| Does the US interstate pay for itself? > Isn’t this the communist/socialist philosophy No. This is about changing how something is paid for under capitalism, and is a very normal way of paying for things under this system. > If a program can’t pay for itself, what incentive does it have to be efficient and operate in the interest of riders? The main problem with making it profit-based is that skimming off the top is the basic operating principle; you have strong incentives to make it less safe, not do upgrades, abuse inelastic demand &c. One should hope that the people elected (or appointed by someone elected) would have an incentive to work in the public's interest because they won't be re-elected otherwise, though obviously this doesn't always work. But that's _already_ a problem that needs fixing, so why not two birds with one stone rather than switching over to a funding system absolutely filled to the brim with bad incentives that repeatedly fails us? > Getting rid of turnstiles and other populating recording devices spreads the gap between ridership and funding even further. I'm not really sure what you're arguing here. > Everyone loves “free” stuff, but when it’s not really free, and the cost are just hidden in taxes, most people lose. The costs are not hidden, they're in your taxes. I also strongly disagree that most people lose when you fund things through taxes. That seems completely ignorant of how a ton of infrastructure and much of society is run. > Being cheaper to fund through taxes now has nothing to do with future costs that no longer correlate to ridership. The argument was that funding it not through fares is already _better_ because it can be adjusted to those situations. |