[logiczero]

The article points out that MUNI has low ridership due to other issues besides cost, namely frequency, safety and predictability. MUNI scores poorly on all of those, so if making it free to ride MUNI doesn't address those issues, or makes them worse, there won't be an increased interest in riding MUNI. (I'm a little baffled why they don't include speed in that list...it's just brutally slow to go any significant distance in San Francisco. Biking is now the fastest way around much of the city.)