by Calista Capet

Created on: May 15, 2010

Public transportation should definitely not be free.

Earlier in the twentieth century, people regularly took buses, trains, and other forms of public transportation everywhere - to and from work, to school, to the market. But nowadays when owning a car, in many cities in the United States, is almost a must, not as many people take public transportation even though taking the train or the bus is not only good for the environment, but one's wallet. Public transportation can save money.

While some may argue that public transportation is good for the environment and abolishing the bus fee, the subway fee, and so on would encourage more people to use it, I argue that although making public transportation free would most likely increase the people using it, it would not increase by a lot. This is because if it about cost, people are already saving by using public transportation - yet most people still do not use it. Owning a car can cost thousands of dollars each month, including costs like gas, repairs, which occur every once and a while, and insurance. If public transportation were free, people with cars would continue to use their cars, and people who take public transportation would go about their lives as normal.Making public transportation free would not take cars off of the road.

The increase in people using public transportation would include mostly homeless people who otherwise would not be able to get around. You might see this as a positive thing for homeless people to be able to take the subway and the bus free, but this would be - not to sound offensive - too dangerous to other passengers, depending on the person.

If public transportation were to become free, the increase of passengers, the majority being homeless people or drug addicts, mostly on buses, would cause the city to have to expand the buses for them to fit more people. But where would they get this money? Not from bus fares, or train fares. People may say taxes, but there simply would not be enough money after schools, soup kitchens, and much more. The government would be forced to raise taxes to pay for the free transportation. And even if the government did not need to expand the bus system, the government would have to raise taxes anyway to make up for the money they were not getting from public transportation fares.

So, because making public transportation free would not take cars off of the road, and be an extra burden on the people, public transportation should not be free.

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