[xahrepap]

I’ve wondered about this wrt public transportation. They keep raising prices, making it less affordable for people. Eventually basically no one is riding, so they … raise prices.

It seems needlessly expensive to me to run empty busses. I’d like to see if cheaper transportation can actually make more money.

[danudey]

> It seems needlessly expensive to me to run empty buses.

But there's the counterpoint: if you increase service on a route that isn't full already, then you

1. Create more frequent, more reliable transit for people

2. Run more buses emptier than you were before

But if you don't increase service, then you have people complaining that service isn't frequent enough or reliable enough for them to use, regardless of the cost.

In my old college town, I had a job that was on the other side of the city - not a huge distance, as it was a small town, and I'd often walk home from work. Still, I looked at my public transit options one day, and found that my only two choices were to arrive at work two hours early or four hours late. No amount of fare cutting would induce me to take the bus to work. The area I was traveling to was more of an office park type of area, so 90% of commuting wanted to arrive by 8-9 PM and leave by 4-5 PM and outside of those times there was almost no demand, so it makes perfect sense, but there are always examples like that that people will base their experience off of.

(Side note: I lived in that town for several years, was a broke college student/broke minimum wage employee the entire time, and never once took the bus. In fact, I don't think I remember even seeing one.)

Cutting fares entirely will help get more people onto transit, but that also leads to political pushback as people who drive instead of taking transit complain that non-drivers are getting subsidized! Ignoring the fact that fewer cars, trucks, and taxis on the road means a better driving experience for them.

[russelg]

A couple states in Australia have experimented with fee reductions for public transport.

In Western Australia, right now public transport is free for all students, and is free on Sundays for everyone. They also capped the cost of cross-zone travel to 2 zones, i.e. you'll never pay more than $5ish for a ride. Furthermore, unlike a lot of places, the airport train does not have any extra fare.

In Queensland, right now all public transport is capped at 50c. Not sure how long this will last, seems it's a bit of cost-of-living relief, and a bit of an election sweetener.

[russelg]

My point with this comment is that ridership increased with both initiatives. Build it and they will come, as they say.

[hendersonreed]

I've had this thought about public transit quite often.

We're all very familiar with induced demand when it comes to widening highways and other car-centric infrastructure.

Why don't we try to induce demand on public transit? Make it cheaper, subsidize it like we subsidize roads/parking, add additional routes.

[danudey]

> Why don't we try to induce demand on public transit? Make it cheaper, subsidize it like we subsidize roads/parking, add additional routes.

Good systems do; most systems don't, for lots of reasons.

1. Public transit is for poor people, and poor people don't fund re-election campaigns

2. Subsidizing public transit is spending the public's money, and the public has spent decades being told that "socialism" is going to take away their freedom and choice; in this case, the government is going to put more of YOUR tax dollars into public transit and then TAKE AWAY your cars.

It becomes a vicious cycle:

1. Transit is under-funded (or the funding is maintained but not increased to match rising ridership and costs)

2. Service has to get cut in areas with low ridership (e.g. areas with a lot of retirement communities get cuts to route frequency)

3. People get mad because now their buses run less often so they have to leave earlier or later than they wanted to

4. Why are we paying these people when they're just giving us worse and worse service?

In the end you wind up with a scenario where people are voting no to additional transit funding, and pointing to the direct results of under-funding as their explanation - look how bad service is, why would we give them more money? [0]

[0] https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/transit-refe...

[greenchair]

does public transport even work without heavy subsidies?

[Adverblessly]

The way I heard it, trains in Japan aren't (state) subsidized, but rather they are real estate businesses where "subsidized" cheap traffic into and between train stations drives increased real estate value and thus commercial rents.

If you think about it, the same could be said of state subsidized public transport, where increased economic activity due to improved traffic (getting people to/from jobs, shops and their homes) can increase tax revenue which can then be spent on public transport subsidies, turning them revenue positive. Of course whether most state subsidized systems actually live up to those aspirations is a bit more questionable.

[0cf8612b2e1e]

Do public roads work without heavy subsidies?

Something can just be a public good without delivering profit.

[adrianN]

No form of transport works without subsidies, except maybe walking.