@LauraLangdon car drivers do incur costs, just like bus operators would, so I don’t know that the comparison is apt. There’s fuel, insurance, wear and tear, etc. That said, I agree that if the transit is publicly owned the cost for passengers is really a use tax and those tend to be regressive. If my local municipality wanted to make public transit taxpayer funded I’d have no qualms with that.

@Theneilcace If the relative costs were to make sense, car drivers would need to pay the city for their use of the streets *in addition to* paying for insurance, fuel, etc. Car drivers (and I’m a car driver myself!) are heavily subsidized by state and local governments.

@LauraLangdon where I live there are taxes on gasoline that goes towards the road but I’m sure that varies from place to place. There has been a lot of hand wringing here about electric vehicles because “the owners don’t buy gas so they don’t contribute to road upkeep”.