The market can provide premium service for passengers who want to pay for it.

I’ve seen crush loads of passengers on buses in Eastern European cities. A bus pulls up to a bus stop - 60 people get off and 80 get on. There are privately-operated buses that charge twice the regular bus fare in exchange for all passengers getting a seat and no standees. These buses stopped to pick up passengers only when there were available seats. Therefore, the buses travelled much faster on route than a regular bus.

The larger question is can the existing system handle the increase in ridership considering the times and routes these new riders would use and is there the opportunity to cheaply add additional service? In New York City, I strongly doubt that the existing system could easily handle the additional demand.

Free rides on transit invites a scofflaw element, but this is not so significant a problem when more legitimate riders fill the cars. Identifying troublemakers is a phase, a methodology of denying boardings, eventually they disappear, or settle down to keep riding privileges.

The theory of loss leader marketing is a useful part of the discussion. Anybody giving free boardings on early morning runs to get people to work, charging after lunch hour, or home direction peak?

This comes back to starvation diet for Public Transit in the USA… And, foot-dragging & obstructionism on the part of some locales that scare off investment. Case in Point: “City” of Novato, demanding EIR on entire 300+ mile Northwestern Pacific, causing delay of rehab of 50-odd miles slated for rehab to serve Santa Rosa & North Bay Communities in CA.

As part of the Post 911DAY scenario, it is time to exempt from taxation, abandoned and identified legacy rail corridor as “Homeland Defense assets”, with priority rehab status. Other interim finance tools might be sponorship tax benefits for corporates, including advertising in stations & rolling stock.

We are inexorably moving closer to some extreme rethinking of public transportation, and rail haul distribution as well, -this due to energy/climate concerns. Stay light on your feet, consultants and transport responsibles. We are at the leading edge of James Howard Kunstler’s “LONG EMERGENCY”.

Oilmen par exellence -Matthew Simmons & T. Boone Pickens allude to “shortages this summer”; read “RATIONING”. This will render these sorts of discussions about loss leader pricing for Transit passe’! Maybe Mr. Jandt will do a list of metropolitan area transit Capacity existing, vs, capacity needed when gas rationing is mandated by Federal Executive Order… Matt Simmons is accessible, interested Transit & MPO executives would do well to get update directly.

More than a decade ago, Capital Metro in Austin, TX tried running a fare-free system for a year. Ridership was somewhat higher, but the transit system also became a de facto provider of after-school latchkey child care and a homeless shelter…maybe a “good” thing for social welfare, but a “bad” thing to the extent it may have driven away choice transit riders. Restoration of fares allowed Cap Metro to resume its legislated function of being primarily a public transportation provider.

In Portland, Fareless Square is limited to the central business district and immediately adjacent parts of the Central City, including the Lloyd District. The “problem” is not so much fareless square itself, as enforcement, of the boundaries iof fareless square and throughout the MAX and streetcar system using proof-of-payment fares (not an honor system; it just seems that way when riders don’t see a fare inspector for months at a time). In short, more enforcement is needed: more frequent fare inspection of passengers’ proofs of payment (passes, validated tickets, transfers), and more visible security. There is no good reason why both functions cannot be carried out by one set of people, security patrollers who double as fare inspectors.

We have proved that people will ride a bus in areas that had no previous public transportation.