the class war, however, is here for you

congrats being the “the problems are bad but their causes are good” liberal from the meme

Using liberal as a pejorative 🚩🚩🚩

It’s funny that you made two replies and you fucked up both of them up. do you want to try a third time

Rather than attacking me personally perhaps you'd like to explain why you hate civil and social rights.

You’re not being attacked, you’re just being made fun of you goose

Ok let's try again, rather than making fun of me and brigading this thread, perhaps you'd like to explain why you're against social and civil rights.

Owen I know more about all of this than you, how about instead of wondering why people are turning a “underfunded social resource” issue into a “generate funding through taxing those at the top issue” you just go drink from a toilet you dog-brained simpleton

A+ discourse. Thank you.

why would anyone hate things that dont exist

we don’t have public transit by popular demand, not the billionaires

you are here for class war just the wrong side

That's ok, cause the rest of us, will get it done for you unless of course, you're part of the class that gets the wall

I attend budget meetings or read the agenda packets. I don't think we can have nice things like free fare for K-12, low income fare cards (free rides), frequent service, if we don't charge the non poor for transit. We had fare-free buses during covid bc of Fed emergency funding, which ended

There's another question to ask here: whose budget should it be? If we want transit to provide a social service, maybe the money should come from the social services budget. Why don't we give a bus pass to everyone who receives TANF/SNAP, purchased by the social services agency at a bulk discount?

We do that in my region. It is called Clipper START.

Does this come from a social services budget or is it just the usual cross-subsidy between classes of riders? The MTC web site says it comes from state and agency-internal funding sources, which is very nearly the opposite of what I suggested.

"To implement the Clipper START pilot program, MTC committed roughly $17 million from the State Transit Assistance (STA) program, the statewide Low-Carbon Transit Operations Program and CARES Act funds. This will partially offset the loss of fare revenue for transit operators."

GoPass (free multiagency transit in LA County for K-14) is partially funded by CA Department of Education but the school district or community colleges have to kick in the other 60%.

The similar thing here in Boston (called, unfortunately, "Income Eligible Reduced Fares") is for now funded by a direct state appropriation to the MBTA, but like with Clipper START it's only a discount, not just giving monthly passes to people who need them.

(Holders can still *buy* a monthly pass, at the same reduced rate as seniors and other cross-subsidized users -- the T's fare collection system is too outdated to handle multiple classes of reduced fares so there's just one "reduced fare".)

The dedicated funding source helps some, but it would be much to an agency's benefit to have as many passengers as possible on monthly or annual passes rather than pay-per-ride, reducing costs of fare collection. (True even on PoP systems; there is ample evidence from Europe.)

Like most other niche "this should be free for poor people" issues, the easiest and fastest way to fund such things is via universally refundable taxes on motor fuel.

Buses should be free for everyone: unworkable simpleton idea. Gas should be $8/gal for everyone: based, genius material.

What if we taxed rich people more

A refundable gas tax would tax rich people more.

Lol

Poor people burn more gas per dollar they make, so it's a regressive tax, just like every sales tax.

A refundable gas tax means everyone gets a per capita share of the revenue in the mail every month, so if your hypothetical poor person pays no income tax then they also pay no gas tax, and if they burn less gas then the average person it's actually net new income. Thanks for coming to my talk.

Yeah I just gave up at that point

Like you'd need to make everyone not so dependent on cars

Unsurprisingly, many of us support that and no one in this thread is arguing against that.

And yet

A portion of CA cap and trade taxes on CO2 emissions from gasoline (paid at the pump) do go to transit. I think it should higher. Add VMT taxes. Bus lanes would significantly reduce operating cost of buses network. But the free parking lobby 🤦🏻‍♀️

then you're dead weight and should go find a hobby somewhere that keeps you out of our way

Oh I do think it's a class war and I am here for it. Class war just isn't engaged on the terrain of bus prices.

this right here

that's right. we wage class war on congestion pricing and abolition of 1031 exchanges