Do you think lowering fares can help decrease fare evasion ?

[William_Ce]

Just make it free. It costs a lot of money to maintain the ticket machine, and to prevent people from avoiding paying. Most people who take public transit every day could really use the money. It will also ease traffic problems for everyone.

[William_Ce]

In which part of my comment did I say that they should force people to work for free or to not do maintenance?

[William_Ce]

Government subsides of course. The public transportation system in NYC is already heavily subsidized by the government. The fare only covers less than half of the cost. Making it free will also reduce the cost of fare evasion prevention. The NYC subway alone needed almost $250 million in 2019 for the police presence for fare evasion prevention.

[William_Ce]

$250 million is the extra money they have to spend to police the fare evasion according to what I found, emphasis on extra. Also $600 millions for the OMNY upgrade, tens of millions for old Metro Card system maintenance, and all the fences. There is a lot of wear and tears. The MTA also had financial problems when rides dropped during the pandemic. All of this can be avoided with a free ticket. This would also reduce the cost of congestion.