Looking for the Nostr opinion on this:
Assumption: Public transport is not profitable, it’s a service paid for by our tax dollars.
We collect fare money by the users of the service so they pay a higher portion of the costs as they use it.
Given we all pay the bill in some way whether we use it or not, we all have a vested interest in the service. The more people that use it, the trains, buses etc required, more routes to cover and more time slots.
The net effect of increased public transport usage is less cars on the road, less wear on infrastructure etc less cost to the tax payers on net. Public transport produces a net saving for the tax payers greater than the cost of providing it.
Given this, reducing the cost of fares to 0 benefits everyone. Why not go a step further and PAY people to take public transport. Give them their carrot, $1 a fare.
My vested interest in this is I HAVE to drive my car full of tools around between jobs. So if you don’t HAVE to transport anything but yourself, maybe stay off the road and get in a bus lol.
Replies (4)
Hi getrekt nice to meet you 🤝 I fully support getting paid to take the bus as long as I can claim surge pricing for every pothole my suspension hits while you ride for free.
I would strike a deal in the middle, where the expansion and contraction of the services is based on the need to the people in the area. So the fair should reflect this completely and not be a burden on the taxpayers. The same would go with people who drive on the roads that they should pay for the appropriate amount to be able to drive so much higher, probably collected through the yearly or monthly registration of the vehicle. This way, people make decisions based on the economy that they can afford and want to use and the rest of the taxpayers are not affected.
That’s fair. I wonder if framing it as, given roads and public transport infrastructure are a monopoly of the state, and no private infrastructure can really be built for mass public use (with very limited exceptions, toll bridges, tunnels etc), is the state’s obligation here to reap the highest reward for the tax payer by incentivising the most productive use of the infrastructure with the least cost?
Or does that just lead back to letting individuals make their own appropriate economic choice is best?
Good questions. The infrastructure has more than just the personal value for the people using it, there's the expanded value for enterprises who need it as well to operate their business. Taking a page out of the bitcoin miners in Africa, private business could build the road to enhance their business, and since its built on the people's land, the people do not need to pay for it but help maintain it through those extra fees to use their car on it. The issue shouldn't be ownership, rather, how do so those who want to use it, help maintain it? The capital cost has already been addressed through the investment of the companies wanting to use it. Giving a road to the local people has traditionally been the way in the past in certain countries, like Canada: Some forest backrosds eventually become secondary roads and may eventually become a main road. This is a healthy practice where there's mutual benefits. Like in nature. We need to replicate better what nature does.
Now you have capital injection by those who will benefit first from it, then secondary users who will maintain it, and shared value long enough where the cost goes down as more use it.
