[noneckbeard]

In Gavin Newsom’s book Citizenville he talked about how, after becoming SF mayor, he discovered that fare collection cost as much as the revenue generated from fares. He started the process of making the bus free but was told by so many advisors that the busses would become “dumpsters on wheels,” from a combination of homeless people using them for shelter and people not respecting services that are free, that the plan was scrapped.

[carapace]

> fare collection cost as much as the revenue generated from fares

WTF!?

That's freakin insane.

If that's true, why do they keep raising the fares and upgrading the fareboxes!?

If that's true, the SF city gov is effectively collecting money and lighting it on fire as a way to "throttle" bad behaviour on the bus!?

[sitkack]

> If that's true, why do they keep raising the fares and upgrading the fareboxes!?

To pay for the new fareboxes, of course.

Just as Uber is a way to get away from "bus people", fares are away to get away from "free bus people".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K-iWBCL12Qg

[noneckbeard]

Could be that they’re trying to turn fare collection into a revenue generator, but not sure. I recommend his book, it’s a pretty interesting read!

[asdff]

Pretty asinine of him to back off at that. Homeless people aren't paying fares already. There are also 60k homeless in LA while 1 million people ride ride metro a day; even if every single homeless person boarded metro one day it would be a blip on your radar compared to everyone else.

What fares hurt most are the working families in LA who pay $76 a month to ride the bus to work or school because there is no other choice. The fact that Newsom didn't connect this dot doesn't surprise me.

[noneckbeard]

I think the argument was more that the bus system was already a pretty terrible experience, and making it more terrible would discourage even more people from taking the bus and create a downward spiral of quality.

The obvious correction is to make the bus experience less terrible, but I’m guessing that’s hard w/o increasing taxes or fares, both or which come w serious political and real world costs.