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Add to FavoritesFree public transportation would not create a utopian world as some would have us believe, but it could make life easier for many. This is because personal forms of transportation such as automobiles, will always be the preferred choice of transportation for most people, but making public transportation universally accessible would at least help to establish a better balance within cities.
Why is this important? At the present time many cities across North America and the world experience vehicular grid-lock. That is, no longer do we have a morning and evening rush hour; rush hour is all day long. We have commuters, shoppers, delivery people, taxis, ambulances and firetrucks all competing for use of the city streets. As cities grow, the problems related to movement will get even worse if a solution is not found.
The solution is to alleviate congestion on the streets by having alternate forms of transportation that are actually user friendly. This means making public transit more convenient, more frequent, and at least in the mind of this writer, free.
Many years ago I remember studying geography in high school where a teacher told his class of studies and experiments in public transportation that concluded that free mass transit within cities would likely be cheaper than paid transit. The reasons for this are manifold. Savings on the elimination of salaried ticket collectors and fare systems are obvious. But there are many other reasons relating to efficiencies that could be achieved if the pressure on city streets were to be reduced.
It is unlikely people will abandon their cars unless gas prices go so high that they immobilize the country. But then that's another reason to consider free public transit. We need to start considering not only alternate energy sources, but also more creative means of using what we have. As it is, people waste too much time on their commute to and from work. People love their cars because they are practical and convenient, but when they are boxed in by a million other vehicles for several hours a day, that practicality disappears.
Lost time doesn't mean only personal time lost. Time is money for most trucking companies that service just about every business across every city in the country. If public transit were to become free, there would be greater incentive for people to use it and that would go a long way to free up the roads and make life easier for everyone. If one starts to see the big picture, free public transit no longer falls within the realm of socialistic daydreaming. It can be a most beneficial solution to making cities more functional and livable.
Many cities have tried free local transit in their downtown cores and continue to have it during workdays when congestion on city streets is greatest. If the various government bodies involved in transportation and infrastructural planning could sit down and work together, a free public transportation system might even prove to be a cost-cutting measure, once the cost of maintaining over-used streets and highways is factored in. At this point free public transportation does not have the political will behind it to become a widespread reality. But if circulation problems and all of its related problems such as pollution, lost time and money persist, the debate on free public transportation might no longer seem all that far fetched.
Learn more about this author, Bohdan Rewko (Bo of T.O.).
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Disagree
Public transportation, or mass transit, should be free. Not free of cost to riders but free from government interference through subsidies or needless regulation. Such interference in the natural market of transportation distorts incentives and takes away the power of consumers to direct the market to meet their needs.
To begin we should do away with the misconception. Nothing is free. Mass transit might be made free to the consumers, the riders, but that just means that someone other than the person who is using the service is paying for it. Generally that means taxpayers who may, or may not, get any benefit from the system.
To get an idea of the problems with this, let's look at something that is far more important to human life than transportation. What would it mean if food were free? Food is so important that if we do without it for even a few days our health can be seriously compromised. Much more than a week without food and we are likely to die. If we use the same argument used to justify government handouts for mass transit, by making people pay for food we are promoting hunger and starvation. However, that ignores the mechanics of the market versus the realities of government.
If we were to provide free food we would have to answer a lot of questions. Would we provide the same food to everyone, everyday? How would we ensure that everyone got enough food? How would we ensure that some didn't take advantage of the free food and get too much food? How do the bureaucrats decide what is the right food for one person or another? What about people with special needs? Do they just get stuck with the same food as everyone else? Or, do we have our leaders plan a diet that is safe for everyone and that's what we all get?
The way we solve those problems of choice and allocation is through the market. Food costs money. Some food costs more money than other food. People are allowed to make choices as to what they spend their money on. Some choose to spend more on steaks. Some choose to save and spend less buying chicken. Some might prefer rice while others would prefer potatoes.
Government planning can never take into consideration the choices of the billions of people on the planet.
Pricing in markets conveys information that is far more important than just the cost of production or the greed of the producers. Markets convey the relative values of all participants in the market. Value is a concept that is vastly misunderstood and under-rated. Value is the consideration of everything that is important to any individual, or group of individuals. One person might value entertainment over the environment, while another would be willing to live in relative poverty if it meant saving the planet. Every human has innumerable values, and every human's values differ from everyone else's.
In human decision making, value is everything.
Only the market can take into consideration the myriad of values represented by mankind. Every time a person makes a choice to spend money on something, or to not spend money on something, the market gets information that allows the actors in the market, basically every human being on Earth, to decide how best to serve everyone else.
When someone chooses to purchase chicken, instead of steak, the market is informed that that person, at that time, values chicken more than they value steak. Perhaps that's because the price of beef is just too high. Perhaps it's because the person doing the buying feels that chicken is healthier, or, to them, it tastes better, or they think that chicken farming is better for the environment than raising beef. Or, perhaps, just today and not tomorrow, they want chicken.
This information about the values of that single consumer is transmitted through the ordering processes at the grocery, to the distributors and ultimately to the producers of both beef and chicken and, however minutely, affects the decisions of all of those people and companies.
When enough consumers provide the information about their preferences through such a system, ultimately, everyone's choices and voices are heard and acted upon.
Such information can make significant changes in society. Several years ago many consumers became concerned about the killing of dolphins through tuna fishing. Enough of those consumers decided to do something about the situation; they refused to buy tuna until fishing methods were adopted that protected the dolphins. Those actions, people acting on their values through the market, were enough to force most tuna fishermen to adopt dolphin-safe fishing techniques. Many companies changed their fishing methods long before governments stepped in and claimed credit for passing laws to protect the dolphins.
Governments can never take into consideration all of the things that people value. The only information that is given to the government happens every few years at election time when our politicians are voted into, or out of, office. And, when we elect our government officials, we are choosing a basket of positions that only approximates what we really want.
Even worse, those elected politicians only set policy; they don't act to implement that policy. Most implementation is performed by bureaucracies that aren't directly accountable to the electorate at all. Would you want a nameless, faceless office worker to decide what you are going to have for dinner tonight? And tomorrow night?
The same mechanisms apply to public transportation. How are the needs and desires of those that use the service to be accounted for without a cost associated with the use of mass transit?
In the summertime, with the air warm and the sun shining, it is perfectly fine for the bus stop to be several blocks from your ultimate destination. However, our values are different in winter, when there is snow on the ground and a cold wind blowing. In the winter we may be quite willing to pay substantially more to be delivered to the door at the end of our trip. Public decision making in transportation, however, cannot take our values into consideration. Markets and pricing can.
When school is in session it may be important for the busses to run near our schools. During school breaks, however, it is a waste of money to keep running a 50-person bus on that same route when no one has any need to go to the school buildings. Bureaucracies have great difficulties in recognizing the changes in personal values from year to year, let alone day to day.
There are many options for mass transit that can meet the needs of people in society, at a reasonable cost, and recognize the differences in our values. When given the chance many entrepreneurs come up with a wide variety of innovative solutions. When regulations don't prohibit private competition with mass transit, or when those regulations aren't strongly enforced, many people start providing services to help others get around. Some will drive a fixed route and schedule, much like our current systems of mass transit, while others may just drive at random, providing rides to whoever is going in their general direction. Using minivans and microbuses, and full-size buses when the demand is appropriate, thousands of entrepeneurs throughout the world find opportunities providing mass transit at a reasonable cost. And, through the recognition of individual values enabled through pricing and the marketplace, they will change their approach to meet the needs of everyone involved on a week to week, day by day or, even, an hour to hour basis. "Free" government run transportation systems can never hope to be as responsive.
Eliminati on of the market feedback mechanism of pricing guarantees that individual values can never be represented in the solutions sought. Subsidies reduce that information to the point of uselessness. Regulations that prohibit private competition with public transit ensure that we can never provide a solution that is truly desirable.
Only through markets, competition and choice can the values of the billions of potential users of mass transit be recognized and their needs and desires met.
Public transportation should be free, free from government involvement and interference. But it should never be free of cost because, without pricing, only the values of a small portion of society are used to make choices for everyone.
Learn more about this author, Keith Hamburger.
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