Happy Earth Day to those who used to celebrate before they moved on to Queers for Palestine, etc.! And what better way to celebrate Earth Day than to get on a clean soot-spewing diesel-powered bus? “It’s where America’s poor and very poor can meet,” a friend pointed out.
Ayatollah Mamdani wants to bring free bus service to the Manhattan Caliphate, though it seems as if the dream is deferred (“Zohran Mamdani backs down on cornerstone campaign promise of free NYC buses” (NY Post)). A Republican in the NYC woodpile objects because “free busses will inevitably turn into rolling homeless shelters and drug dens, and become miserable and dangerous for the people who actually need to utilize them”:
(Wokipedia on the horrors of this Deplorable harpy: “Paladino has openly expressed Islamophobic and homophobic views. She has also opposed pro-Palestinian protests during the Gaza War, squatter houses, Drag Queen Story Hour, congestion pricing, and COVID-19 vaccine mandates.”)
As someone who loves Zohran and hates sitting in traffic jams, I’m a believer that public transit should be free and, actually, negatively priced during peak traffic congestion. On the other hand, maybe Vickie Paladino is right that “free” in a filthy city such as New York doesn’t attract the best people.
How about if people pay the usual fare when boarding, but via a smartphone app become eligible for a monthly rebate that is paid via Zelle. The unhoused New Yorkers and drug-dealing New Yorkers whom Paladino doesn’t want to encounter aren’t likely to have bank accounts and, therefore, aren’t likely to be able to get rebates via Zelle.
The rebate would vary by the ride and time of day and be linked to congestion on the roads. Someone who rode the bus during rush hour (that’s 8 am to 8 pm in NYC?) would get a rebate larger than whatever the fare is cranked up to. Someone who rode the bus at midnight wouldn’t get a rebate, which aligns pretty well with transit system costs because it is expensive per rider to maintain a schedule at night when ridership is low.
When I lived in NYC in the 1980s, the bus was the least aesthetically-challenged option (although likely the most polluting), the eau-de-l’urine was faint unless someone just peed in the seat. Now, you couldn’t pay me to live in that place.
As for cabs, another fine transportation option, my wife and I watched Breakfast at Tiffany’s recently — you know, the classic movie about girl and boy grifters leaving their sugar daddy and mommy for each other. I couldn’t believe Audrey kept using those filthy yellow cabs, with her high fashion dresses.
I’m thinking Momma-dani should look into free limos (stretch G-wagens for immigrants or Broncos for hip black women?) with self-steam-cleaning between riders. I mean if you are going to build a Muslim communist utopia, do it right bro/grrl/unk. I wonder how many other Americans like me wish they could immigrate to a better place, and get free shit.
“Yo cabby, smell you later.” — Fresh Prince of Bel-Air (from the French for “pleasant air”)
Interesting to see Momma-dani is/was advocating self-cleaning public bathrooms. It really would fix an underlying issue. But I think they tried that in the past and it ended up being a place for junkies to shoot up, or the chronically home-challenged just peed on the side of them. The more things change, the more they stay the same.
Maybe this time they ought to spray a naloxone mist when the user enters. Perhaps play some Wagner to hurry them up. Burger King used to have guards to ensure carousing drinkers bought a Whopper before they used their bathrooms in NYC, which is in part why the alleys were so pungent.
https://www.timeout.com/newyork/news/mamdani-wants-to-install-self-cleaning-modular-public-bathrooms-to-help-with-access-all-across-town-011226
Vickie Paladino is the Councilwoman from northeastern Queens, where I grew up. NYC was once an ethnic city – Irish, Italian and Jewish. Or certain ethnicities, anyway. The voters would choose a Giuliani, an O’Dwyer, a Koch, a Bloomberg. Those ethnicities have largely left the City and others have taken over. Vickie P. represents what little is left of that constituency in northeastern Queens -working class who no longer fit in a city of the highly affluent who pay for everything, the far left, who spend everything and the poor, who get a few of the crumbs after the public sector workers and the nonprofits are paid. She is a dinosaur facing extinction.
I rarely think your ideas are brilliant but the monthly rebate qualifies. And a transit pass with a face ID would help. I live in Austin where the actual poor who ride the bus have to put up with the bad behavior (my condo near the U is 300 feet from the bus stop that takes me to the airport, so I get to see the problem). And if you really want an earful talk to the Black bus drivers who have to put up with it.
“… pay the usual fare when boarding… monthly rebate that is paid via Zelle. The unhoused … aren’t likely to have bank accounts and, therefore, aren’t likely to be able to get rebates via Zelle”
This is a great idea that can actually be effective, but that’s why it will never be acceptable.
Why bother with this? Just make all public transit and all road use paid at cost in low times and auction at congestion times and problem will magically solve itself – business will reposition to places with efficient transportation and people will live in the places from where they economically get to work. Subsidizing common that is overused kills efficiency and as such wastes untold amount of money.
SK: NYC subway ride would be $11 instead of $3 if both capital and operations costs were covered by riders AND the higher price didn’t discourage use. But it might be $50 in the middle of the night and only $5 at packed rush hour times if you accounted for cost by shift. I guess the resulting reduced ridership wouldn’t be a catastrophe if you had priced uncongested roads. It would certainly be a more elite crowd on the subway at 2 am!
(In pre-Biden dollars (2017), the MBTA cost to run buses at night was $27 plus whatever passengers paid (about $29 total?). https://commonwealthbeacon.org/transportation/mbta-takes-a-run-at-overnight-service/ If we adjust for Bidenflation and the increased level of lavishness of public employee compensation, I’m pretty sure it would be $50 today.)
And yet it run at profit when it was built and run by private companies for 5c per ride. During Great Depression cost went up to 10c, they were not allowed to raise prices (wonders of regulation), went bankrupt, were taken over by the city (amazing coincidence, if you ask me). Which itself then got to the edge of bankrupting (effective centralized management), and transportation was taken over by state. Now New York state tax payers pay for transportation of New York City dwellers.
This cost per rider is real money and subsidizing it leads to inefficiencies that compound in the long run. It’s better to build system that operate without distortion, and as such more effective and resilient to changing circumstances.