Comment on From what I've seen, public transit is either expensive and terrible or cheap and good.

• theneverfox@pawb.social ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  The best ones don’t bother, because collecting fares is expensive and slows everything down

  You can have self funded infrastructure, it can work, but it just seems like a bad solution. It’s a weakness. All it takes is one leader throwing a wrench in the process, and the whole thing unbalances and you get a death spiral

  But if it’s free? Even if maintenance is neglected for a time, there’s no feedback loop

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  • Fredthefishlord@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    All it takes is one leader throwing a wrench in the process

    Btw self funded insulates from that. You can have a committee run it and it blocks a lot of the politics from mattering for it

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    • theneverfox@pawb.social ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      Might as well make it a public private partnership, right? Then you have total insulation.

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  • Fredthefishlord@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    The best ones don’t bother, because collecting fares is expensive and slows everything down

    That’s simply untrue. the best public transit system on earth collects fees, and no, it doesn’t slow things down any significant level because it’s just tapping as you walk by

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    • theneverfox@pawb.social ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      It’s a schedule that includes buses… You’re going to have the odd person who either isn’t ready, doesn’t have enough on their account, or doesn’t understand the system, and each one knocks the schedule off by 20-40 seconds. You’ve also got lines at the machines, you’ve got overhead to track all this… None of that is free, especially not the man hours

      I’ve used really really great paid public transport… It just does not compare to when it’s also free. More people use it, people act less entitled, it’s just a better experience

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