Free Transport in the US
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Interesting article in the Times of London a couple of days ago, which complements the book review in the December Socialist Standard.
Here’s an extract from the Times article:
“The city of Olympia was preparing to replace the elderly ticket machines on buses with electronic card readers when transport officials hit upon an alternative that would be cheaper, faster and more convenient: free travel.
This month the capital of Washington state became the latest in the United States to experiment with free public transport. The idea, which once seemed far-fetched and rather European in the land of the motorcar, is being considered across the country.
Councillors in Kansas City, Missouri, with half a million residents, voted unanimously last month to make the buses free. They plan to cancel fares this year. In Worcester, the second largest city in Massachusetts, the city council has indicated that it would support waiving bus fares, while in Lawrence, north of Boston, buses on three lines serving poorer neighbourhoods were made free in September, leading to an increase in passengers.( …)
In Olympia officials felt it was more efficient to stop charging fares than to upgrade payment systems. “It costs a lot of money to collect money,” Ann Freeman-Manzanares, head of the city’s transit agency, told the broadcaster OPB. Buses were regularly delayed by people trying to pay. Removing the fares removed a source of .”conflict”. “We can be speedier at what we do.””
And there are still people around who say that this sort of thing is against “human nature”. But if it will work under capitalism it surely will in socialism.
With the money invested in the military budget, almost everything in the USA could be free, including medical service, medications, hospital, transportation, housing, foods, and education
There were some universities in Latin American who had free transportation for their students and they had their buses, tuition was free, free breakfast, lunch and dinners, and the textbooks were sold at cost, and they had several copies of the textbooks of every class at the university library, police and military were not allowed to enter the university campus, and churches were not allowed inside the campus either. All musical and artistic events were free. Anybody was allowed to become a doctor, engineer, or lawyers, there were not any pre-requisite, and the admission was open to any person and a person working during the day was allowed to obtain his profession at night without paying tuition. All that is gone with the wind. Who implemented all that? The socialists, the communists, the anarchists, and the workers union and many of them had control of the student senate
Luxemburg go free
https://www.dw.com/en/luxembourg-makes-public-transport-free/a-52582998
“You will no longer need a ticket to board any national bus, train or the tram,”
In itself, what’s not to like about free public transport? And we can indeed point out that if free access to services is possible under capitalism, there’s no reason why free access can’t work on a wider scale in socialism.
But of course, so-called free transport under capitalism is being paid for in one way or another, and is partly at least being implemented because it’s cheaper than administering the payment systems, and presumably to make businesses more efficient. It can also be used by pro-capitalists to show what a wonderful system capitalism is, especially where, as in Luxembourg, it’s being done ostensibly to make the world a greener place. And further down the line it could lead to local government taxes increasing more quickly, or wages not rising as quickly.
“at least being implemented because it’s cheaper than administering the payment systems”
Not so sure of that. The over-60s scheme in Scotland has a quite convoluted system where bus companies re-coup the fares from the Scottish government. It will probably be the same with the to-be-introduced 18 and under free bus travel. The over 60s though are not inconvenienced by the process though other than naming their destination.
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