[II2II]

The real benefits come from eliminating fares.

While I have never lived in a place with free transit, I have lived in places where it was possible to board trains without passing through fare gates and certain busses through the rear exit. It is amazing how much faster boarding is. They probably face some lost fares, but the benefit of faster travel times outweigh the cost.

I also think that those criticizing free fares are disingenuous. None of those cities had problems with (insert stereotypical undesirable group) using public transit. If anything, there were fewer issues because everyone was more inclined to behave since there were more eyes on the trains and busses.

EDIT: it's also worth noting that collecting money costs money. That's especially noticeable when upgrading to (or to new) electronic fare systems, but it's also true when using things like tickets and cash. It probably doesn't mean such in the cities I've lived in ($3+ fares), but I'll bet it accounts for a lot more in cities that charge $0.50 or $1 fares.

[protocolture]

>The real benefits come from eliminating fares.

IIRC the 50 cent fares allow them to still charge ridiculous fines for fare evasion, keeping the Queensland Rail rentacops in business.

Most non metro stations only have tap on pillars and no fare gates anyway, and I think the inner city fare gates that still exist are on the list for removal.

The 50 cents also allowed them to track the changing usage profile and justify it by the explosion of use. Its basically self reporting that you used the system, and the origin and destination of your trip. Otherwise they would need to install foot traffic counters at train and bus stations and still end up with incomplete data.

It wasnt just super popular, it was that the data showed such a dramatic uptick in usage, which carried over to numbers of cars removed from the roads etc.

Probably took 5 minutes out of my normal commute, and that's in reduced vehicle traffic, I don't use the system at all except to take my kiddo to the museum on weekends. Benefits tracked to all punters results in an absolutely untouchable policy change.

[mixmastamyk]

I’ve lived in civilized places, but uncivilized is probably more common: https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2023-03-14/horror-t...

[runako]

It's shockingly easy to scare some people away from public transit. Same city, private transport:

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2025-08-13/carjacki...

Personally, I would rather be on a bus with someone high on drugs than be carjacked at gunpoint.

[noduerme]

Here in Portland, riders can get high just by licking the windows.

https://www.kgw.com/article/news/health/trimet-max-fentanyl-...

[dwd]

When you have the electronic ticketing system already in place like Brisbane it makes sense to use it to monitor usage, so you can precisely see each journey, and better plan scheduling and expansion. For example, you would be able to see how many people pass through the two CBD stations crossing the North/South divide in the network. The new Cross River Rail expansion for example will be the first line that doesn't pass through Central.

[protocolture]

Bit of a bugbear of mine, but the cross river rail project is mostly a stopgap. Brisbane really needed standard gauge and double decker trains before it became so built up. We are already at trains per minute capacity for some of the inner city bridges, and duplication in the inner city is highly destructive. If we could increase the capacity of the vehicles themselves we would be way better off. But the cheap/compromise position is to just bypass the problem entirely.

Whats worse is that, theres a certain perspective, one of declining CBD use, where cross river rail makes a mountain of sense. But in that case we should be bypassing the CBD with a lot of room for expansion, ie, 8 lines worth of track. But this isnt being done either.

>When you have the electronic ticketing system already in place like Brisbane it makes sense to use it to monitor usage

This and being able to continue charging fines is why it was left in place 100%

[mdnahas]

> None of those cities had problems with (insert stereotypical undesirable group) using public transit.

Austin. Tried it and rolled it back.

It was before my time here but I’ve heard: Homeless camped on the buses. Bored teens hung out on the buses riding nowhere and making trouble. Bus drivers demanded the change back.

I’m an economist and YIMBY activist. Only 10% to 15% of the Austin bus system budget comes from fares. (Most is a 1% sales tax.) I’d love to make the buses free. But it has negatives.

[Aurornis]

> I also think that those criticizing free fares are disingenuous. None of those cities had problems with (insert stereotypical undesirable group) using public transit.

I’ve lived in two cities with free fare zones: Subsections of public transport where no fares are collected, but if you want to go outside of the zone you need to buy a ticket.

The free fare zones were far more likely to have people causing problems. It’s not just “undesirable groups”. It’s people stealing your stuff if you aren’t paying attention, stalking women, creating messes, or just harassing people who want to be left alone.

Then you’d leave the free fare zone and see almost none of that. It was night and day different. This was within the same city, same mode of transport. The only difference was that one vehicle had someone maybe checking your fare 1/10 times and writing a ticket if you didn’t have it, while the other you were guaranteed not to encounter anyone checking tickets and could ride as long as you wanted.

I don’t think it’s fair to dismiss anyone concerned about this. Unless you have sufficient enforcement to go along with it and the enforcers are empowered to deal with people who are causing problems, having free fares can be a real problem.

It was nice to not have to deal with ticket purchases when going to a sporting event or meeting up with friends at a bar, but this was mostly before apps came along anyway. I don’t go out as much now that I’m older but using the apps to buy tickets is trivially easy. Even the tickets by stations will accept tap to pay from phones making it much more convenient than my younger days.

[komali2]

> It’s not just “undesirable groups”. It’s people stealing your stuff if you aren’t paying attention, stalking women, creating messes, or just harassing people who want to be left alone.

This seems to be a symptom, not a cause. The free zone, let me guess, more densely populated, city center area, and the not free zone, a bit less urban? Smells like income disparity zoning.

I mean if you think about, doesn't it seem a bit off to suggest that the prevalence of crime would be affected by whether a bus is free or not? My instinct is to get further into why there's crime happening at all, on or off bus. Why does it happen there, and not e.g. here in Taipei? Or other places with tons of public transit going on and very low crime, like Japan? The PRC?

[Aurornis]

> This seems to be a symptom, not a cause. The free zone, let me guess, more densely populated, city center area, and the not free zone, a bit less urban?

The free fare zone was only included a subset of the city and only applied to certain modes of transportation.

> Smells like income disparity zoning.

Not really. I don’t see why it’s hard to believe that areas with no enforcement are a draw for people who want to e.g. ride a warm train than the areas with enforcement.

> I mean if you think about, doesn't it seem a bit off to suggest that the prevalence of crime would be affected by whether a bus is free or not?

No? It’s not just crime, it’s harassment, antisocial behavior, and other things that are not strictly crimes but you don’t want to be around. A lot of crimes are crimes of opportunity where someone strikes because they’re in the same place as you and see an opening. The more time they’re in the place, the more opportunities for those crimes.

[andriamanitra]

> No? It’s not just crime, it’s harassment, antisocial behavior, and other things that are not strictly crimes but you don’t want to be around. A lot of crimes are crimes of opportunity where someone strikes because they’re in the same place as you and see an opening. The more time they’re in the place, the more opportunities for those crimes.

Isolating people from each other is a really dystopian "solution" to reduce crime and antisocial behavior. Things naturally tend to happen more when people come together – in both good and bad. The good usually outweighs the bad by a wide margin.

[wat10000]

In most systems, fares just about cover the cost of collecting fares. They contribute little if anything to operating expenses. Their effect is to limit usage. That could be desirable, but usually not.

[IncreasePosts]

I've tried to calculate this for the New York City Metro, but they spend about $1 billion per year collecting $5 billion per year, out of a budget of $20 billion per year. Year so they would need to make up about $4 billion per year if they were to eliminate fare collection, or increase the budget by 20%.

In my mind it would be a no-brainer for all the benefits you would get from free service, but 20% increase in cost is not an easy sell - especially when a lot of people paying tax on it never go to NYC

[HPsquared]

If more people use it, the operating cost will increase. So it'll be a bit more than 20%.

[PaulHoule]

… or service quality deteriorates. Political support for free buses you can’t actually ride collapses.

[wat10000]

I’m getting a real feeling of “nobody goes there anymore, it’s too crowded.”

[bardak]

While we should never expect public transit to be self funding removing fares removes the ability for transit funds to scale with ridership, there is a reason that farebox ratios are correlated with ridership.

[kiba]

It's self funding in places like Japan and Hong Kong, but these places also engage in value capture. Train services in these places are basically real estate companies with trains attached to them. They diversified by making train stations shopping malls.

In any case, cities can engage in value capture for public transportation. Just direct some of the property taxes collected directed to public transit. Even better would be some sort of LVT, ideally but not necessary 100% of the economic rent from land.

In any case, public transit should also engage in value capture on their own property. If they own a train station, they should consider building on top or adjacent to it spaces that they can then rent out to tenants. It's not only efficient but also serve the public and the local economy and making public transit more economical to run due to higher ridership.

[nine_k]

NYC also has subway stations with intense commerce, e.g. the Columbus Circle, or some bits around Herald Square. As a regular user, I find this convenient.

Almost every smaller station shows ads on walls, too, and every train carriers ads inside.

I don't see why the subway specifically could not be self-sufficient, or even a profit center. Sadly, this is not so, because of very large expenses, not because of low revenue.

[smelendez]

Brick and mortar shopping really seems to be struggling in the US since covid, though. It’s possible some transit systems could add malls above some of their stations, but a lot of cities still have persistently high retail vacancies, and even suburban malls aren’t what they were a few decades ago.

And urban malls and chain stores are frankly often depressing — awkward layouts translated imperfectly from suburban sprawl, along with obviously underpaid and burned out staff.

[Spooky23]

Japan uses employer subsidy to break even. It a below the line tax in the same way health insurance is in the US.

[EE84M3i]

What do you mean by employer subsidy here? Are you referring to the system where employers reimburse the costs of transit fees for commutes?

Many companies in Tokyo prevent their employees from commuting by car (legally commute is covered by workers comp insurance, and many companies do not elect the more expensive car coverage option) - so even in the absence of workers paying for the commute, public transit (or bike/walk) would be the only realistic option.

[ericmay]

> They diversified by making train stations shopping malls.

Like airports in America. We should pursue a similar path for our rail stations and, frankly, ensure they are heading toward locations that are walkable and connected.

[II2II]

Sure, yet it also established a double standard. In my neck of the woods, most busses operate on municipal roads. Municipal roads are funded by municipal taxes, and the municipality does not have the right to charge fuel taxes. The revenue that they collect from drivers is from parking and parking permits in a tiny fraction of the city, as well as property taxes on the low value land used for parking lots. City council would face a bloodbath if they tried to increase revenues for road maintenance directly from road users. Never mind asking those users cover the cost of appropriating land and new road construction, which is being driven by the excessive use of vehicles that are occupied by one or two people. Yet transit users are typically expected to fund about half of transit operations. If they're lucky, the provincial or federal government will throw some money their way for new busses.

[rootusrootus]

It's hard to draw a direct comparison because people who never drive still benefit significantly from the existence of the roads. It might be possible to drill down far enough so that it was charged directly to every use case for the road, but I bet it would end up in about the same place in the end but with a lot more bureaucracy.

[wat10000]

People who never use public transit still benefit from its existence too.