Liberation from false belief -- opens new doors

Liberation from false belief -- opens new doors

Liberating oneself from false belief may be one of the most powerful freedoms. It is also something which carfree cities advocates should be used to doing: escaping from the myth that cars are necessary for movement opens a whole new world of possibilities and makes many otherwise obscured truths evident.Carbusters

Fareless public transport - "definitely the way to go"

By Aaron M. Renn

03.16.10, 10:17am Comments (3)

ShareThis

Credit: ImageMD

When we think of public transit, we often think of bigger cities like New York and Chicago. But how can smaller cities design better transit systems? I think one of the best ways to do this is to simply build fareless systems.
Why have a fare in the first place? It is odd that we pay per use on transit. We don’t pay to check books out of a library. We don’t pay to visit most city parks. We don’t pay when the police or fire department come to our house for a legitimate emergency. Most non-utility municipal services are provided for free to users and funded by taxes. So why is transit different? I suspect it is rooted in the origins of public transit systems when they were private, for-profit companies. But they aren’t that today so why adopt those legacy practices?
It seems to me that there are two basic reasons you would charge for a government service. One is to recover the costs associated with it from users. Two is to ration usage.
For the first, think of something like getting a building permit. The city can charge a fee for this that more or less covers the cost of administering the permitting and inspection process. And only the people who are building something need to pay. Sounds like a fair system, as it were. Toll roads also fall into this camp. Of course, the question immediately proceeds to, if you can recover the full cost from users, why is the government providing the service in the first place instead of the market? A good question that should be seriously considered.
As for the second, one can again think of toll roads and using variable pricing as a way to reduce traffic congestion. There are several practical examples of this in actual operation around the world.
Does transit fit this model? No, especially in smaller cities. It is true that only a segment of the community rides transit and so it might seem logical to make them pay for it. But by itself this seems insufficient to justify it. There are lots of services that are not consumed by everyone, but nevertheless are paid for by everyone. As someone who doesn’t have kids but has a rather large property tax bill, schools immediately come to mind. This argument has seldom held water by itself.
Can we recover the cost of transit from riders? Not even close. Large city systems like the Chicago CTA can recover a significant percentage from fares, but nothing close to the cost of operations. The CTA’s farebox recovery is about 50%. And that’s just for the operating budget. It does not include, due to the vagaries of government accounting (not the CTA’s fault), depreciation, which is a huge expense in a capital intensive business like transit.
The Indianapolis IndyGo system recovers less than 20% of its operating costs from fares. IndyGo charges $2 per ride to collect $10 million a year in user fees (i.e., taxes), largely from the poorest segment of the community. But this is only a fraction of the $55 million operating budget. There are already $45 million in taxes going into IndyGo, just for operations. Despite the illusion of fares, the Indianapolis bus system is almost entirely tax supported today.
Again, if you look at a large city like Chicago you can find overcrowded routes where pricing can help regulate congestion. But in smaller cities, this is usually the least of concerns. The real problem is trying to figure out how to convince discretionary riders to use the system.
Add it up, and just generally transit in smaller cities seems like a bad fit for fares based solely on the inability to recover a meaningful percentage of the cost and the lack of any over-crowding problems.
On the other side, there are big benefits to going fareless.
1. Reduced capital expenses. No fares == no fare collection equipment. You don’t need to kit out buses with fareboxes, rail stations with turnstiles or ticketing equipment, etc.
2. Reduced operating expenses. Collecting fares means you need an entire cash management apparatus. Handling money requires care, proper processes, accounting, security, etc. Get rid of all that and you are saving money. Plus, you don’t have to worry about enforcement. Even on POP systems you’ve got the labor of people auditing tickets. Why bother? And you don’t need to pay repair technicians to service this equipment because it will never break down because it doesn’t exist. That also means no spare parts, which can mean less storage requirements, etc. And with less personnel you probably need a smaller office. The list of savings goes on and on.
3. Improved operations. How long does it take for everybody to board at a bus stop as one person after another swipes a pass or fumbles for change? No fare collection means boarding is quicker. You can even board through every door, not just the front. This means less time spent idling, lower fuel consumption, and faster journey times (a big point in getting people into transit).
4. Better ROI. You are building a transit system so that people will ride it. Fares discourage ridership, especially off peak, non-commute trips. That ain’t good. A transit system is a more or less fixed cost network like an airline. Every seat that goes empty goes to waste. We’re paying to run the buses or trains whether or not anyone is on them. The marginal cost of an additional passenger, up until the point where capacity is maxed, is very low. So why not make sure those seats don’t expire worthless?
5. Marketing. It’s a lot easier to sell something that costs nothing. And any city that did this would get major kudos.
The federal rules around transit are beyond byzantine, so I don’t know if this would be legal or not. If not, we need to change the law.
But regardless, here’s my thought process. With so little federal New Start funds available, most cities that want to build say a new rail line or BRT system or significantly beefed up city bus network are going to be paying for most of the capex out of their own pocket anyway. This often means a referrendum to approve a tax. If you’re asking for hundreds of millions if not billions in tax dollars to build something, why not also ask for the taxes to run it?
Frankly, it’s unfair to ask someone to vote for a tax to build something if the money to operate isn’t going to be in the bank. That’s why our transit systems seem to be in a state of perpetual funding crisis. If you are going to build something, you need to build the opex and long term maintenance into the deal up front. It strikes me that asking for a whole lot of money plus a bit more for operations isn’t that must different from just plain asking for a whole lot of money. And you are doing your citizens a service long term by avoiding the downstream crises. And if you have to pay for the whole thing yourself anyway, you can probably avoid many of the rules that might get in your way.
For America’s smaller cities looking to implement significantly improved transit systems, fareless is definitely the way go.

Aaron M. Renn - 'Shareable Cities', 16 March 2010.

Italy marks Slow Day with relaxing events

Rome -- Italians marked World Slow Day with free public transportation, poetry contests, free yoga and Tai Chi lessons, and mock fines for pedestrians walking too fast.

Bruno Contigiani, 62, president of the Art of Living Slowly Association and founder of World Slow Day in 2007, said Monday's international event was aimed at living at a natural speed and promoting the "14 Commandments" of the association, including waking up five minutes early to savor breakfast and striking up conversations with other motorists during traffic jams, ANSA reported Tuesday.

The city of Caltanissetta offered free public transportation Monday and commuters were given free copies of the "14 Commandments."

Meanwhile, "Slow Wardens" in the cities of Milan and Genoa were on hand to distribute mock citations to pedestrians seen walking too fast or taking too direct a route to their destinations.

A competition was held in Benevento to find the haiku poem best describing the ideals of the day and free Tai Chi and yoga lessons were offered in public parks across the country.

"Let's take this one day to stop and think about all the things we miss out on while we're rushing through our lives," Contigiani said.

Copyright 2010 United Press International

Public transport for SuperGold Card holders to stay free

Outrage from senior citizens forces Government back down

A SuperGold Card is held by 540,000 pensioners
throughout New Zealand

View Video [for full report]

By Duncan Garner (TV3 News 16 March 2010)

Prime Minister John Key and Transport Minister Stephen Joyce have confirmed buses, trains and ferries for SuperGold Card holders will remain free.

Last week Mr Joyce suggested changes could see some of those services threatened, but he has now backed away from that, saying his real message “got lost in translation”.

Yeah, right!

YouTube clip: 'Public Transport Revolution'

Check out this YouTube clip from Radio 2WAYFM, NSW, Australia: YouTube - Transport Revolution! Bullet Trains and Free Public ... Public transport should be free to, from and within all regional towns in Australia. But let's start with getting some high-speed bullet trains in place.

We are in direct conflict with Earth's rules

We are in direct conflict with Earth's rules

The Earth has its own set of rules, solidly grounded in laws of physics and chemistry and emergent principles of geology and biology. Unlike our economic model, these are not artificial constructs. They are real, and they govern. Earthquakes, tsunamis, volcanic eruptions, hurricanes, tornadoes, 100-year floods, massive wildfires and disease epidemics are dramatic examples of parts of nature, neither all service nor all harm, creating and destroying, and governed by rules that are indifferent to humans. Our anthropocentric economic model for interacting with the world ignores and is proving to be incompatible with Earth's rules, and is therefore on a direct collision course with them. LosAngelesTimes March 02, 2010

By B.E. Mahall and F.H. Bormann

Free off-peak transport for Seniors is a win/win - Age Concern

"...Free off-peak transport is win/win. It's good for older people; it's good for public transport as it uses spare off-peak capacity, and it's good for the environment as it replaces car journeys.

"People aged over 65 are using free public transport to do their shopping, help family members, get to health appointments and generally keep engaged with their communities...." Age Concern in Voxy

Urbanophile advocates free transit

Urbanophile advocates free transit

...2. Reduced operating expenses. Collecting fares means you need an entire cash management apparatus. Handling money requires care, proper processes, accounting, security, etc. Get rid of all that and you are saving money. Plus, you don’t have to worry about enforcement. Even on POP systems you’ve got the labor of people auditing tickets. Why bother? And you don’t need to pay repair technicians to service this equipment because it will never break down because it doesn’t exist. That also means no spare parts, which can mean less storage requirements, etc. And with less personnel you probably need a smaller office. The list of savings goes on and on.... Urbanophile

This is not rocket science

Free Public Transport

Finally in Australia we are starting to have the debate. This is not rocket science. The only argument against FPT seems to be that we don’t have enough trains and buses to cope. Well put simply, that is something that can be addressed by implementing incremental changes to rolling stock, buses and ferries.

Free public transport @ Yahoo!7 Video

ShareThis


Adam Butler, free public transport advocate, Australia. From his "Be the change you want to be" blogsite.

Fleets of free buses evacuate Hawai'i people to safety

Yet another excellent reason for free transport:

A larger mass transit system to evacuate massive crowds of people during a civil emergency.

Hawai'i has free island-wide bus services on all scheduled routes.

As you can see in this report - the free buses were mobilized to quickly clear people to higher ground as the Chile tsunami approached.

Compare this to the total chaos as thousands tried to flee Katrina in their cars & clogged the New Orleans 'freeways'.

FareFreeNZ editor

Hawaii begins evacuation as tsunami nears

• From correspondents in Honolulu
• From: AFP
• February 28, 2010 3:38AM

• RESIDENTS in coastal areas of Hawaii were being told to evacuate as the Pacific island chain braced for a tsunami following the huge 8.8 magnitude earthquake in Chile, officials said.

Tsunami sirens were due to sound at 6am local time Saturday (3am Sunday AEDT) to alert residents of the possibility of destructive waves, forecast to reach the islands by 11.19am Saturday local time (7.19am Sunday AEDT) , according to emergency management officials.

"If you live anywhere in the evacuation zone, you have to evacuate," John Cummings, Oahu Emergency Management Department spokesman, told local media.

"We're going to treat this as a destructive-type tsunami."

It is the first time Hawaii has experienced voluntary tsunami evacuation since 1994. Emergency services have fleets of public buses to provide free transport for anyone needing to leave evacuation zones.