I have yet to see any city where the reason more people don't use public transit is the lack of good service as opposed to the cost for fares. Thus free fares is fixing the wrong problem, if you have money for free fares you have money to give more people better service.
What is your evidence that that is the reason?
Cities that make their service better get larger jumps in ridership than cities that make fares free. Also rider surveys reveal that cost is way down on the list of concerns, while better service is always near the top. (better service is either more frequent, or serving more places)
Sources?
A city can have both free public transportation and good service and the source of the funds shouldn't matter if it comes from taxes or fares. Fares, however, do impact poor people more, create a need for enforcement and thus criminalizing additional, and a need for a system to collect the fare. In a lot of ways, free public transport is simpler and better for the users.
The system to collect fares is cheap compared to what it gets, unless you're system is so bad only those with no other options use it. In most places even the poor have other options.
Not that we shouldn't think of the poor, but they are a minority and we should think of the wealthy as well, no reason a rich person shouldn't use transit, but if it isn't good they won't.
The poor are a minority? What world are you living in?
A place where the middle class are the vast majority. Portugal where this city is similar.
Most middle class think of themselves as poor, but they have enough. Just not as much as they need to fill every want.
Some people might decide to take public transport instead of paying for car fuel if they feel a need to save money. With free public transport it is always clear what the cheaper option is.
Also public transport needs to be subsidized anyway, at some point you are actively wasting money by collecting fares if the staff and infrastructure for enforcing fares is more expensive than the income from fares.
It does have an effect for people that don't use it often enough to make it worth paying for a montly ticket.
I don't know about that. I am gung ho about using transit in my city because the only thing cheaper is bike and foot (which I also like). visited dc and if I lived there I doubt I would use it because of how expensive it is.
Transit is expensive. Bikes and walking is a lot cheaper. However if you want to go any distance at all bikes and walking don't get your there in a reasonable amount of time. This not being 1700 (when bikes didn't exist) most people want to go a lot farther for many trips - it enables getting so much more done when your reasonable range as longer.
The costs of transit should be compared to the cost of a car. I challenge you find anything that you can do reasonably on transit that is cheaper with a car. (not just fuel costs, insurance, maintenance, and such - even a beater that you maintain yourself is going to have a hard time with this). Thus the real goal to get more people on transit should be making more trips reasonable. Cost is rarely the issue if people are taking the trip.
I mean that is fine but if you can't afford it you can't afford it. You said you don't see expense causing more people not to take it but that is just not so as there are levels where you get people dropping.
There are those levels, but nobody is close so why talk about them? Or perhaps better to say just have a program for the free poor and charge everyone else a reasonable price.
Transit should be for everyone, not just those who are so poor they will put up with terrible service because they is all they can get.
Because programs should not be means tested. That always results in people who need it not getting it. When its just available no one misses out due to beuracracy and different laws that come up from parties that want to toughen up on freeloaders. You also save on not paying for programs to decide who gets stuff and who does not. No idea what you mean by no one is close though.
Poor generally means other issues and so you already have the means treating as part of getting people the help they need for their other issues.
yeah and we should not have it. every little crumb takes hours to get. I knew that before I experienced it and now I have experienced it. Its not all collected into one basket. each thing is seperate and sucks up tons of time. so tons of time to be able to travel and tons of time to get some food and tons of time for some healthcare. and on and on an on.
In short make transit better would help more than making garbage transit free.
well yeah. everything is bad when its garbage but its also better free so free and quality would be best.
Everything about public transportation!