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.

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ninjagoo 3 hours ago | parent [-]

> It's vastly more expensive and difficult to react to violence on the subway than to keep violent people out with a small fare

Are you making a case that a violent person, who ignores the stringent laws of society against violence, will diligently follow the laws of society requiring $2.50 prior to riding public transport?

LOL

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saimiam 3 hours ago | parent [-]

Your argument is like saying I won't put a basic privacy lock on my gym locker because, you know, a creep wanting to sift through my things is going to do it anyway.

There is a cost benefit analysis that even serial offenders go through to pick a victim. If a transit system insists on fares, it is likely they are watching out for fare dodgers which increases the risk of getting caught even before the offender gets a chance to offend.

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ninjagoo 2 hours ago | parent [-]

> There is a cost benefit analysis that even serial offenders go through to pick a victim

Are you making the case that a society unable to protect its denizens from violent offenders in broader society will be able to protect its denizens on public transport from those same violent offenders through the application of a $2.50 fare?

Hmm.

	▲	saimiam an hour ago \| parent [-]
		I’m saying that knowing that you’re being (potentially) being watched for fare evasion has a deterrent effect on wanting to commit a crime. How many times have you heard of road rage incidents which deescalate as soon as one party realises that they are being recorded by a dashcam? People’s behavior under surveillance is different from their private behavior.