[lsb]

All New Yorkers pay 80% of the cost to run the bus before they even think about boarding. (“Farebox recovery ratio”)

This is an excuse to fund more cops. Transit should be free, like sidewalks and parks.

[dublinben]

>Transit should be free, like sidewalks and parks.

And most similarly, roads. The theoretical 'farebox recovery ratio' of most roads is 0, but this is never part of the conversation. Maybe if it were, transit would look much better in comparison.

[hattmall]

But there is a usage based fee for roads too in the form of gasoline tax which funds roads. Something people that don't buy gas don't pay.

[VWWHFSfQ]

> Transit should be free, like sidewalks and parks.

Sidewalks and parks cost $0 for people to walk on, or let their dog shit in. Maybe $15/hour for the guys in blue jumpsuits to clean it up once a week?

NYC has the largest subway system in the world _by_far_ (and also one of the oldest). It's extremely expensive to operate.

Don't compare it to walking around on sidewalks or in parks.

[bydo]

> NYC has the largest subway system in the world _by_far_

It absolutely does not. It is the 12th in length and 10th by ridership: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_metro_systems

[VWWHFSfQ]

NYC has 470 stations, by far the most. Who cares about long-distance stops with nothing in between. NYC has train stations in every single neighborhood in the city.

[bydo]

It's more complicated than that, because some stations with multiple lines get counted multiple times for that. Though even if NYC does have 20 more stations than Shanghai, it's a bit of a stretch to call that "by far". When, again, other cities have twice the tunnel length and nearly twice the ridership.

There are neighborhoods in Queens and Brooklyn where the closest subway station can be miles away, and there is an entire borough in NYC that has no general subway access at all, so not buying that one either.

[hattmall]

Shanghai and Beijing both have over 500. Guangdong has like 700, but technically it is more than 1 system though they are tightly connected.

[snypher]

NYC parks budget is like $600m, it must cost something to maintain?

[ceejayoz]

Sidewalks, as with trains, require construction and maintenance.

An extra walker a day on a sidewalk costs the same marginal $0 or so an extra rider on the trains does. Both are expensive to run on large scale.

[VWWHFSfQ]

The difference is that when a sidewalk or park is ruined and un-walkable then it's cheap and easy to just put up some orange cones. So the cost of failure is basically zero.

Not the case with the 4 train, or the L, or the 2-3. Those trains can't fail. So it's very expensive to make sure they don't. Nobody cares if Madison Square Park is blocked off for a day. (Maybe except the vagrants).

But the city will literally grind to a halt if the green or red lines aren't running.