems they look at offer discounts for the elderly, children, grade school students, and the disabled (as does King County Metro), those in London and Paris, unlike the three US systems included in the survey, also offer discounts based on economic status. Both cities offer free or discounted fares to people in poverty, the unemployed, and university students; in addition, London offers free fare to veterans, and Paris offers discounted fare to adults with large (three children or more) families.
The article concludes:
It would be difficult to argue that transportation should be reserved for only those who can afford it, and therefore fare schemes that incorporate the needs of the poorest are necessary. Not only should we be pushing vigorously for more transit, but we should be asking for cheaper transit, at least for those without good-paying jobs.
… To those who argue that able-bodied adults have a responsibility to find the funds to pay for their transportation, I suggest that our country doesn’t provide as many opportunities as we often claim it does. Even those who work minimum-wage jobs — consenting to our government’s rabid mission to get people off welfare — spend too much of their limited incomes paying to get around.
In this time of mass unemployment and reduced incomes all around, we must work to reduce fares for people who cannot always afford the mobility options transit offers.
A society is only as strong as are its least fortunate.
I’ll go one further and say that all transit should be free and paid for through progressive taxes (i.e. not the sales tax) outside the farebox. The transit system is a social good. More people would use it if it were a) sufficiently funded (farebox revenues make up a paltry percentage of any transit system’s budget; a stable funding source would ensure better, more reliable service); and b) convenient and affordable enough that taking transit, not hopping in a car, became the default decision.
You’ll have to take my car keys out of my cold dead hands!!!!
It’s a good idea, however Metro needs solutions now.
Great idea! Of course, the republicans will fight it to the death, chanting their slogan of “stop spreading MY money around” endlessly.
No please, not free. Look what happened last week when Oprah offered free chicken. Free things are never worth it.
Make it cheaper, fine, but at least force people have a reason to get on the bus other than boredom.
If people started using Metro to ride one block trips, because it’s free, and they’re just as fat and lazy as anyone in an SUV, I would look for other means of transportation.
This happens all the time in the Ride Free area. They could make a lot of their routes into ‘Express’ to prevent this from happening, but i have a feeling they’re not always so quick on the uptake over at Metro.
“all transit should be free”
But we should get rid of the ride free zone?
I’ve been taking a 5:30 am bus this week, so there are much fewer people to interact with on the bus. Therefore I’ve noticed the habits of one particular homeless man who gets on every day. He’s got to be 85 if he’s a day, starvation-thin, grimey and a little OCD. The first time I noticed him was when he looked at what he had in pocket change before paying the fare. He had maybe 19 cents and took the two nickels to give to the driver. The driver passed over a transfer without a word. Every day there’s been a new driver on this route, and all of them give him a transfer for the 2-3 coins he drops in the farebox. So yeah, I’d say Metro has a program in place for those who can’t afford the full fare: it’s called the drivers being reasonable and looking the other way.
The instant Metro stops charging fares, it’s no longer “transportation for all” but “heated (rolling) shelter” for all. Making Metro fareless would discourage ridership, not encourage it.
I’m glad to see transit being treated like a social justice issue. The more support public transit gets, the more opportunities are given to our lower classes. I also consider it a public health issue. The Metro in Washington DC runs until 3 am on Fridays and Saturdays. Imagine how many drunk drivers would be out on the streets if it didn’t. Imagine how many will be on the streets of Seattle tonight. It’s a no-brainer.
@6 has a good point. You have repeatedly argued for eliminating the ride free zone downtown. Now you’re arguing for a county-wide RFZ. Which is it?
I agree. Make it cheap, heavily subsidized, and provide a way for the poor to get passes for free…but a small fee would both ration the service efficiently and cause pride in ridership among those who use it.
@10 they are compatible ideas. The RFZ ghettoizes downtown, funneling the homeless there and concentrating them. It makes for a less pleasant experience than a complete no-charge system would.
Additionally the RFZ add complexity to payment and slows deboarding when traveling away from Downtown, both of which would be solved by a no fee system.
I would be in favor of people paying some modest amount, perhaps $1.00 a ride, $0.50 for a discounted fare (senior, student, economically disadvantaged), for a number of somewhat intangible reasons.
People value things more when they pay for them. It would cut down on the “one block rides” and “free homeless shelter” things mentioned above. And, it would probably be a good idea to at least give the appearance that people who use transit partially fund it — people who don’t use transit (i.e., who don’t live in a big city) get cranky about having to fund a transit system they’ll never benefit from (at least, in Illinois, non-Chicagoans were always complaining about it).
I’m pretty sure some of our friendly local social service agencies have bus fare vouchers they give out to homeless folks or the unemployed. Most local universities have a U-Pass type system that’s *much* cheaper for students than a regular monthly pass ($50 per academic quarter at UW).
So we’re subsidizing most of the groups you describe too – as it should be – just in different ways.
Perception matters too. If something is free, people will treat it like it’s worthless.
No petty fucking shoplifter gets to lecture anybody about what is or is not a “social good.”
The solution to the homeless on the bus is to solve homelessness in Seattle (How’s that 10 year plan working out for you Mayor Lardass? Just two years left so I am guessing there is a HUGE finale coming up here soon!!)
Making Metro free would increase the number of transients on the bus and I would just drive more to work. Sorry, but sitting next to people smelling like piss when I have to go to work just isn’t going to work.
The problem is POVERTY not making a bus ride free. How about we slove POVERTY and then deal with Metro?!? Oh wait, solving poverty would take hard work and this is America; nevermind.
I’ve only taken one microeconomics class, but “free” transit seems dodgy to me. Transit (usually) has a lower footprint than SOV travel, but it still has costs, including environmental costs. If you don’t communicate that price to the user you get inefficient choices that manifest in crowding and diversion from other, more efficient modes like bikes. That’s basically the situation we have on the roads right now.
@12 It makes for a less pleasant experience if you only ride the bus downtown. A 100% free system would just spread the RFZ effect out to the rest of the county. I hate to be a cynic here, but if the kind of perpetually drunk, foul-smelling transients that set up camp on RFZ buses started showing up on routes to Ballard or Bellevue, expect to see a lot of people revert to driving their cars everywhere.
Hey Slog, can you look into the fire in the bus tunnels this morning? Did anyone see or hear anything about the fire? Metro, King5 and Slog have nothing about it
I really don’t think homeless people concentrate downtown because of the RFZ. Other cities don’t have an RFZ and homeless *still* concentrate downtown. It’s because downtown has all the shelters, desk jockeys willing to give $ to panhandlers, and people buying food which means more discarded food laying around. I don’t think making the entire system free is going to “spread them out”.
Great idea it has to be the default system. You have to have enough buses or better yet trains so that it’s convenient and timely and quick so that EVERYONE LIKES USING IT and hey car worshippers have you noticed no one in Paris or Rome or London is banned from owning a car. Then the system is flooded with more middle class clean people and the percentage of smelly people (to be blunt) drops dramatically). Also the the European approach of providing social safety net and housing means they don’t have as many hopeless drunk drugged out homeless people!
Social Democrats USA let’s do it. the solutions are obvious and proven. Single payer, paid college, expanded training and unemployment, subisidies for kids, do the whole thing. And btw just not collecting payment would speed up transit quite a bit. If you must charge people have them get a monthly pass showable on demand to random inspectors on a bus with swiping the pass for trains (where it does not delay boarding). All this shit is figured out over in Europe deja folks. We’re just dumb, for not copying it.
Alons y au Metro !!
I’d be happy if Metro would just abandon its silly fare changes. Why charge a quarter less during “off-peak” times? I never have the change to make the $1.75 fare and end up paying with bills anyway.
When he was NYC mayor Rudy gave the homeless free bus ride… to New Jersey.
there are never smelly bums on the 76.
@21 I would say that it concentrates the homeless population no more or less than any other type of service or shelter. That’s why you see large groups of homeless folks on Phinney across from the entrance to the zoo – it’s an unusual spot until you realize there’s a soup kitchen right there. But there’s no doubt in my mind, as a daily rider of the 71/72/73, that transients are using the RFZ as a place to hang out and/or congregate. If you make the bus system free county-wide, you expand the options for this practice. People go where the services are.
I was trying to remember whether w7ngman’s observations about the homeless downtown held true for Chicago… I think it’s much rarer to see homeless people on the buses, period, in Chicago — most of them are on the trains (specifically, the Red Line), because you can ride them from one end of the line to the other and back for one fare, and there’s no conductor to notice/care.
I’m not sure there are more of them on the trains in the downtown area. Definitely more panhandler-types in the downtown stations, but not sure about the trains themselves.
Two possible solutions:
1. Seattle secedes and forms Sealth County, demands the 40 percent of bus infrastructure we paid for, and uses its own tax base to build 100 percent transit with our tax dollars while the suburbs whine; or
2. We kill the 20-40-40 rule by threatening option 1, and institute Premium-No-Wheelchair Express Lines for ECB and others that cost $5 a trip and No-Bum bus lines for $4 a trip.
I’m kind of leaning to option 1.
I’m with the “cheap, not free” camp here. Make the bus 25- or 50-cents again. Or a dollar. Something simple.
Moreover, it absolutely blows my mind that during (a) an economic ‘recession’, and (b) a time when Seattle complains daily of car-clogged streets– that Metro would actual consider making transit more ineffective. Let’s really make this recession worse, shall we?
Higher costs and/or reduced service are two bullets in the head of a more efficient transportaion network.
City of Seattle/Metro/Mayor Nickels/City Council are basically saying: “Hey, please drive more cars, people, the roads aren’t clogged enough. Btw, fuck you.”
I like the idea of using Seattle money for Seattle projects; FUCK the rest of King County!! REVOLUTION!!! SUCCESSION NOW!!!!!!
@21 and 26,
I doubt that making the entire system free would put more homeless people in, say, Bellevue, but I think you’d maybe see many more homeless people on far flung bus routes, just riding back and forth, sleeping, and trying to stay warm.
I’m really lucky and I get a subsidized bus pass from work, comes out of my paycheck automatically and it under half the cost of a normal bus pass. I think if more people were able to sign up for that kind of a program it would fly well. I pay $42 a month for the ‘peak hour pass’ and it’s worth every penny. I can now use the bus whenever I want, and sure some months I don’t ride as much but it’s only $42 which is like 24 rides and it pays for itself. I can totally afford that, the full price always seems way out there though.
@14 Some agencies had bus tickets — until we lost grants — with a limit of two tickets per person per month. That wasn’t nearly enough to address the need we see every day. And *that* is just the people who a) know about us and b) make it in to the office between 9-5 to ask. This is a huge, apparently invisible problem.
We should give free tickets – provided you pick them up outside of Seattle.
That way they’ll leave and go back home.
Everything should be free. Especially wine at QFC. Everyone knows that!