In return we impose choke points on the boarding process so we can extract this chump change.

The Muni through Chinatown moves 20 seconds, boards 120 seconds (yes, I've checked).

The "crime issue" is preposterous. Criminals don't worry about fares, they jump turnstiles, board the bus in back, etc.

Spare the Air ride free days dramatically increased ridership. (Apparently, mass transit only involves disgusting inter-class contact when it is not free...).

The imputed income of traffic reduction is enormous, let alone the value to you personally when your ambulance gets you to the ER before your brain is dead from that stroke you're planning for.

I just want to observe, not necessarily stating my own opinion, that many of my local (Brooklyn) acquaintances--born NYers to a person--have come to look at big transit projects like the SAS as huge boondoggles and are very very cynical about them, and I'm not sure how they'd feel about an enormous tax on the use of private transportation that will direct more of their $$ at what they consider an incompetently run utility that's inefficient at running transportation but quite efficient at squandering public money in what they view as a gigantic patronage system.

The experience in Stockholm and London was that congestion charging is unpopular until it starts ... and then as soon as starts, voters see the benefit, and ask to keep it.

http://www.commuteroutrage.com/2008/06/02/streetsblog-streetcritiques/

"If people adopt mass transit or bicycle commutes because you ratchet up the costs until automobiles aren’t affordable, you haven’t proven that people prefer those methods you advocate."

Honestly, where do these guys find the time...

It seems to me, though, that now is not the time to talk compromise. Free transit is an idea that can capture people's imaginations and spur debate. We need to push it as far and wide as possible.

Increasing mass transit ridership is important but the condition of the infrastructure of the MTA should be a higher priority. Rather eliminate the fare, it would be more advantageous to put the money into upgrading existing infrastructure and expanding the reach of the system.

Cutting the fare to 50% rather than to 0% makes $1.66 billion available vs. $460 million under the Kheel plan. Considering the sheer magnitude of infrastructure upgrades that the MTA needs, I don't think that there could ever be enough funding.

The Kheel Plan is written in such a way that the money collected from congestion pricing would all go toward infrastructure improvements and capital expansion plans for the MTA. The economics of it, if you believe Kheel's baseline assumptions, would provide for a far healthier MTA — at least in economic terms — than the one we have now.

For example, the current plan is to make 100 stations ADA compliant by 2020. The infusion of capital would speed along this process.

Also AFAICT, the bsa does not seem to take into the account the impact on ridership and economic/social benefits of expanding the reach of the subway system.

I would be in favor of a reduction in fare but not a total elimination.

To Paul: If you're still nursing wounds from the lost fight, I sympathize. Now it's time to ditch incremental politics and change the paradigm. I refer you to the Shoup quote about the politics of c.p. in our January (Kheel I) report: "The dilemma confronting congestion pricing is not that opposition is too high, but that support is too low." While we intend to try to win over the opposition by convincingly demonstrating the travel time savings from a big congestion charge, our focus will be on galvanizing support via the carrot of free transit. That's the game-changer.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/6700567.stm

Most other press accounts of crime and free transit are pretty sketchy on the details, and the above article didn't include stats on ridership (did youth ridership also increase 55%?). Either way it looks like a relationship that should be investigated - and someone is going to bring it up if free transit becomes debated.

Some of the fare-collection infrastructure might go in a free system, but I think it'd be a foolish move to get rid of booth attendants (or whatever they are called these days), who give out information and provide a quick link to authorities. They help do the same thing an increase in the number of riders would do, provide eyes and ears that reduce crime.

Chances are the MTA would also want to maintain a way of counting passengers, and keep the physical turnstiles up too on the chance that the free system would end.

We have the highest state and local taxes in the country, and soaring debt service, pension and health care costs. Any public service that is not self-funding is vulnerable to ongoing qualit of service deterioration, unless it has people who matter (like retired senior citizens) behind it. Without the fare, transit's fate would be entirely in the hands of placard holders who don't rely on it at all.

Richard Trumka, former head of the United Mine Workers, once served on a blue ribbon commission on the Social Security problem but refused to endorse the majority conclusion, which was to means test it. That would turn it into a "welfare" program, he said, and you know how people feel about those.

The best argument for the Kheel plan is the die is cast and transit service is bound to collapse anyway, particularly after the 20/50 pension plan is passed (followed by the 15/45). But if you don't believe that, you ought to want to keep the fare

Also, ridership is at an all-time high and there are plenty of people on the subway late nights and yet I still see signs of vandalism on cars, so the deterrent is not 100% effective.

The increased ridership that would presumably result from eliminating fares would provide more "eyes on the trains" and would deter crime and vandalism, not increase it.

Kheel Plan II is brilliant.