What is Digg?172 Comments
- whataboutdave, on 10/10/2007, -12/+92Nothing is "free". Try "tax-subsidized".
- troymcdavis, on 10/10/2007, -9/+41Most places in the US just don't have the population density to make public transportation feasible.
- gerbalblaste, on 10/10/2007, -7/+34having lived in two communities with free (ok, subsidized) transportation it works amazingly well. Everyone uses the system if they can, the city can recoup a lot of the expense through advertising on buses and such. IT also acts as a sort of class equalizer, provided intelligent placement of bus stops, etc.
- slut, on 10/10/2007, -5/+32If only we'd spent 500 Billion in America on a public transportation system rather than 500 Billion in Iraq for oil. Makes you wonder.
- ajb2015, on 10/10/2007, -9/+35Free in that you would not need a metro card. And so what if it is paid for with taxes, I'd rather my tax dollars go towards helping the average citizen than dropping a bomb on someone half a world a way.
- EntropyMan, on 10/10/2007, -3/+21I don't know about you, but I pee freely.
- diggumup, on 10/10/2007, -16/+34The car is the ultimate symbol of freedom in the U.S.A . It allows the American to travel huge distances, at a fast speed, at an absurdly low cost (travel an average of 20 miles for only $2.70 current average) whenever they want, wherever they want. The idea of public transportation, even if free, is so antithetical to a personal automobile that the vast majority of them would rather be stuck on a backed up stretch of highway in their car choking on the very air pollution that they are creating at the end of their own exhaust pipe than ever step on a public bus or rail.
- inactive, on 10/10/2007, -15/+32Free? Only the air you breathe is free.
- Aupajo, on 10/10/2007, -3/+19Best to leave America then :)
But seriously, my country (New Zealand) has free public transport in my city for inner-city travelling, and it definitely works. - ShadySpace, on 10/10/2007, -1/+17500 billion on transportation? If we dedicated that much cash to it we'd all be teleporting by now.
- Bartboy919, on 10/10/2007, -7/+22You mean it costs money to pee in a public restroom? I am gunna be so broke.
- ZiggityZhang, on 10/10/2007, -4/+18Why stop there? Let's get rid of police and firefighters too! A pay-per-use Police force sounds great!
- GMorgan, on 10/10/2007, -0/+14It costs tax money.
- DivisibleByZero, on 10/10/2007, -0/+13Why does the free part matter? I pay like $30 a month to ride the bus. If I drove to work every day, that'd run me like $50 a week.
Making it free isn't going to get more people to ride the bus. Convenience is the big problem. The bus here only runs every half an hour, takes twice as long to get me where I'm going, and isn't reliable enough to show up at the stop on time, so my commute ends up taking anywhere between 45 and 75 minutes, whereas driving would take 15.
Find a way to make public transportation more convenient, and more people will use it. - hipnerd, on 10/10/2007, -6/+19Just like people pay for schools their children don't go to and roads they don't personally drive on. It's called infrastructure, and improving it can have both direct and indirect benefits for everyone, with better air quality being the most obvious.
- jmpeagle, on 10/10/2007, -1/+13you realize out highway system is a huge socialist subsidized commodity (excluding toll roads). If they priced roads better, more people would take public transportation.
- danubecities, on 10/10/2007, -2/+14The government subsidizes cars to a great extent. The roads you drive on aren't free. Gas is artificially cheap too. Then there's car insurance, maintaining your car, etc. The true cost of car ownership far exceeds the cost of mass transit. Most Americans spend near a quarter of their salaries on private transportation (cars). Buses and trains in the U.S. are about as good as in most developing countries. I'd much rather have my taxes go toward a decent mass transit system rather than subsidizing everyone else's cars. Or better yet, eliminate all taxes for building roads and transit and let the market decide where money should go. There should be incentives for private companies to start their own mass transit operations. Already many companies in the Bay Area operate their own private transit systems for their employees since public transit is so deficient. These transit systems are much better than anything the public sector would offer.
- reubencm, on 10/10/2007, -0/+11im not convinced that it is the cost that stops people from using public transprt. there are so many other factors, it just isnt convinient in most cases, and i think that is more of a pressing issue than cost.
- mishabear, on 10/10/2007, -0/+11I agree to a point. The auto does bring freedom but we are also finding that people when "forced" to bus for the first time actually find it relaxing enough to start using it more often. We recently had some freeway work done on I-5 in the Seattle area and people who never used the train or busses before found the experience enlightening. I can't say how many of those people continued to drive/bus into work but the experience was pleasant and memorable for many. At least it's a start. Park and Ride lots also make the experience easier for many. Like a previous poster stated, "Most places in the US just don't have the population density to make public transportation feasible". The Park and Ride lots allows the system to reach further into rural areas making public transportation more feasible.
Of course this only works when people are en route to a central "downtown" area or on a bus route along the way. Many people (like me) live and work rural and work odd hours so public transportation is not an option. - mbrane, on 10/10/2007, -3/+13Let's take a closer look at Public Transit -- it is nothing more than people traveling collectively together. Collectivism = Socialism = Godless Communism. Some cities even paint their buses red -- what more evidence do you need that mass transit is a Marxist-Leninist Bolshevik plot dreamed up by baby-eating fellow travellers intent on destroying the hallowed right of the SUV owner to spew tons of carbon into their air.
Remember, its un-american to care about the environment; the world was given to America to rule. - Zap2, on 10/10/2007, -4/+14yes, but every city does....put it in action there!
- TheFinaleofSeem, on 10/10/2007, -0/+10That just means that we need to fix people. That's what you might as well say.
- hipnerd, on 10/10/2007, -4/+14I'd like the air I breathe to be free of petrochemicals and other pollutants. Free public transportation would help with that,
- bacon_skoda, on 10/10/2007, -5/+14Why tax-subsidized transport would work.
- GMorgan, on 10/10/2007, -3/+12It wouldn't work. Free at least. If free then there is a disjunction between supply and demand (as usual with state interference). Suddenly the price (nothing) does not represent the supply (limited). The demand would be disproportionately high in comparison to the supply and the system would come grinding to a halt.
This is also why roads tend to be congested to begin with. Because there is no direct cost per mile driven on the road (and no tariffs for different times of day) the roads are effectively free. You are charged the same no matter how you use them so a disjunction occurs here. There is no increased funding to account for increased road usage (especially at peak time) and as a result no drive to solve the problem.
If you really want to make the transport system work then charge people per mile driven at with tariffs for different roads and at different times. Then charge for the congestion impact per vehicle (i.e. a bus has a lower congestion impact per passenger than a car by a factor of about 10). This way the cost on car drivers at peak time in congested areas increases dramatically and public transport becomes more viable there, in rural areas where cars are more viable their costs actually decrease. A system that is both fair and practical, there is no chance any government will ever introduce it.
Of course in my country road tax on all types of transport gets ripped off for other things in any case and that's the first thing to fix. - dt40, on 10/10/2007, -5/+13So you would prefer that the government stop building roads?
- otatop, on 10/10/2007, -2/+10It does in France. Or at least it did last time I was there.
- JavertHolmes, on 10/10/2007, -0/+7I would pay extra in bus/subway fares to ride vehicles that have no passengers who think I want to hear the latest top 40 song on their cell phone/public MP3 player.
- harlowsmonkeys, on 10/10/2007, -0/+7The problem with public transportation in general is that it is not sufficient to replace my car. To make it sufficient (using buses for an example), they need to have frequent buses, 24/7, with dense coverage, AND they need to commit to keeping routes even if those routes get few passengers. But what usually happens is that someone decides that the routes that don't make money need to be closed down, and then you end up with sparse coverage, or only coverage during peak hours. And that means I can't rely on the bus. I've got to keep a car for those occasions when my transportation needs go beyond the most popular routes and peak hours.
But then I'm likely to use my car, for the convenience, even on those occasions when my transportation needs happen to align with what the buses provide.
Public transportation systems need to be treated as *systems*, not as collections of routes that can be individually shut down. Until that is done, they won't work, whether free or for pay. - Dumbledorito, on 10/10/2007, -2/+9For a good example of what a privately owned transport system (in this case, an interstate) looks like, drive I-35 between Wichita and Oklahoma. You're welcome to pay the toll for use, and you're welcome to get off on any exit free of charge... so long as the exit leads to a McDonalds and Philips 66.
Government and private industry make us take it up the ass. The problem with private industry is that it often gets government to allow them to boff me sans lube at twice the price so some CEO can have a second yacht. - harlowsmonkeys, on 10/10/2007, -4/+11Because if 50 people have a bus to ride and so don't take their cars, that's 50 less cars you have to contend with when you drive. Think about that next time you are stuck in traffic.
- bacon_skoda, on 10/10/2007, -1/+8i was hoping we can drop 500 billion solar panels in the USA.
- TheFinaleofSeem, on 10/10/2007, -1/+7Good public transit works in heavy metro areas (like NYC, for instance, which has excellent public transit), but free? You try maintaining trains, subways, and buses without charging something to use it and not dumping tons of money into it that could go to other areas.
- aethelberga, on 10/10/2007, -0/+6One of the main reasons you will never get people out of cars and onto public transportation is that the car is also an extension of the personal space. Once you leave work and get into the car, you are already "home", so to speak. It has your music, you can smoke, have a coffee and, most importantly, you are alone. Even if you face a pig of a commute, you are doing it in your own space.
- dynamitehacker, on 10/10/2007, -3/+8'Nothing is "free". Try "tax-subsidized".'
Just like our free roads and highways. - thebrawl, on 10/10/2007, -5/+10Stop calling taxed things free. You could save a lot more money by not starting yet another inefficient overpriced government run program. If public transportation really saves money then go start a public transportation company. People will pay for your buss rides if it really saves them money. That's what used to make America great - FREEdom of choice.
- warragul, on 10/10/2007, -0/+5In our city we were told it cost over 90% of the fare just to collect it. And that was with subsidised fares. So they sacked the station staff and the conductors. Now fares cost even more and fare-evasion is rife. Might as well be free for some people. All that free money from gambling (and why not prostitution) could do some good. Free public transport would do so much good.
- slut, on 10/10/2007, -1/+6Thats the point, we wouldn't even need that much.
- JavertHolmes, on 10/10/2007, -4/+9If it makes you feel any better, Thall, cities usually give out more money in taxes to the rest of the country than they get back in services.
Take Toronto for example: http://www.fraserinstitute.ca/shared/readmore.asp? ... - crash331, on 10/10/2007, -1/+5It certainly does. Maybe not immediately. But if you piss in a Starbucks then they have a higher water bill, then they must start making more profits in order to pay for the higher water bill, and the only way to make more profits is to charge more or reduce costs.
So your 5 buck latte now either tastes like ***** or will cost $5.50. - Waterrat, on 10/10/2007, -1/+5 It's not just the poor that use public transit...Lots of average folks use it...Blind and visually impaired use it, the elderly use it,kids who can't drive use it,, tourists use it,etc.
- akatherder, on 10/10/2007, -1/+5Take a city like Detroit. Almost everyone who works downtown lives in the suburbs 30-60 minutes away. Am I going to drive an hour, park my car and hop on a bus for the last 5 miles?
- islingt0ner, on 10/10/2007, -17/+21public good always work in theory.
- thall, on 10/10/2007, -2/+6Free markets heavily restricted by government aren't free at all. The government either needs to be all in (regulate and fund) or all out (no regulation and no funding), this half-in/half-out mix of regulation without funding is what's screwing it up as it creates a legal but unchecked monopoly.
- it5five, on 10/10/2007, -0/+4I am so sick of capitalist pigs invading digg.
The private/free market is NOT ALWAYS RIGHT. - pw378, on 10/10/2007, -0/+3and now 'Oxygen bars' are showing up in the malls....
- Aupajo, on 10/10/2007, -1/+4...for now...
- PhantomBantam, on 10/10/2007, -3/+6Wait, you believe that? Do you have any idea how heavily regulated the health care industry is? Do you really think ***** HMOs arose from the free market? The fact that the US government pays more on health care per GDP than any other country is not a sign of incredible influence in the running of the health system?
- jmknsd, on 10/10/2007, -2/+5something like this is usually paid for at the city level, right?
- reddevil3, on 10/10/2007, -0/+3In Gainesville FL the bus system works surprisingly well (not perfect of course). I'm quite pleased with it. But as everywhere it should be left up to the states/cities/etc.
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