Servais (il/lui)Public transport use soars in Montpellier a year after becoming free
BestBouclettesItS Not FreE, YoU StIlL HaVe tO pAy fOR iT sOmeHOw.
Yeah no shit, that’s exactly what taxes are for. Providing services to the masses, not giving handouts to the richest.
I wonder who do they think that pays for car infrastructure (gas stations, roads, road patches, gas subsidies, etc.)
Gas Stations pay for themselves. Otherwise its also tax based.
Still completely free public transport is not a good idea instead of investing in a high quality offering. (Higher Frequencies, Better Vehicles, more dense network). Because People usually take the car because it is more convenient, its always more expensive than public transport.
And in the past, free offerings have just diminished people walking or taking the bicycle, but no shift Car>Public Transit
Your point is valid, if not well presented ; doesn’t deserve the downvotes imho!
Making public transit free instead of making it better, and then use the fact that nobody uses it anyway to demantle it further, is a bad thing. I think Not Just Bikes touched on that in one of its videos.
But it’s not always the case that free = bad. If it’s already efficient and continues to improve, it can accelerate the growth of public transit. Luxembourg city is one example I know where it seems to be working, and a “good faith” effort.