[hbsbsbsndk]

Subway fares disproportionately penalize the poor and force them into encounters with police. Transit should be free.

[micromacrofoot]

I'll get on my soapbox every time to also point out that a fareless system is also cheaper for everyone to operate. Operating and maintaining fare systems costs millions of dollars (hundreds of millions when they upgrade the system), enforcing and gating fares reduces system efficiency. Rolling those costs into taxes instead will always cost less than collecting at point of operation.

Fares are already too low to cover operational costs, so at this point it's practically theater.

[parpfish]

If you removed fares, you’d turn the subway into a mobile homeless shelter and everyone would stop using it

[bko]

Enforcement of many laws disproportionately penalize the poor. Should we live in a lawless society?

On the "free transit" point, unless you convince bus drivers and train operators and the tens of thousands of people that operate MTA to work for nothing, then it cannot be free. It can be paid for by someone else (e.g. taxpayers), but in general if you have a third party paying for something, you run into big problems related to expense growth, under investment, and inefficient use of resources in general.

Seeing your fare go up due to bloated expenses and mismanagement is an important signal. Hiding it and hoping everyone is honest and diligent with resources is naive.

[lurk2]

> Transit should be free.

Users should pay for the services they use.

[giraffe_lady]

They do, in taxes. Or do you expect the police, highway system, fire dept etc to turn a profit as well?

[micromacrofoot]

I wish I could see this comment, but I don't have a ycombinator pro account