Free Public Transportaion?
In this article by Tracy Stokes, she tries to argue that the community would benefit and it would be more convenient if we made public transportation free. She puts out some reasons why we would benefit: reduce green house gas emissions, reduce other air pollutants, reduce oil consumption, reduce litter (bus and train tickets), save trees (no need to print tickets), reduce need of parking and allows bus system to run faster and smoother. She later explains how Belgium went about with the same idea and pulled it off. They started with only eight city buses and about 360,000 passengers a year. But when they made public transportation free they increased their number of city buses to 46 and obtained an average of 12,600 passengers a day.
If you are like me, you are thinking that the only way that this can be done is if we had a huge increase in taxes. This is somewhat true. We most likely would have to have an increase on our taxes but not as much as you would think. By making it free it would eliminate quite a few employees needed for selling, printing and managing tickets. And if you were to partake in public transportation you would most likely save money by paying more taxes compared to paying an arm and a leg to fill up your car. I personally like the idea of eliminating the need for parking garages and reducing the business on the roads. Over all, this idea could possibly cover a lot of problems that our country is encountering because of over population. I don’t necessarily think that we should jump right into it, but i do think we should at least consider it.
Wow. This all seems a bit too idealistic to me. Kind of a stretch, I’d say.
I think it is a good idea, in concept, anyway. Realistically, i don’t think that we could pull it off. Right now, as a state, we are going through some pretty serious problems finacially. In order to pay for this, the state would, indeed, need to raise taxes, and our buses would probably end up looking more like racecars, with ads covering most of the visible space. However, if it was possible to pull it off, I would be all for it. I would especially benefital to all the college students that come from out of state, and in state for that matter, not to have to bring a car with them.
Here is where the arguments and data are collected for everyone’s use. Send in your contributions if you like, I have.
http://www.freepublictransit.org