> it makes no sense to dis-incentivize the use of public transport to begin with

MTA serves NYC. People who can't even afford the subway are definitely not driving over there.

Absolutely not. People don’t appreciate free things psychologically. When they don’t appreciate it they trash it: vandalism, littering will all become bigger problems.

To prevent this effect, you have to have a well educated population first. That’s actually an even more difficult problem to solve.

It's unfortunate, but one problem with free public transport absent other changes is that then it becomes de facto free shelter, which degrades the service for people using it as transport.

It's nice to have an opinion but free public transport causes many issues and isn't great policy, it actually means transport agencies have less money to invest and take out debt on as system use increases which is a very bad position financially. The same issues actually apply to roads as well and are a reason things like congestion taxes are a good idea.

Free public transport takes away money that can be used to improve service for everyone. Someone on minimum wage would prefer a bus they can actually use to get to work rather than having to buy/maintain a car because the free bus only comes once an hour.

Have targeted low fares for the poor etc.

The problem with free public transport is that it turns into a de facto homeless shelter. And then it isn't safe to use anymore. You let people evade fares and then those people go onto stab people like Zarutska.

There's an argument that making people pay a fare improves cleanliness and security to an extent. I don't know if there are studies about it. But it's a persuasive argument.

Ah, yes, the cost of the price is rarely considered. Think of the money society would save just in not having to pay up for the payment system!

This is a great way to destroy public transit!

The plan is to let anyone on the subway, with no fares. It turns out that the violent, unstable people who make public spaces unwelcoming are disproportionately represented among those who cannot pay $2.50 for a fare. So they scare off regular transit riders who mode shift to something else. It's vastly more expensive and difficult to react to violence on the subway than to keep violent people out with a small fare, so it's financially and logistically impossible to actually keep it safe. Then your transit ridership tanks and people who hate funding transit can declare the whole thing a giant waste of money and any new funding dies politically because now there's no public ridership constituency left.

Nobody cares about the revenue gained from $2.50 fares. What matters is the tiny amount of resistance that offers to the small number of people who are largely responsible for making public transit unwelcoming.

There is too much communism in this sentence.

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One made me call my Dad to spite my psycho mother who dragged me tothe Station thinking the cop was gonna scare me straight ratherthen the outcome of him seeing her insanity and pleading with me to stay in contact with the only responsible adult in the room who wouldnt screw me over for the rest of my natura life

It was all very vindicating

> If there are no controls, everyone will cheat.

That just isn't true. Not even remotely.

Public transit is subsidized in a lot of the world. Subsidized is good. Free though.. free is a problem. A good or service that someone doesn't have to pay for becomes valueless to them, despite it still costing someone (sponsor, owner)/something (corp, gov).

Examples:

A free Christmas party, where the cost of the convention center/catered dinner/wine on the table/entertainment was about $110/pp. Those costs were all paid in advance (you might be able to exceed catering, wine is probably fine but at a different rate.. but otherwise you're stuck with the bill/contract), but when tickets were free the no-show rate ("didn't cost me anything") was about 30%. We switched to $20/ticket, and yes there were grumbles about the company being cheap, but the no-shows fell to around 8%.

There's free sections of transit in our city (not the whole system). Most of the disruption and police call-outs happen in this section.. open drug use, screaming at/threatening other passengers or making them feel unsafe, making a home, thefts & pickpockets (does a thief buy a ticket? Perhaps if they spend 6 hours a day "working" and don't need the hassle of being checked for a ticket), even violent crime (stabbings, beatings, one gun situation). An unfortunate side effect of that is we have one of the worst riderships in part because people don't feel safe on transit, and when discussions of subsidies/improvement/expansion come up ridership is basically the only KPI. ("Oh only 12% of the city uses it, let's not further invest").

Transit is very heavily subsidized by taxes. In the US, the least money losing system is BART which covers 70%+ of it's operating (but not capital) expenses through fares.

> False dichotomy?

Yes, I'm trying to say it's a false dichotomy. There are plenty of other ways you could organise a justice system, many of which would lead to more just results.

For example - a fixed price system. 8 hours wages from the two parties to the dispute buys 30 minutes with one judge and two lawyers. More than enough time to deal with a minor matter like a scratched car. Or if you prefer a continental-style inquisitorial system, you can lose the lawyers and have 90 minutes with a judge. The fees mean judges and lawyers take home 5x the average salary.

How often do you get that sort of crime attended to and resolved satisfactorily?

You don't think large corporations are stealing from their workers?

Calling the arrangements consensual is also a rhetorical move.

Wage theft is a real crime and you don't get to rename it because your feelings are somehow hurt. Calling taxation "theft" is just vapid right wing mccarythism. Rich people paid mccarthy money to lie over and over again because at the time it was illegal to broadcast those lies on tv or radio. But a senator was immune and could lie all they wanted.

You are never going to be right about anything if you actually think what you posted makes any sense.

Im saying they are wasting everybodies time and money and by spending large resources on petty crime like graffiti instead of spending that time and money on prosecuting systemic crime and theft by employers that occurs far more frequently.

If someone gets stabbed outside my house every day with no charges filed, yeah im going to say spending resources prosecuting a fist fight at a bar is a waste of resources.

“To be clear, you’re saying something that’s impossible to infer from what you wrote because I made it up?” lmao

structuring is illegal for tax evasion too!

obviously if someone is a repeat offender then as they cross the threshold, chop-chop, straight to jail, charge them with the whole batch of crimes together.

it doesn't mean keep no records of crimes and don't respond at all.

Doesn’t that prove actually that the act of theft is not some calculated needs based negotiation in need of “the right threshold” to deter crime?

Like fare hopping, first half of my life i thought how unfair that i have to drone away as a tool of society and pay like a shmuck meanwhile these freeloaders have happily escaped the matrix.

second half of life i realized being unwilling or unable to pay $2.50 for public transist is an issue between that person and their life situation. If that’s what they need, I support the subsidy.

yeah we have extremely recent examples of this philosophy playing out and people are here defending it. It's bonkers!

Which <1000 crime did maddof start with?

Your claim makes for a good sound bite but its just not how it works. Subway evasion isn’t a gateway crime.

If you can’t pay for your next meal $20 might as well be $2 thousand or $20 thousand. Thats why overdraft fees are exploitative.

A person doesn’t steal a sandwich from 7-11, not get caught, then suddenly realize they can drain unsuspecting grandmas’ bank accounts by implementing a long con through masquerading as a long lost nephew through Facebook.

Anecdotally, I’ve heard that some big box stores like Target and Walmart allow shoplifters to get away with petty crime but save all evidence of these crimes to one day prosecute once the total shoplifted goes above the threshold of petty crime. Sometimes, these people would be goaded into this lifestyle by people who have agreements with Loss Prevention teams. Everyone wins except the shoplifter.

How is one earning money through graffiti damage

Ah yes, the graffiti artist to bank robber pipeline.. well done.

Well that would be assault (at least, battery probably too), so wouldn’t fall under the hypothetical $1000 threshold.

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what do you mean when you say the $500 is for what they were caught doing not the total damage caused?

Do you mean like $500 may be the estimate of repair but living in a heavily graffitied neighborhood lowers property values? so net damage is way more?