Maybe buses should be free...

[Via Garibaldi 8]

I have no envy for your lives. I'm very content with where I am--thankful, even, for the good fortune I've had. I recognize those who are more and less fortunate, and seek greater equality.

 

 

This really, is the core. You're selfish. You can give your anecdotes about buying homeless guys sandwiches, but you really don't give a sh!t about anybody besides yourself. This is however, the core tenet of America: opportunity. And in a country as incredibly unequal as we are in today, it takes those with more helping those with less to make this a sustainable place. If you don't believe in that principle and the basic right to opportunity and the pursuit of happiness, I daresay that's un-American.

 

 

This is not an entitlement society. It makes me sick when people assume it is. Welfare is not something that (except in a few obscure cases) people want to live on. Food stamps and government aid give you nothing; it's barely sustainable. There really should be a negative income tax, but that's a separate issue. Now in terms of "evening the playing field," if you can see the merits of that, you are truly selfish and truly ignorant, and I really hope you one day find yourself in complete poverty and see if you still maintain those selfish views that helping out those less fortunate is "crap." 

 

Also, making transit free is completely separate proposition than welfare or food stamps. Clearly it was too much for you to understand as the word "free" is found in all of these things, but they're incredibly different. Welfare is to help support the less fortunate in our society. Making transit free is a largely economic decision that would smooth the inequality of a flat tax and perhaps better fund our woefully underfunded transit systems.

 

 

1.  Yeah I don't think you have envy, but at the same time, don't try to make us feel like sh*t for doing something with our lives.  Life is about opportunities and what you make of them.  Life isn't about making sure everyone progresses and holding their hand.  Just doesn't work that way.  Some people will succeed and some will fail and we all have to deal with the hand that we're given.  Life isn't fair and most of it involves a ton of suffering with a small amount of gratification when you look at the overall scheme of things.  

 

We're all suffering in some way or another because money doesn't solve all of one's problems.  In fact it makes some people's problems worse because money can't buy everything.  Just keep that in mind the next time you go railing on upper middle class folks or the wealthy.

 

2. You can call it whatever you want but I call it reality.  We're all given a deck of cards in life and it's up to you to decide how you play those deck of cards.  We already have systems in place to help those who need a hand, but there's a line that needs to be drawn.  Assistance should be temporary not permanent because otherwise you have nothing but people who feel entitled to everything.  Look at what happened in Germany.  You had a bunch of people living off of the system because they could and then the government stepped in and cut all of the social programs and got people back to work and earning their way instead of looking for handouts.

 

3. Oh it most certainly is. Welfare was made to be temporary, but there are far too many people taking advantage of temporary handouts and trying to make the permanent.  The idea of giving people more free handouts via free transit is just wrong and very disturbing because it won't be free.  You'll have one set of people paying for the free rides and another enjoying the free handouts, all because we have an obsession with trying to even the playing field.  It's really a joke.  

[qjtransitmaster]

With all due respect, I think it's a dumb idea to makes buses free in New York. Especially when fare evasion is on the rise.

why make buses free when you can step up fare enforcement jack up the fine and rank in the $$$.  It would bring in so much more money.

[Gorgor]

I just want to say once more that I went to college and had to pay for it all myself, so when I came out I was in quite a bit of debt.  I made the most out of that experience and took classes and majored in something that would actually help me after I graduated, not just to get useless some english or philosophy major and then complain that life's unfair.  I got a job that I wouldn't have been able to get had I not gone to college, and I used what I learned there to advance further and get to where I am now.

 

I worked my ass off, so don't call me out of touch or selfish for wanting to keep my hard earned money when there's others laying back being lazy and abusing all these "temporary" government aids for years and years.  This is America, where you're supposed to work hard if you want to succeed.

[Culver]

I just want to say once more that I went to college and had to pay for it all myself, so when I came out I was in quite a bit of debt.  I made the most out of that experience and took classes and majored in something that would actually help me after I graduated, not just to get useless some english or philosophy major and then complain that life's unfair.  I got a job that I wouldn't have been able to get had I not gone to college, and I used what I learned there to advance further and get to where I am now.

 

I worked my ass off, so don't call me out of touch or selfish for wanting to keep my hard earned money when there's others laying back being lazy and abusing all these "temporary" government aids for years and years.  This is America, where you're supposed to work hard if you want to succeed.

I prefer to stick to the topic of free buses, but that's bullshit. A tiny, tiny, tiny, tiny minority of people with those aids actually abuse them (and some of them are millionaires who use fancy accounting tricks to hide money and then apply for, and receive aid). For the rest of people, those aids are the difference between going hungry and not. Plenty of douchebag "hurr those food stamp folks have it easy" political types have mocked the programs, only to learn that those programs actually provide dick squat in terms of support and provide for a shitty life. And I'll add to that you shouldn't have to have paid all that money and gotten into debt. Education is a right, not a privilege that is easy to afford for some and leaves people like you to pay and go into massive debt.

 

And back on topic I will say again that buses could be free, but not for another few years, and not without a major upfront investment to convert them all to electric drive (and again, those fancy graphene supercapacitors that should be arriving before 2020). Then you basically slice off a gigantic portion of costs via no more fuel (and instead much, much...much, much cheaper electricity) being needed. Considering the size of the fleet, though, yeah, probably more likely for smaller agencies.

[bobtehpanda]

I prefer to stick to the topic of free buses, but that's bullshit. A tiny, tiny, tiny, tiny minority of people with those aids actually abuse them (and some of them are millionaires who use fancy accounting tricks to hide money and then apply for, and receive aid). For the rest of people, those aids are the difference between going hungry and not. Plenty of douchebag "hurr those food stamp folks have it easy" political types have mocked the programs, only to learn that those programs actually provide dick squat in terms of support and provide for a shitty life. And I'll add to that you shouldn't have to have paid all that money and gotten into debt. Education is a right, not a privilege that is easy to afford for some and leaves people like you to pay and go into massive debt.

 

And back on topic I will say again that buses could be free, but not for another few years, and not without a major upfront investment to convert them all to electric drive (and again, those fancy graphene supercapacitors that should be arriving before 2020). Then you basically slice off a gigantic portion of costs via no more fuel (and instead much, much...much, much cheaper electricity) being needed. Considering the size of the fleet, though, yeah, probably more likely for smaller agencies.

Even then, fares are the only thing regulating demand, so sone basic fare has to be maintained to prevent unsafe overcrowding. Once the MTA actually realizes savings after graphene equipped buses are roadtested through the climate and road hell of New York , i would much rather see them reinvest in the system capital-wise and paying off their debts, instead of squandering them on huge raises and inflated pensions. Id also like the penthouse at the top of One57, but that aint happenin either.

[qjtransitmaster]

Even then, fares are the only thing regulating demand, so sone basic fare has to be maintained to prevent unsafe overcrowding. Once the MTA actually realizes savings after graphene equipped buses are roadtested through the climate and road hell of New York , i would much rather see them reinvest in the system capital-wise and paying off their debts, instead of squandering them on huge raises and inflated pensions. Id also like the penthouse at the top of One57, but that aint happenin either.

when are those graphene buses coming out?

[m7zanr160s]

I like this idea. Imagine the timeliness of buses and the travel range increase of the people that live in this city. I think it would boost the economy. Job searching would be that much easier. People would be more inclined to ride mass transit; keeping cars off the road. Businesses would get more customers... I know I'd be doing a lot more if it was free.

 

Why should our system be in debt at all? It should be fully funded. Without it this city shuts down. Everyone benefits from it, so everyone should pay for it. Even those that don't ever use it. If you own a business, most likely your employees use mass transit to get to work. A very interesting idea indeed.

[bobtehpanda]

when are those graphene buses coming out?

 

They might not. It's all extremely hypothetical.

 

Remember, in the 90s everyone thought hydrogen fuel cell vehicles were going to be the big thing.

[Joel Up Front]

If making them free would make them faster as well...

[Culver]

when are those graphene buses coming out?

When the technology is made to be ready for mass production. As is, there are good developments, but nothing quite ready for production. Automakers and battery companies say this should all be ready by 2020. The idea is to have something the size of a regular fuel tank that can hold enough energy to power the bus for 300-500 miles, charge quickly (hence supercapacitor), have thousands of cycles of life, and be a solid-state material that isn't volatile as current liquid/gel Li-ion batteries. All together you'd have a light-weight tank in a crash-safe composite enclosure that allows for an electric vehicle (be it bus or car) to weigh and look the same as non-electric one, have the same/greater range, and power quiet, efficient electric motors. We're not quite there, though, sadly. May be 1, may be 6 years away. Depends on how the research goes.

 

Also, it's not a "graphene bus" I'm talking about, just an electric bus where a graphene-based supercapacitor replaces current heavy lithium-ion based batteries.

[SouthernRailway]

Sure, making buses free is perhaps a good thing in smaller suburban cities where ridership is low and the overall cost of the system is low, and the goal is to increase ridership.

 

But in NYC there are tons and tons of riders, and fares make up a big chunk of MTA revenues, and the MTA is very costly, so none of the reasons I list in my first sentence apply.

 

The ideal would be to have more efficient fare-collection systems (as SBS is doing).