[ncruces]

Basically free is not free.

The point of buses is to replace cars, not short walks.

If you make it so that everybody who could walk 5min takes a bus, the bus will have to stop more often - and for longer - which makes it worse for the people who can't just walk 5min.

The trick is to balance the system so that buses (and other forms of transit) are cheaper - and approximately as convenient - as cars, without making them cheaper and more convenient than walking (for those who can still walk).

Fares don't necessarily need to be about financing the system. They can be about setting the correct incentives, and ensuring people value the service they're getting.

[mckn1ght]

Another solution that’s already used to help mitigate increased stop frequency is express routes that connect farther endpoints together.

[sudosysgen]

It's very unlikely people are actually going to take the bus for a 5 minute walk : the wait time for the bus is going to be on that order of magnitude and you'd need your route to be perfectly aligned and have perfect stop placement for that to happen.

Most likely, you will have extra trips because people won't feel the need to justify the fare.

[ncruces]

That's not true on a major avenue that serves 10 different routes, which combined have a frequency of one every couple of minutes.

Also, it doesn't help to make bus stops more spaced, and you may not want a bunch of express routes that skip most stops, because another purpose of buses is to help people with difficulty moving (like the elderly), for whom it's not a 5min walk.

You just want to make the service available, and as good as possible, without incentivising people who could just walk to use it.

Because the actual goal is to displace cars (not walkers, or cyclists, or…)

[rsynnott]

> If you make it so that everybody who could walk 5min takes a bus, the bus will have to stop more often - and for longer - which makes it worse for the people who can't just walk 5min.

... Eh?

I often hit the leap card weekly cap (24 eur) in Dublin. This absolutely does not lead me to take a bus instead of walking for five minutes, because that would be _insane_. Like, maybe there are a few people who despise walking to an unreasonable extent and do this, but it would not be common. If it was, you'd see people doing it anywhere which has a fare cap (ie. most cities, these days).