Pay people to dig up dirt, then fill it in, only to dig it all up again and start over.
This is how many conservative economists described communism, because a planned economy couldn’t be nimble enough to ensure every worker had something useful to do. So, people got paid to do less, because that was all there was to do in a stalled-out economy.
Let’s skip the debate on whether those economists were right or not, and instead ask ourselves if there’s anything that costs a lot and creates nothing in public transportation, and occasionally grinds everything to a halt for the very people the transit system is supposed to benefit?
If so, would it look exactly like a bus fare collection box?
Like their counterparts in Worcester, whose transit agency also voted to suspend fare collection in November, officials at the MVRTA have concluded that suspending fares – at least for now – makes more financial sense than upgrading the agency’s old, expensive fareboxes….
“If we wanted to stay with Scheidt & Bachmann, we’d have to upgrade our equipment to the tune of just under $200,000. So that created a certain urgency. It also allowed us to do the analysis on the true cost of fare collection,” said Berger. “For every $1 we collect in fares, we only see 23.1 cents (after subtracting the costs of fare collection). If you add in the additional cost of upgrading our fare equipment it would be just 8 cents.”
I’d submit: Yes. That’s 75.9% of every MVRTA rider dollar funneled away from largely working class bank accounts, all to pay the likes of a few companies to collect the money, and service the collection of that money. All using old, slow, and breaking fare collection systems that lengthen commutes and make the riding experience dramatically worse.
Upgrading the fare system, to make it slightly better, isn’t “fixing” it. It’s increasing the percentage of the corporate dirt-digging — in the MVRTA’s case, to a whopping 92%, all funded by the riders.
If this isn’t ludicrous planned nonsense, what is? Only here there isn’t even the guise of good intentions. We’re paying corporations to dig up the dirt and bury the riders with increased fares and lengthened commutes, and tying bus access to technology not every rider has or knows how to use.
The state should put these fare collection boxes to their best use: Melt them all down for scrap.
Then the state could pick up the fare difference.
How much would it all cost? According to the Massachusetts Budget and Policy Center, it’s a measly $23 million for all 15 of the regional Massachusetts transit authorities, outside of the MBTA. That’s loose change under the seat cushions. The state should fund it tomorrow.
For the MBTA, the costs start at $33.7 million, but the need to increase the number of buses running at any time if they were fare free in the Boston area could push that number upwards to around $60 million. It’s all a matter of how many more times people get on the bus — but every car driver who hates traffic should all agree, the more the merrier.
All told, making every public bus in Massachusetts fare-free would cost around $60-95 million a year, even accounting for a doubling in MBTA bus ridership.
That’s all money toward reducing traffic for everyone, making buses run much faster (helping even more people use buses), making our air cleaner, helping reduce our carbon footprint, and sparing many families from the high costs of needing extra cars. It will be a huge quality of life improvement for the Commonwealth.
Is it a lot of money? Well, it could be either mostly or entirely funded by eliminating the Massachusetts Hollywood Tax Credit, which the legislature extended permanently — the House by a 160-0 vote — just this summer. Either our state lawmakers didn’t think it was a lot of money then, or if they do now… well, there’s an easy way find the money in one fell swoop.
$20 million for another film like Ryan Reynolds’s Free Guy, or fare-free buses for the millions of MA residents outside the MBTA service area?
This is easy math, or very glitzy dirt for Walt Disney to dig up at our collective expense, and it was only a single film.
If we’re giving anyone free rides, give it to the people taking the bus, and make the Commonwealth run better.
So far as I can tell, the entire state government — with the notable exception of Tommy Vitolo — acts as though it wants to kill, dismember, and bury public transportation in MA.
There is an alternative practiced throughout Germany and Austria that might provide a middle ground. In those countries, passes can be purchased pretty much anywhere — from retailers, vending machines, and government offices.
Each vehicle has a one or two fare validation machines on board. Each passenger is expected to have a pass that they then give to the machine. The machine validates the pass and prints a paper receipt that the passenger keeps. That’s it.
Meanwhile, the government hires uniformed men and women who randomly board trains and buses and ask passengers to show their validated receipt. A passenger who doesn’t have a receipt when asked pays a MUCH higher fare. It isn’t a crime, it’s just a much higher fare. Not paying is not an option (presumably that’s where criminal behavior begins).
This approach has several important advantages over the way MA has always done fare collection. It does NOT criminalize “fare evasion” — instead, it rewards those who buy and validate their pass with a MUCH lower price. Vehicles are never delayed while riders or drivers fight with a broken machine. Passengers who ride every day and never pay end up paying much more in the end.
It is MUCH easier to roll out various alternatives for pricing of passes, because there is no hardware to change.
The balance of passengers who pay versus those who do not is readily adjusted by changing the size of the penalty and the frequency of inspections. Both are FAR less expensive than what MA currently does.
I think this middle proposal would help improve commute times, and could possibly be better than the status quo (depending on the specifics), but I have some reservations.
I mostly agree with you. I’m a little concerned about “the tragedy of the commons” — sometimes unexpected things happen when a resource is suddenly made free.
I can already hear the complaints from the stalwart defenders of Medford about the “undesirable element” coming to their town from Lawrence, Lowell, and Boston.
I suspect that the entire system will be shut down and dismantled ten years from now. The entire state (never mind nation) is in denial about the reality of sea-level increases driven by the carbon emissions that have already happened.
The Seaport district and Back Bay — and the subway systems that serve them — are going to be under water.
For me, the strongest argument for making busses (and other public transit) free, is that they are a public good owned by all of us and therefore should be taxpayer-funded. After all, we don’t pay directly to use most roads.
Welcome back!