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Anonymous coward's avatar

From an economic perspective it may make sense to provide zero-fare busses, but speaking as a rider, when Seattle briefly changed to zero fares, the results were appalling: homeless people took to riding the warm and dry busses as an alternative to sleeping in tents, and the seat congestion and urine-filled seats that resulted dissuaded me from wanting to ever ride the bus again.

Based on the problems, Seattle wisely rolled back the zero fares policy.

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John Quiggin's avatar

My home state of Queensland recently cut a wide range of transit fares to 50 cents (about $US 0.30). The proposal was originally put forward by the Greens, then adopted by the centre-left Labor party and retained by the conservative LNP after an election win. Congestion pricing still a bridge too far.

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