
Kansas City is first major city in U.S. to offer no-cost public transportation - jonbaer
https://www.citylab.com/transportation/2019/12/free-transit-how-much-cost-kansas-city-bus-streetcar-fare/603397/
======
nostromo
Seattle used to have this for an area of the city. It was called the "Free
Ride Zone" \- and it had some unexpected consequences.

The primary problem is that homeless people would get on the bus because it's
warm, and would fall asleep. The busses became rolling homeless shelters.

This caused other people to take the bus less, because of public safety
concerns, as well as simple quality-of-life issues like unpleasant smells.

Eventually it was scrapped.

But this issue has been returning as it's now common knowledge that Seattle
bus drivers are instructed not to collect fares from anyone that declines to
pay.

~~~
ksec
Arh, is this why why people in US hate public transport and prefer to drive
themselves or go by taxi?

For those of us living in the "outside" world where public transport are the
norm, it is sometimes hard to understand why public transport is treated so
differently in US.

~~~
munificent
_> it is sometimes hard to understand why public transport is treated so
differently in US. _

It is worth remembering that the US is much larger than all of Europe, is
considerably less dense, and much of it was not well-developed until after
automobiles were in wide use.

Public transit doesn't make logistical sense in much of the country. It _does_
make sense in some places, of course, but it's less of a part of the national
culture because there are so many areas where it's not a good idea.

~~~
lazyasciiart
That argument falls apart when you look at countries like Australia, China,
Brazil - plenty of open space but cities have public transport because the
nation culture isn't dead against it.

~~~
munificent
I feel like none of the replies to my comment read my second sentence.

Yes, there are many cities in the US with enough density to support public
transit. Most of them have it.

My point is that public transit is not a large part of _American culture and
history_ which significantly depresses demand for it.

Most Americans grew up in families that owned a car or two and used them to
get everywhere. When you ask an American how to get groceries, their immediate
mental image is getting in a car, taking a long drive to a big store, and
filling up the car with a week or two's worth of stuff. Tell them they can't
own a car and all of a sudden they don't know how to solve mundane problems
like this anymore. There are _other_ perfectly fine solutions, of course, but
they don't _know_ those solutions yet. It's not part of their culture.

Also, most Americans live or at least grew up in cities whose urban planning
was designed around automobiles and parking lots. They are spread out to make
room for parking lots, which in turn makes public transit slower and less
economical. People need cars because cities are too spread out for transit
because people prefer to drive because they have cars because cities are too
spread out...

There is a huge path dependent effect here where most cities aren't laid out
for public transit and most people don't prioritize it.

People from outside of the US love to criticize how stupid Americans are for
not having great buses and rail everywhere, but few want to acknowledge that
no country is free of its own history and culture. Cars are a big part of
ours. We are making progress, but the physical topology of cities and the
culture loaded into the heads of several hundred million people cannot be
refactored as easily as code.

------
matchbok
Great to see. Our tax money subsidizes car ownership (quite massively)
already, glad to see some equity here. Everyone kicks and screams about
transit systems "paying for themselves" but nobody asks the same of huge
highways in the middle of nowhere.

~~~
huebomont
The problem is there's no additional investment into the system to make it
attractive to riders. The KC transit system is poorly designed and making it
free isn't going to make it good. Better to keep charging the fare and use the
revenue to improve service, then reevaluate when ridership is growing.

Transit investment has a LOT of catching up to do to even get close to the
types of subsidizing and handouts we give drivers in every corner of this
country.

~~~
baddox
> The problem is there's no additional investment into the system to make it
> attractive to riders.

It seems to me that public transit probably follows the law of demand fairly
strongly, and reducing the price will almost certainly make it more attractive
to riders. Of course this won't fix _all_ problems with public transit, and I
don't think that's the goal. It sounds like the goal is to increase ridership
(and specifically to increase access to people who cannot easily afford the
fares).

> Better to keep charging the fare and use the revenue to improve service

Or...use tax revenue to improve the service. That's the point, and is exactly
what happens with most public roads.

~~~
bobthepanda
The question is whether or not $9M annually would be better off making more
useful transit. As it stands, very little of KC is covered by frequent transit
throughout the day, and in fact much of it is covered by services that don't
run the entire day. [https://ridekc.org/assets/uploads/route-
maps/SystemMap.pdf](https://ridekc.org/assets/uploads/route-
maps/SystemMap.pdf)

A free bus that runs every hour is still going to screw you over if you
mistime your walk to the bus stop and it leaves without you. The bus not being
available at noon is not made better because it is free, because there's still
no bus to take.

~~~
baddox
But the point is to offer rides for free and use other money (presumably tax
money) to maintain (and hopefully invest in more) infrastructure. I don't see
how the current quality of the KC infrastructure is relevant: if it's bad,
then they clearly the $9m in fare revenue isn't cutting it, and they already
need tax revenue to make it better. If they can't or don't get the tax revenue
they need, then that's definitely a problem!

~~~
bobthepanda
Or, you could use the tax money that you could use for free rides (that only
makes bad service marginally more useful) and put it towards more useful
service? It's not as if this money came out of a box labeled "only for free
fares." Right now this is a $9M opportunity cost, annually. To get both the
free fares and $9M of better transit would double the cost of this, but then
you'd have to ask why not use all $18M on better transit, etc.

Making a service that isn't usable most of the day free still makes it
unusable for most of the day.

~~~
AnthonyMouse
> To get both the free fares and $9M of better transit would double the cost
> of this, but then you'd have to ask why not use all $18M on better transit,
> etc.

But then there is a reason for that -- spending has diminishing returns. If
you have some money and you could use it to serve an area with 1500 riders
then that may be worth it, but once you've served it, the next best unserved
area which costs just as much to serve would only have 750 riders, which may
not be worth it. The point where you stop is where the value of the service no
longer exceeds the cost.

And the value of eliminating fares has a major comparative advantage because
it allows you to eliminate the cost of _collecting_ fares, which is typically
a huge fraction of the money collected in fares. Especially when the fares are
already subsidized (which they are most everywhere), because then you still
have the pay the full cost of the collection infrastructure but generate much
less revenue. In some places the cost of collection can exceed the total
revenue from the fares. And even if you beat break-even, the little amount
left over is hardly worth losing the benefits of having fewer cars on the
road.

~~~
bobthepanda
I would argue that KC is nowhere near diminishing returns on transit spending.
Right now, despite having lower fares and higher metro population than, say,
Rochester NY, KC has less than half the transit ridership per capita.

[https://www.apta.com/wp-
content/uploads/Resources/resources/...](https://www.apta.com/wp-
content/uploads/Resources/resources/statistics/Documents/FactBook/2018-APTA-
Fact-Book.pdf#page=29)

Off peak travel is generally also much less expensive, since you already have
the buses and drivers doing peak-only shifts generally spend the middle of the
day just sitting around. KC could run a lot more all-day service and garner a
lot more ridership.

~~~
AnthonyMouse
> I would argue that KC is nowhere near diminishing returns on transit
> spending.

The status quo doesn't really have anything to do with it though. If it's
optimal for them to spend $X on transit while also eliminating fares, then
that's what's optimal whether they're currently spending $X or $0.2X.

> Off peak travel is generally also much less expensive, since you already
> have the buses and drivers doing peak-only shifts generally spend the middle
> of the day just sitting around. KC could run a lot more all-day service and
> garner a lot more ridership.

Which would tend to make it so that you would build more transit before you
hit the point of diminishing returns, but that doesn't mean the point of
diminishing returns doesn't exist, or that we shouldn't also eliminate fares.
They're just two independent questions.

It's like asking whether we should increase the size of the child tax credit
or subsidize solar panels. Maybe we should do both. Maybe we should do
neither. But the answer to each question has more to do with whether its
benefits exceed its costs than how you answer the other question.

------
kodablah
> The hope among lawmakers and transportation officials is that the city will
> recoup that expense, and more

A poor goal that's hard to quantify and often not met (especially for social
services at smaller community levels). Just consider it a sunk cost up front
and be honest about it. Then the debate can at least be about whether it's a
worthy cost socially. Putting a monetary recoup hope unhelpfully moves the
debate away from the social obligation side.

~~~
bobthepanda
Compare this to Intercity Transit in Olympia, WA, which is going fare-free
mostly because it needs to replace the fare collection system on older buses
and install them on new ones, but

\- the regional pass is on a path of deprecation in favor of a new system. So
they'd need to buy two sets of fare collection systems in the span of a few
years

\- the cost to install these fare collection systems even once is more than
what the agency currently collects in fares

\- the fares only make up 1.5% of revenue anyways, so the impact is not as
large as it would be in, say, New York where fares are north of 40% of revenue

[https://www.intercitytransit.com/zerofare](https://www.intercitytransit.com/zerofare)

------
lacker
Unfortunately, I think this is a step backwards. According to the US Census,
about 1% of commuters in Kansas City use public transportation.

[https://censusreporter.org/profiles/31000US28140-kansas-
city...](https://censusreporter.org/profiles/31000US28140-kansas-city-mo-ks-
metro-area/)

It's hardly "public" transportation at all, if it's only useful to 1% of
residents.

If public transportation is going to make any impact on the lives of Kansas
City residents, it first has to be providing a useful service to them. That
probably means expanding its reach, and putting more vehicles on existing
lines. Making it free means that any expansion has become more expensive, and
is now less likely to happen.

~~~
reaperducer
_If public transportation is going to make any impact on the lives of Kansas
City residents, it first has to be providing a useful service to them._

Why does that have to be "first?"

Why not make it free, and also make it useful?

If the goal is to increase ridership, making the rides free lowers the barrier
for people in transit-served areas. Then you can subsequently or
simultaneously expand it.

It makes no sense to keep charging during the expansion to some mythical point
in the future where it will suddenly become free because it's reached a
certain number of users.

~~~
edmundsauto
What if making it free makes it less useful to most people? There's another
comment talking about how they became rolling homeless shelters when they went
to free, and use dropped because of hygiene issues.

~~~
reaperducer
I've seen people speculate about homeless use of transit as a deterrent to
ridership, but I've never seen any actual numbers on that, and I think it's
mostly overblown.

Either way, homeless people making homes on transit isn't a transportation
issue, it's a law enforcement/social services issue.

~~~
edmundsauto
Are you doubting that homeless people tend to have worse hygiene? Or that
people don't want to use public transit when it smells bad?

~~~
reaperducer
What I doubt is the notion that the number of people who don't use transit
because of the homeless is statistically significant.

The people who seem to complain about it most are also the sort of people who
won't ride transit anyway and just use it as an excuse to stay in their cars.

~~~
parsimo2010
I don't think that it's strictly the homeless, but rather that public transit
is seen as a low class option that "the poors" have to use. Middle class
people can afford nicer options and don't have to be associated with a "poor"
thing. There are exceptions in a few cities with transit systems that are
actually better than driving, where you see bankers in suits using the subway.

Getting rid of homeless/ppor people overnight wouldn't fix the perception
issue immediately. It would take a while for word to get out that the buses
weren't associated with being poor again.

Strangely, I think that making transit completely free removes some of the
"poor" stigma. If two things cost money, then you compare the prices and
benefits of both to decide what to pick. If one option is completely free,
then that comparison isn't performed the same way because of weird mechanisms
in our brains. Most middle class people will pay more to drink name brand
Coca-Cola instead of an off-brand cola, but if you made the off-brand cola
free, then a lot of middle class people would start drinking the off-brand
stuff. It's not really rational, but middle class people love a bargain. And
once the middle class people start to realize how much of a bargain they get
from free transit, then more will start riding and the proportion of poor
people will go down, and then even more middle class people will start using
it.

------
noneckbeard
In Gavin Newsom’s book Citizenville he talked about how, after becoming SF
mayor, he discovered that fare collection cost as much as the revenue
generated from fares. He started the process of making the bus free but was
told by so many advisors that the busses would become “dumpsters on wheels,”
from a combination of homeless people using them for shelter and people not
respecting services that are free, that the plan was scrapped.

~~~
carapace
> fare collection cost as much as the revenue generated from fares

WTF!?

That's freakin insane.

If that's true, why do they keep raising the fares and upgrading the
fareboxes!?

If that's true, the SF city gov is effectively collecting money and lighting
it on fire as a way to "throttle" bad behaviour on the bus!?

~~~
sitkack
> If that's true, why do they keep raising the fares and upgrading the
> fareboxes!?

To pay for the new fareboxes, of course.

Just as Uber is a way to get away from "bus people", fares are away to get
away from "free bus people".

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K-iWBCL12Qg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K-iWBCL12Qg)

------
sjs382
In Pittsburgh, travel within Downtown and the North Shore is free 24/7 on the
"T" (light rail).

Buses still aren't free and the "T" doesn't cover a ton of Downtown
Pittsburgh, though. The "T" has been like this for 20+ years and is an awesome
resource.

------
downerending
This is awesome.

And also in stark contrast with progressive Portland, which recently hired a
gaggle of new fare-enforcement workers:
[https://www.oregonlive.com/commuting/2019/10/trimet-
beefing-...](https://www.oregonlive.com/commuting/2019/10/trimet-beefing-up-
fare-enforcement-will-rely-less-on-uniformed-police.html)

~~~
steeef
As recently as last week it seems, TriMet's board has been discussing how free
fares might work: [https://www.oregonlive.com/commuting/2019/12/is-trimet-
discu...](https://www.oregonlive.com/commuting/2019/12/is-trimet-discussing-a-
free-transit-system-2-board-members-say-yes.html)

------
nwvg_7257
Not really a major city, but Chapel Hill has done this for a long time. Bus
service is frequent and reliable, and is used by people from all walks of
life. High income professors and scientists will be on the same bus as the
poor.

It seems paradoxical that making the service free would lead the rich to use
it, but it's good quality and receives substantial funding from the area's
high property taxes. There's no stigma to the bus in Chapel Hill since
everyone uses it.

------
brianzelip
In Baltimore, the Charm City Circulator (bus) is free.

[https://www.charmcitycirculator.com/](https://www.charmcitycirculator.com/)

------
yegle
The small town of my alma mater is entirely built around the university.
There's school bus serves everyone in the town (not limited to student, no
validation required), and is basically no-cost public transit.

I suspect this applies to many other college towns across US.

~~~
justinmk
Indeed. "No price signal[1]" is very different from "no cost". It will cost
plenty. Any service priced at zero simply has no back-pressure mechanism to
respond to demand, nor to forecast demand, nor to measure demand in relation
to alternative transportation options.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_calculation_problem](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_calculation_problem)

~~~
AnthonyMouse
All of those problems already apply to any government program. The answer is
to calculate demand and allocate supply based on factors such as ridership.
That will be less efficient in a sense than pricing, but not necessarily so,
because pricing in a market with network effects and significant fixed costs
can also create significant inefficiency. Pricing, especially pricing that
exceeds the variable cost or has to include the cost of a fare collection
infrastructure, can reduce usage and thereby reduce the network effect. Which
is a feedback loop that can lead to a death spiral. That's hardly efficient
either.

And ridership is effectively a price signal anyway, because even when there is
no monetary cost there is still an opportunity cost.

------
ngngngng
I guess Salt Lake City must be too small to count. Or not qualify on some
other metric. All the light rail trains in the city are free, but once you get
outside of a certain region there is a charge.

~~~
forthwall
This isn't true. ([https://www.rideuta.com/Fares-And-Passes/Current-
Fares](https://www.rideuta.com/Fares-And-Passes/Current-Fares))

~~~
EForEndeavour
No, it is true that Salt Lake City passengers may ride buses and light rail
for free within the Free Fare Zone mapped out here:
[https://www.rideuta.com/Fares-And-Passes/Free-Fare-
Zone](https://www.rideuta.com/Fares-And-Passes/Free-Fare-Zone)

------
jayess
Looks like KC transit ridership has been declining since 2014:
[https://nationaltransitdatabase.org/missouri/kansas-city-
are...](https://nationaltransitdatabase.org/missouri/kansas-city-area-
transportation-authority/)

------
msla
What's their definition of "major"? Missoula has been offering no-cost buses
for years now.

~~~
jessaustin
Whatever the definition might be, Missoula doesn't qualify. Missoula is #328
on the list of 384 metropolitan statistical areas in USA, just between
Owensboro KY and Morristown TN.

------
newmac
On my first visit to Seattle, you could ride the bus anywhere downtown for
free. It seemed like a great way to provide mobility to those in need, while
still having a paid option for those in the outer areas of the city to get
home to their suburbs.

The first conversation I had with someone on the bus there was with someone
going to an employment counselling office. Not sure why that struck me, but it
always stuck with me.

No I see that the free ride zone has been gone since 2012. Too bad!

~~~
reaperducer
IIRC, the reason Seattle instituted the free fares downtown scheme was to
reduce bus boarding times, especially in the tunnel beneath downtown where
buses would often get backed up.

/No longer live in Seattle, so I may not be remembering this correctly.

~~~
tzs
The free ride zone predated the tunnel by 17 years. The original reason for it
was to entice people to use the bus.

From the 1973-09-09 NY Times [1]:

> “I make a flat prediction,” said Mayor Wes Uhlman, who conceived the plan.
> “With the E.P.A. [Environmental Protection Agency] breathing down the neck
> of all of us, every major city in the country will be providing free transit
> within two years.

> “The downtowns are becoming congested and polluted, and we simply have to
> reclaim them for people away from the automobile.”

[1] [https://www.nytimes.com/1973/09/09/archives/seattle-
joining-...](https://www.nytimes.com/1973/09/09/archives/seattle-joining-
movement-for-free-bus-rides-10-increase-in-riders.html)

------
rshnotsecure
Quick question, has anyone here heard of a very odd company in Kansas City
called...[https://joesdatacenter.com](https://joesdatacenter.com).

All of the staff on LinkedIn exist...but there are only 3 of them and
apparently the founder and CEO just got out of community college?

They claim to have at least a few ten thousands of floor space, so that must
be minimum $25 million in server capital assuming all are used.

They also for some reason broadcast incredibly interesting weather data from
the top of the building:
[https://joesdatacenter.com/hvac/](https://joesdatacenter.com/hvac/)

I currently work in San Antonio as a short term contractor for a SOC (many
military bases and sizeable banks here) and last night an incident was raised
and a breach somewhat close to being declared and we are getting pinged is it
Tsinghua? is it APT 17? to which we have to respond seriously on Slack...no
it’s “Joes Datacenter” ASN 19969 out of Kansas City.

~~~
jessaustin
Haha there's no way that weather data is right. They're reporting a high of
"54.4°F" when it was snowing most of the day? Pull the other one.

Maybe all the "APTs" should route through Joe's if they don't want a serious
response?

------
8bitsrule
"proponents of the plan say that helping marginalized communities move around
more easily will translate into deeper benefits."

Well yeah, we kept them marginalized, for some reason ... but right now we
_really need them_. Later on, ...

------
rurban
Park City, Utah has this for years. It's a very rich ski resort, so they can
afford it, and it solves the transport and parking problem. Many other rich
ski resorts are doing the same for decades.

------
gamechangr
Great to visualize, even if it is not entirely successful.

Seems like this needs to happen.

------
akulbe
How is this sustainable? It costs _someone_ , right?

------
ur-whale
At the risk of pointing out the obvious, 'no cost' is a physical
impossibility.

Someone does pay for transportation, and the question is, who does?

------
musgrove
Nothing is "no-cost." Something must be given up by someone.

~~~
gerbilly
Ugh. Won't even bother refuting.

------
lifeisstillgood
I am trying to formulate a theory of wealth in modern society - I think that
the vast vast majority of wealth resides in, or useless without, huge
reservoirs of public wealth - from aqueducts still supplying Rome after 2000
years to public roads and rail.

The active capitalist stuff going on, is mostly the frothy but as water fills
up the reservoir - it the deep water is public, social wealth.

It's a bit nebulous but I think it is worth us asking when is the right time
to stop treating something as "frothy capitalism" and needs to be left of the
free market and when it is deep water and needs to be just free to all.

~~~
danans
> The active capitalist stuff going on, is mostly the frothy but as water
> fills up the reservoir - it the deep water is public, social wealth.

Even privately held capital is underpinned by public, social "wealth" in the
form of a system of property rights and the means to arbitrate those.

Society, as manifested in government and the courts, is protecting all our
claims to ownership of property with the threat of force. If it stops doing
that, the value of much of our property/capital will plummet quickly.

~~~
lifeisstillgood
yes..

There are two attitudes to tax - one it is a service fee for government
services, something short term to be haggled down, or it is a long term
investment in this depp water wealth.

Threat of force is technically what underpins all this but that needs to be a
credible threat - just having force without knowing where and when to apply it
leads to applying it in wrong place or as "encourage les autres". And knowing
when to apply it is likely the job of civil servente.

I think I am diving into late night undergraduate philosophy and economics -
hmmm

------
tomohawk
Baltimore essentially has no-fare public transit. Anyone can get on the light
rail without a ticket, and inspection is spotty at best. If you're caught, you
just wait for the next train.

~~~
brewdad
In Portland, you will be cited for non-payment and repeat offenders are
"excluded", typically for 30 days. Meaning if you try to board a bus or train
you can be arrested for trespass. Does Baltimore not do this?

~~~
astrodust
Imagine if they did this for parking infractions.

30 day license suspension. Heavy fines.

------
exabrial
> “I believe that people have a right to move about this city,”

KC Resident here. Of course you have a right to move about the city! You don't
have a right for someone else to pay for it though. Interesting choice of
words.

~~~
esoterica
And yet you believe you’re entitled to drive on the roads for free?

~~~
exabrial
Nice straw man

------
ogre_codes
I don't think cost is the biggest problem with public transportation. It's
almost always much much slower than any other way to get around. This is
doubly so if your current location and destination are on different routes/
lines.

------
robsinatra
Kansas was running on fumes for a long time by not taxing. Now, this? One
group of idealists were replaced with another with no more sensibility than
their counterparts.

~~~
tubaguy50035
You're mistaking Kansas City, MO with Kansas City, KS. Kansas (the state) was
running on fumes for a long time. Kansas (the state) also has nothing to do
with this.

These are literally the first three words of the article: "Kansas City,
Missouri"

~~~
jessaustin
Kansas the state was named after Missouri's second city. I guess they were
just clever enough not to name it "Joplin"...

------
zozbot234
Doesn't literal "no cost" public transportation lead to issues with folks
abusing the service as a place to hang out? Also, does the service never get
congested in other ways? I'd argue that public transportation should be paid
for when congested, so that users are incented to shift their use to other
times.

~~~
npo9
Points against charging extra for public transit during congested times.

1\. It’s much better for someone traveling during congestion to use public
transport than to use a private vehicle.

2\. Traveling during congestion almost always is accompanied by increased
travel times —- a natural incentive to adjust travel times.

3\. Keeping fare prices consistent and simple makes the system easier for
everyone to understand and less confusing to new users.

~~~
zozbot234
> It’s much better for someone traveling during congestion to use public
> transport than to use a private vehicle.

Sure, but charging a nominal price for public transit wouldn't meaningfully
affect the incentive to avoid traffic congestion outside of it. i.e. by and
large, the users aren't going to move back to private vehicles, because
shifting the time of use is often easier.

