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Burnham announces bus fares across England to be capped at £2 (www.theguardian.com)
submitted 3 months ago by to c/fuckcars@lemmy.world
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[–] 1 point 3 months ago (3 children)

https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/s11116-016-9695-5.pdf

My opinions on this subject are nuanced. While I think free fares are definitely the ideal assuming unlimited resources, they are probably not the best intervention you can do for improving the overall transit posture of a given city. Infrastructure investments are almost always going to be a better bet.

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  • [–] 2 points 3 months ago (2 children)

    Why do you have to assume unlimited resources? That is frankly a very dumb approach to this topic. Social mobility pays for itself. It is a net-positive for a city to allow residents to move freely and easily, even if the bus, when nothing else is accounted for, does cost fuel. Busses, trams and trains are infrastructure investments.

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  • [–] 1 point 3 months ago (1 child)

    I think you might be misunderstanding. My point is that resources are not unlimited, and hence prioritizing infrastructure investments - meaning a more comprehensive transit network with better headways - is preferable to fully removing user fees.

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  • [–] 1 point 3 months ago

    I think you are misunderstanding my point. Removing at-use fees enables social mobility that strengthens the economy far beyond what the fees would ever dare charge for the service. You can make it free and improve its service. Those are not mutually exclusive. This is entirely a political barrier, and any rational society that believes in the future would just make the damn bus free, because there are no downsides and a lot of upsides.

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