If you’ve ever been on public transit, you know it’s not really just about the fare dodgers. It’s also about having someone, anyone, with authority regularly check up on things to crack down on the crazy shit happening that will discourage average riders from using the system — people blaring music, dance crews putting on impromptu shows on your train car, junkies overdosing in the corner, some guy making the train platform his permanent home, people pissing, shitting and vomiting in the wrong locations, influencers shooting their latest TikTok.
I’m all for free public transit, but I’d still want to see a staff presence on board telling people that don’t know how to behave in public to cut it the fuck out.
I don’t know what the staff could do about it these days.
Hey could you please turn down your music?
Music guy: “Fuck you” and turns it up.
And that’s that.
Any escalation beyond that becomes a civil or criminal issue.
Catching crimals is almost never profitable… but it’s still important and has positive externalities for discouraging future crime.
In this case though we’ve really got to ask how much we care about this. Some people are going to ride transit for free, we generally want those people to get a free ride rather than not having access to public transit.
It’s not about profitability. It’s about the extraordinary expense to discourage at best a minor misdemeanor that costs relatively very little in comparison. You could probably achieve the same effect paying one cop to monitor random stations and fine people as the do it. There are much more important things that cops could be doing that’s actually worth spending $150 million. Or you could just divert a fraction of that money to subsidize public transit.
That’s the point. Opportunity costs.
How many criminals, real criminals, could have been arrested and tried for that much money?
Or how many low income families could have gotten free/subsidized tickets?
Well said. They could offer cheaper tickets and invest less in law enforcement involved in this. Less people will be criminalized that way.
I agree, but it feels weird to say:
Less people will be criminalized that way.
It’s the act that’s a crime, not the people.
Depends on the perspective. Imo it’s structural issues that can be solved if you rework the structure. Most people who don’t pay for their tickets don’t have the money, but would pay if it would be affordable.
In Germany you could see this happen when they pushed the 9€ ticket where you could travel all of Germany for the month… for 9€.
It was a huge success and I’m sure many people who didn’t buy tickets before did buy them then, simply because it was affordable, accessible and more chill.
Yes, but I don’t see what that has to do with my point
I misunderstood you, my bad
