[myrmidon]

> Discounts are fine. Free riding isn’t.

Why not? Could you not make a pretty strong argument that avoided negative externalities (CO2 and air pollution from car engines and tires) make public transport worthwhile by itself, and just fund transport by taxing those (gas/cars)?

Saves you all the infrastructure for billing/access control and some enforcement, too.

[SllX]

1) it’s a funding source for transit agencies which are already facing shortfalls and at the mercy of voters for any tax increases or bonds.

2) we want public transit to be exclusionary on a fee-basis to exclude people who generally will not be able to pay for it on their own in order to avoid tragedy of the commons situations which actually suppress ridership by people who can afford to pay the fee: vagrants, criminals and people who smoke crack on the trains.

If you live in a region of the world that doesn’t have these issues, great, do what you want. We’re talking about the Bay Area specifically, and the thing keeping BART ridership down is that people don’t want to ride BART because it sucks. The actual service is mostly fine. The issue lies in the people.

I also have no interest in subsidizing the people I know can afford to pay. In the years prior to the new fare gates being installed, I could walk off MUNI and just casually catch every type of person from every type of walk of life, and by that I mean mostly regular commuters with decent paying jobs, just casually free loading because they could.

[ProfessorLayton]

>we want public transit to be exclusionary on a fee-basis to exclude people who generally will not be able to pay for it ...

Public transit should be free (Or very inexpensive) to anyone who wants to use it. It's better for the environment, people's wallets, and the transit system itself if it was disconnected from ticket revenue. BART can certainly do more to enforce cleanliness and making sure no one is doing drugs on the trains, but that also requires more funding.

>I also have no interest in subsidizing the people I know can afford to pay.

Cars are subsidized endlessly via roads, associated maintenance, and parking on public property that could otherwise be used for something more productive. Many people with decent paying jobs own multiple cars banking on the fact that they can use public property to store their personal car, so they're also casually freeloading.

Living in a car-dependent world significantly drives up housing costs for everyone in the region. Many of BART's stations are surrounded by and zoned exclusively for single family homes with a lawn and a garage, which is ridiculous.

[SllX]

> Public transit should be free (Or very inexpensive) to anyone who wants to use it. It's better for the environment, people's wallets, and the transit system itself if it was disconnected from ticket revenue. BART can certainly do more to enforce cleanliness and making sure no one is doing drugs on the trains, but that also requires more funding.

The only mode of transportation that is truly free is walking. BART is already the economical choice compared to the $8 bridge tolls plus gas, but cutting off an existing revenue source hoping to increase service is either going to degrade service frequency, service quality, or both.

> Cars are subsidized endlessly via roads, associated maintenance, and parking on public property that could otherwise be used for something more productive. Many people with decent paying jobs own multiple cars banking on the fact that they can use public property to store their personal car, so they're also casually freeloading.

This is out-of-scope, but I have literally zero issues with making driving more expensive, however this also isn't the counter that you think it is. Both Bay Area roads and Bay Area public transit agencies are subsidized, in addition to having associated fees that add to the cost of each of them.

> Living in a car-dependent world significantly drives up housing costs for everyone in the region. Many of BART's stations are surrounded by and zoned exclusively for single family homes with a lawn and a garage, which is ridiculous.

Once again, out-of-scope, but I have literally zero issue with and would even advocate for upzoning around BART. I still would not make BART free after doing so.

[nartho]

>2) we want public transit to be exclusionary on a fee-basis to exclude people who generally will not be able to pay for it on their own in order to avoid tragedy of the commons situations which actually suppress ridership by people who can afford to pay the fee: vagrants, criminals and people who smoke crack on the trains.

These demographics have no issue jumping the gates/going through with someone else, are already present, and will be whether the ride is $1 or $1000. You're just excluding the honest people who can't afford it. I also don't know what makes you think that criminals have to be poor and can't afford a ride.

> I could walk off MUNI and just casually catch every type of person from every type of walk of life, and by that I mean mostly regular commuters with decent paying jobs, just casually free loading because they could.

I'm envious of your ability to access people's bank accounts and occupations by looking at them.

[SllX]

> These demographics have no issue jumping the gates/going through with someone else, are already present, and will be whether the ride is $1 or $1000. You're just excluding the honest people who can't afford it. I also don't know what makes you think that criminals have to be poor and can't afford a ride.

Something you may have missed in this discussion is that BART has hardened its most frequently-used gates and is still in the process of hardening all of them with new fare gates and other infrastructure. This has noticeably decreased the frequency in which people are casually engaging in theft of service. In all of Downtown San Francisco with the new fare gates installed, you can't just step over them anymore, nor is circumventing them a subtle and quick matter.

> I'm envious of your ability to access people's bank accounts and occupations by looking at them.

It doesn't require magic to look at someone and assess their clothes, the items they're carrying and general hygiene and clock that with the time of day, or even figure out what their occupation is: mostly office workers and others who work in downtown San Francisco. Most of BART's passengers are commuters with jobs after all, they're not just riding it for fun which is what you would expect from a commuter rail system. Paying for transportation whether that is the bridge toll or the BART ticket is each person's responsibility, and notably there are tax incentives for public transportation within the Bay Area already, and as I noted up thread, plenty of discounts.

[simoncion]

> Paying for transportation whether that is the bridge toll or the BART ticket is each person's responsibility...

Sure. And you can do that with taxes, rather than charging at point-of-use.

I mean, we (very wisely) subsidize the absolute hell out of road construction and maintenance, and noone bats an eye. Folks get weirdly up in arms when the method of transportation being subsidized doesn't require a (typically) many-thousand-dollar up-front investment to use.

[SllX]

> Sure. And you can do that with taxes, rather than charging at point-of-use.

Just because you can do something doesn’t mean you should. As I addressed way above this comment chain:

> 1) it’s a funding source for transit agencies which are already facing shortfalls and at the mercy of voters for any tax increases or bonds.

Having a funding source tied to use is also pretty nice if you want to financially justify further BART expansions in e.g. the directions of Tracy/Stockton, Santa Cruz, Vallejo or an in-fill Diablo Valley run from Martinez to Pleasanton and provide more comprehensive coverage. It’s also nice to keep it segregated from having to compete within the legislature and on the ballot with highways.

> I mean, we (very wisely) subsidize the absolute hell out of road construction and maintenance, and noone bats an eye. Folks get weirdly up in arms when the method of transportation being subsidized doesn't require a (typically) many-thousand-dollar up-front investment to use.

We also subsidize the hell out of BART and public transportation. There isn’t a single mode of transportation within and between cities that isn’t heavily subsidized by the government. Maybe a smattering of fully private roads somewhere.

Those subsidies are also not mutually exclusive with direct fees for service and direct fees and taxes (e.g. vehicle registration and fuel taxes), nor do they justify removing fee-for-service from BART.

[simoncion]

> Just because you can do something doesn’t mean you should.

Just because you can do something doesn't mean you shouldn't.

> We also subsidize the hell out of BART...

For ages, BART crowed about how it got like 80->95% of its operating expenses from rider fares. If what you're saying is true, then one or more of the following must be true:

1) The BART directors were lying to the public

2) This change in funding mix happened when BART ridership fell off a cliff as folks fled the SF Bay Area

3) Rider fares have never actually been expected to cover system expansions to any significant degree

If #3 is true, then it seems to me that talking about fares in conjunction with future system expansions is totally pointless and a waste of time.

> Having a funding source tied to use is also pretty nice if you want to financially justify further BART expansions...

And yet we frequently build new roadways without any significant usage-based funding.

> Those subsidies are also not mutually exclusive with direct fees for service and direct fees and taxes...

Duh.

> ...nor do they justify removing fee-for-service from BART.

Nope, not in isolation. Of course not.

> As I addressed way above this comment chain:...

As you also said way above this comment chain:

> [I support suppressing] ridership by people who can['t] afford to pay the fee: vagrants, criminals and people who smoke crack on the trains.

On this, we disagree. I'm going to be kind and assume that the important part of your expressed concern is crime. The criminals are on trains with well-known stops; they're simply not going to force their way off of the train between stops. Like many other municipal railways BART has its own police force. Deploy the BART cops and get the bad guys at the next stop.

You might argue that this will be expensive, or that it will be ineffective. I'd argue that criminals have been able to jump over the faregates for nearly fifty years, so this thing we're discussing isn't a new problem.

[darth_avocado]

Contrary to the popular belief, more ridership makes it more safe and less dangerous. Pretending that a fee excludes the less desirable is laughable. Plenty of people that you describe, ride the trains even now, they just don’t pay the fee. By adding the fee you’re mostly excluding the people who would ride it if it were free: law abiding people who work hard to provide for their families, but can’t afford the fee.

And as for funding shortfall, it’s a self fulfilling prophecy. You don’t fund transit, the agency needs to make cuts, making it less reliable, less safe and reducing capacity. Once that happens, even fewer people ride transit, creating even more funding deficits. This also increases the unwillingness of people to fund transit.

We use similar funding structures for roads all the time. Everyone pays, and people who own cars get to drive to their suburbs 50 miles away from the city. I don’t see people complaining about that at any point in time.

[SllX]

> Contrary to the popular belief, more ridership makes it more safe and less dangerous. Pretending that a fee excludes the less desirable is laughable. Plenty of people that you describe, ride the trains even now, they just don’t pay the fee. By adding the fee you’re mostly excluding the people who would ride it if it were free: law abiding people who work hard to provide for their families, but can’t afford the fee.

I've repeated this a couple of times already responding here, so clearly there's a bunch of people chiming in that just haven't on BART recently or haven't taken it into downtown San Francisco or Oakland. BART is currently in the process of hardening the paid areas against casual theft of service. IIRC most of their fare infrastructure has already been upgraded with the new gates that you can't just step over, nor even easily hop or climb over. There are still weak links, but it has had a noticeable impact. Beyond that, you should note that taking BART is the economic option, so if someone is law abiding and needs to get to work, then unless they live right by their job or have no commute at all, they're probably taking BART and paying for it.

> We use similar funding structures for roads all the time. Everyone pays, and people who own cars get to drive to their suburbs 50 miles away from the city. I don’t see people complaining about that at any point in time.

We use a mix of both fees and tax subsidies for both BART and public roads. If you have to cross a bridge and you're taking public transportation, you're paying at a minimum $8 plus gas which includes gas taxes which non-drivers are not paying for directly. Your other option is the Ferry which is like $9 or something like that.

[marcinzm]

Because capitalistic incentives work. More riders = more money => incentive to get more riders. More riders = more cost/hassle => incentive to have fewer riders.