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   Sarah Jay Peper 🏳️‍⚧️ (jay_peper@chaos.social)'s status on Monday, 27-Feb-2023 17:22:22 JST Sarah Jay Peper 🏳️‍⚧️

   Public transport isn't supposed to make money. It's not even supposed to break even. It's supposed to lose money and to be financed and extended from general taxes because it gives back way more than mere money.

   And all the politicians know this because they keep building and maintaining streets for free

   • clacke, Tim Chambers and carl marks repeated this.
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     Jamey Sharp (jamey@toot.cat)'s status on Tuesday, 23-May-2023 18:23:15 JST Jamey Sharp

     in reply to

     @jay_peper A few years ago I wrote up the surprising things I learned when I studied my local transit authority's budget for impact of making the system fareless: https://jamey.thesharps.us/2019/12/12/transit-fares-are-not-about-money/

     clacke likes this.
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     CelloMom On Cars (cellomomoncars@mastodon.social)'s status on Wednesday, 24-May-2023 09:04:21 JST CelloMom On Cars

     in reply to

     • Jamey Sharp

     @jamey

     Thank you for digging through the numbers, this was an enlightening post.

     But as you point out, it's not only about the numbers: it's about people's perception of who rides the trains and - especially - the buses. It's about people's perception of who comes into their neighbourhoods. And about people's perception of who "deserves" the free ride.

     Pointing out, as you did, that business owners and employers are beneficiaries may more that needle. Something to keep in mind.

     @jay_peper

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     Jamey Sharp (jamey@toot.cat)'s status on Wednesday, 24-May-2023 09:04:21 JST Jamey Sharp

     in reply to

     • CelloMom On Cars

     @CelloMomOnCars @jay_peper Although I explicitly said that transit fares are not about money, I was very careful in writing that post to not say what purposes fares really serve. I have my opinions about that, which I think line up with yours. But my goal was to convince people to get some of their preconceptions out of the way of having a real conversation. Jumping straight to socioeconomic discrimination often does the opposite, inviting more knee-jerk reactions instead.

     Besides, I haven't studied the broader issues in enough depth to feel like I could present and defend that argument well. This argument just required looking up some numbers and doing some math, and I know how to do that. But other people don't necessarily, so I think there's value in doing just this part too.

     So ny hope is that people read my post and then are prepared to engage with comments like yours in good faith.

     clacke likes this.
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     patrislav #RIPNatenom (patrislav@chaos.social)'s status on Friday, 17-Nov-2023 21:40:02 JST patrislav #RIPNatenom

     in reply to

     @jay_peper Andy Singer made this nice cartoon about it

     Haelwenn /элвэн/ :triskell: and NeonPurpleStar :heart_bi: like this.