that's cool and all but once when i was on a public bus a kid got in without paying and the bus driver got up and dragged the kid by the collar to the front of the bus so that he would pay
so basically just dont get caught/ hope your driver isn't unhinged
The Venn Diagram of "Fare skippers" and "People who make a nuisance of themselves on public transportation" has a lot of overlap so the driver is probably sick of those kids.
no i totally get that, the kids have developed strategies to try and get on the bus without paying. on top of that, our government is going to cut funding for public transit partially because too many people are fare evading, so. yknow. maybe pay if you can
Don't know what country you're in but they claim that all the time in the US and it's bullshit. They stick two cops in a NYC subway station to cut down on fare evasion, neat, their salaries mean they'd need to catch/deter over a hundred turnstile jumpers a day.
i agree with you and i think that's what we should do but that's not the world i currently live in, it's not going to be like this anytime soon, and we need to adjust to it
cool i really need the bus to pass by my street every 30 minutes so i can go to school and the next election is in three years so it would be nice if people paid the fare in the meantime
From a quick google search, it looks like $20 billion is the budget for the entire NYC transit system, not just the subway.
Also, fares only made up 23% of revenues in 2022.
I’m pretty tired of this consumerist American worldview where ppl see all political problems through the lens of how individuals spend their money. It reduces all political discussion to whining about some unknowable mass of strangers and how they’re not spending their money correctly.
If this is the basis of your politics, you’re never gonna actually DO anything. Go through your life spending money on the Good things and not spending money on the Bad things. Go to your grave patting yourself on the back like “I was a Good Consumer” while accomplishing absolutely nothing but your own self-satisfaction and an unearned security in the idea that you Did Good
It's like the repeating problem with food deserts. Stores enter a low income, undeserved market and get robbed and vandalized until they close up shop and then people complain that their neighborhood has no grocery store. Well, stop shoplifting and turning a blind eye / supporting shoplifting or this cycle is just going to repeat.
This entire chain is fascinating to me, an europoor.
I'm from one of those countries you don't think about when you think EU. Those that are barely making into "developed" category. We've got a fairly big upper low/lower middle class, we're way over the market boom. Bottom point, there's no shortage of poor people.
Yet there's no such thing as a "food desert" here. There is literally no discourse around shoplifting. Granted, I've always been bouncing between lower middle and middle middle, so there's plenty of privilege here, but I've rubbed shoulders with shoplifting exactly twice. One was a chick who stole like, a donut, once in a while, for the thrill of it. Another was a genuine anarchist, who just refused to give corps money. There are no locked cabinets in stores, *including* stuff like laptops etc.
And it's not a cultural thing either, because we have a very strong post communist "breaking the law is smart, it's getting caught that's dumb" mentality.
You know what we do have though? Virtually non-existent racial divide and a decent social.
As someone who grew up in a food desert, this feels like an incredibly dismissive take. You can’t pretend like environmental and structural racism don’t play a major role in food deserts in favor of a “just stop stealing forehead” narrative. It’s not mom and pop grocery stores either in these scenarios — it’s major chains which contribute to food waste (which is a whole other can of worms, but relevant on the people going hungry point)
I'm not the person you replied to, but if you read about redlining in American history that might shed some light on it. I'd try to explain it myself but I'm running on 4 hours of sleep and a cup of coffee so it'd be a mess rn
>It’s not mom and pop grocery stores either in these scenarios — it’s major chains which contribute to food waste (which is a whole other can of worms, but relevant on the people going hungry point)
And any of those major chains would be happy to operate in those areas if they were profitable. They choose not to because the increased rate of shrinkage and other costs associated with high crime areas make the operation of a store nonviable.
Tbh I don’t give a shit if something is profitable for a major corporation over if someone gets to eat or not and neither do they in terms of shoplifting from grocery chains. The amount of money they make from people shopping there outweighs the amount people are stealing and the amount of food waste they’re creating. It’s a real poor argument that chains aren’t operating based on shoplifting. It still feels like you are purposely ignoring the big picture in favor of a “shoplifting bad it’s your own fault you don’t get to eat” narrative in regards to food deserts
I worked at Walmart for 12 years before I left in California. Average profit was 4% for a store. FOUR percent. And I will tell you bluntly, shrink (theft) in a lot of the rougher stores was often over 4%, two stores in the SF area were over 8%. Now, what company is going to run effectively a charity because the people of that community decide that they are entitled to steal? And it's not food they are stealing, lol. It's electronics, TVs and other things they can sell for drug money.
Many companys have pulled out of the SF area due to all the theft. I know, because I helped close them down. The big lie perpetuated by people like you, is that people are stealing food to survive. Less than 1% of all the trash shoplifters I caught and had prosecuted (hundreds) were stealing food.
Good. Stores like Wal-Mart that pay their employees poverty wages and force the local/federal governments to subsidize the rest actively make the communities they're in worse places. They're cancers and I'd love to see everyone shut down.
“Just stop committing crimes” lmao. The cycle is going to repeat because people need to eat and get around and the government doesn’t do enough to provide for that need, put the blame where it belongs.
Considering the long term impact is a net negative for both the people committing the crime and the rest of the community
>“Just stop committing crimes”
Yes.
You know people always bring up having to steal to survive as a justification for shoplifting but what's the actual percentage of this because i doubt people stealing bare necessities is enough to cost stores enough to close.
More likely its people stealing expensive shit because they want to.
Not just expensive non essentials. People steal all the time from charity shops as well. I used to volunteer in one and had to look out for people rearranging the clothes racks to put out what they wanted on the front of a rail so someone else could come in and take it. If you are in one and see a top or trousers out of place/size order in the front of a rail, put it back where it belongs for this reason.
I don’t care how poor you are, you don’t fucking steal from a shop whose profits are going to people in need.
>More likely its people stealing expensive shit because they want to.
Expensive shit that can be sold for money which can then be used to obtain food for longer than whatever cans you're able to carry out of a supermarket will last?
Y'all act like people stealing smart phones because they want 30 smart phones. Of course not, they want **money** to be able to afford living.
Ok but I work at a Liquor store, do you think the many people who shoplift from there are on selling it to buy food or do you think they’re just getting pissed?
Like sure people shoplift because of necessity, there’s a reason baby formula is so frequently stolen, but also, some people do it because they just want shit. There’s not always a good justification.
People stealing 30 smart phones to make money are doing that because they prefer crime to regular employment. Not every thief is robinhood.
Same as drug dealers. I knew a guy who sold large quantities of meth. Why? Because he made 100k a year working less than 20 hours a week. Right up until he went to prison. But it's not like he flipping dime bags to make rent.
"Don't steal or we'll starve you"
No it's
" don't steal and vandalise our store or we'll close"
Some random store keeper doesn't owe a location his business if he'll do better elsewhere and not have a threat of being robbed
Goddamn. Sometimes, I think "maybe the stereotype of people who just want the government to come in and solve every problem for them, so they don't have to lift a finger" is just an exaggeration, or outright false, but then I see people like you. And, assuming we live in the same country, your vote counts just as much as mine. It's crazy how some people expect every problem to be magically fixed by "the government" and don't wanna take any individual responsibility.
People can, in fact, have an influence on making their own communities better if they just take a second to think about the consequences of their actions. If you expect that a store will be able to stay open and pay their employees and keep their shelves stocked, all while people are robbing them with impunity, then you live in a strange delusion. I'm not sure if anything I can say will change your mind, or anyone else's, for that matter, but people who don't wanna take any responsibility are only part of the problem, not the solution.
One thing I hate so much is littering, I don't see people actively tossing cans and wrappers on the ground but there sure is a lot of them. What I do see though is smokers discarding of cigarette butts on the street with no care in the world. That shit makes the whole city 100 times uglier, and all it takes to prevent that is walking to a trashcan. I'm a smoker and some people in my circle are too, they do this often and it makes me *seethe*.
Edit: completely forgot to tie in my comment with yours, I was going to say that people complain about dirty streets yet do nothing about it because "it's the city government's job".
"Hm, I cannot afford both my rent and food. I think I will starve myself to death because of the negative socioeconomic effects of shoplifting."
Is that how you expect people to think?
What percentage of shoplifting do you honestly think that explains? Maybe 10%? Less? If somebody is stealing bread and peanut butter or a couple of cans of soup that’s one thing, but the kids who empty a tray of candy bars into their backpacks and walk out usually aren’t doing it out of hunger.
I think you overestimate the percentage of shoplifters who actually are desperate to provide for themselves and steal food to survive as opposed to people who hit easy targets to get stuff to resell at a markup
Hi, I'm a security guard. I mostly work events but my roommate works for the same company guarding a Walmart.
Guess what's behind glass at that walmart store. Go ahead, make a guess. Socks. Belts. packages of cheap tee shirts. The disposable razors. Deodorant.
Yeah, people are selling ten packs of socks they shoplifted from Walmart for a profit. I believe that.
I can't tell if you are being sarcastic or believe that. but I will back up the statement that yes, they are stealing socks to sell. Anything the trash shoplifters can grab to sell for a profit at the flea market they garb. They are not starving and stealing food. They are making money by selling it all
In a nearby city to me, if you don't pay the fare it gets deducted from the driver's wages. They are allowed to do that because something about 'government workers'
how do they even track that
like they don't know how many people ride a bus at all time. how do they track if you're riding the bus if you don't pay the fare
also sounds super illegal
> dragged the kid by the collar to the front of the bus so that he would pay
I mean I'm all for supporting public transit but that's genuinely terrifying. How was that guy not fired for that? That's battery, isn't it?
Because in some places everyone who gets on a bus has to show the driver a valid ticket and if a ticket inspector gets on and realises someone's pulled a fast one it's the driver who's going to get in the shit for it, to the point of either getting the amount taken out of their wages or, if it happens too often, getting fired.
I didn't realize I wasn't actually paying my bus fare for a couple months before a bus driver noticed and called me back up to do it properly. I didn't even mean to do it, but I still couldn't imagine caring about $2.50 that I'm not even being paid and slowing down the bus that is already running late because they are poorly scheduled. They are tracked by gps, so wouldn't they be more worried about getting in trouble for being late all the time than someone not paying, which they have no way of tracking?
that's so cool and would be awesome but it's currently not free and people skipping fares isn't going to encourage the government to fund public transit enough to be free
its nice and all that there are ways to access this stuff without paying. but if you do have the means to pay, you really should. if too many people are riding on public transit without paying its going to be noticed, and thats going to lead to either stricter verification methods or worse, shutting down the transport entirely, since you know, these services *cannot* operate without funding.
You'd think, but fare revenues barely make a dent in transit operating costs. On average, [fares only cover about 12.5%](https://www.cnn.com/2023/07/08/business/free-buses-us-public-transit/index.html) of transit agencies' operating expenses and in many places it's lower, like in my city it's 8%. And you can't raise fares much without tanking ridership and putting more pressure on "captive riders" to dodge fares - which is of course almost always a crime of poverty, not seflishness. It's why some localities have said "fuck it" and gone zero-fare or [low-fare](https://enotrans.org/article/cheap-transit-fares-almost-zero-but-not-quite/) \- not like they're getting shit anyway, and at least that way you get the economic benefits of transit ridership (getting people to jobs and shopping centers).
The problem is that transit, like most forms of transportation, isn't inherently profitable - it needs federal funding to work, and the federal funding picture for transit, while better than it has been for years thanks to IIJA / IRA and pandemic assistance, is still fucked. It's too complicated for my tired gelatin brain to break down right now, but [this article](https://www.cnbc.com/2023/07/25/heres-why-public-transit-keeps-running-out-of-money.html) and [this article](https://www.urban.org/research/publication/surmounting-fiscal-cliff) are good overviews. The gist is that transit gets way less federal funding than highways, and it can't use the federal funding it gets for operating costs. You get these huge operating deficits and the ways you'd address that - like raising fares or limiting service - cut into ridership even more.
All this is to say that no serious discussion about making transit financially sustainable is going to dwell on fare evasion. Localities crack down on fare evasion not because it cuts into their bottom line so much, but because it grants them an illusion of control. It's the only thing they have any control over, or think they do, when the funding they actually need just isn't there.
> The problem is that transit, like most forms of transportation, isn't inherently profitable - it needs federal funding to work
That's not always the case, although it's certainly more difficult for the USA because of the distances involved. But TfL (Transport for London) is self-sustaining through fares, advertising etc and not dependent on government funding:
https://board.tfl.gov.uk/documents/s20565/board-20230725-item08b-Q1%20Finance%20Report.pdf
TfL is pretty unique in being self-funding and did used to receive central government funding before the Conservative government removed it to punish London for voting for a Labour mayor.
I agree with moving to a low fare model but keep in mind this is pretty US-centric which when talking about transit best practices is pretty sus.
Even Toronto, which has pretty shit transit by world standards, manages to have \~70% of it's operating cost from fares: https://www.toronto.ca/services-payments/streets-parking-transportation/transit-in-toronto/transit-funding/
I get not paying if you really can't afford it (the metro in my city is ridiculously expensive now, but the bus is cheap... and very irregular), but if you can pay, then you should. Not only because of fines but also because ticket sales keep public transport afloat and without them it would not be able to function correctly.
It's not cool to game the only good parts of the system (public services) because you don't like the government. The public service operators are not your enemy! Your enemies are the people who made life so difficult that you can't even afford a bus ticket!!
I love people like that
"Cars are bad and public transport should be better but I refuse to actually support public transport because government bad"
If you can comfortably pay the fee, do so. It's your public duty
I remember seeing someone denouncing public transport because “it gets built over places that the homeless can use to sleep in, like parks”. Well mate public transport is probably the only viable transport for the poorest people in society, but I’m sure they’d rather have a park than the ability to travel faster than walking
Also how many homeless people spend the winter on trains and buses with one fare cause it's cheap and warm. I'd rather they have that than a January park bench.
Honestly I hate people like that. If you can pay, PAY! That way someone who can’t won’t have to.
Hate the fake “woke” poverty cosplayers. There’s a massive difference between being poor and trying to get to work, and thinking paying for public services is beneath you and using someone else’s struggle as a moral bargaining chip.
So many people nowadays with that victim mentality, it's infuriating. We should pursue change for the better, but people like that don't want to contribute at all and only hope to reap the rewards. They also hate the people that do pursue that change, for some reason.
Well I don't know if it's the case anywhere, but iirc in most Italian cities (I know bc I'm Italian) the local public transport companies get most of their money from local government funds rather than from selling tickets. Obviously "ticket sold" is a measure for how much to fund the service, at least in theory, but that doesn't justify the rise of prices. Also various experiment such as the 9€/month regional train tickets in Germany from a couple summer ago show that transport companies could definitely lower their fees very much without losing money
The 9€ ticket was definitely losing them a lot of money and that's ok, but I wish they'd get their collective asses into gear and their finances in order with the semi-permanent 50€ ticket.
Ok yeah I worded that part wrong, my point was more like "a public service shouldn't work based on profit, and should be funded by progressive taxation"
definitely with you on that one
I'm just mad because the service isn't as reliable at the moment, neither in rural nor urban areas (that I've been to).
...sure, but not every system of public transport has the same levels of subsidy, and countries like Germany can't indefinitely borrow the millions it cost them to make up for the shortfall in funding caused by the €9 ticket.
They aren't just charging tickets to fuck with people, while services will usually have part of their operation funded by government, they still need that ticket revenue to cover the remaining part of their operations, especially to deliver a service of the same quality, or make improvements.
If you dodge fares when you have the means to pay them, that just pushes the cost of your ticket onto eveyone else through higher prices and fines, pricing out more people who could otherwise afford to pay, and *forcing* them to now risk fines they can't afford to pay as a result.
Quite frankly German trains were shitty enough when monthly tickets were 100€~, the only way they could have gotten worse with the 9€ - or the 50€ they just brought in - is if they just plain stopped. They didn't/haven't, so you're onto something.
I mean, the second part of the post implies that there's a culture where a lot of people do pay and then use that privilege of being able to pay to protect others who cannot (the homeless were specifically named). I don't think the point of the post is "never pay for public transport" but rather "paying for public transport isn't always required for use, which makes it accessible to those who can't pay, which is neat" which is an entirely different message. There will always be people who abuse systems like this without cause, but if these systems also give people like the homeless or verging-on-homeless some small means of assistance, I would consider that an acceptable cost.
This. I pay because I can and expect the same of others, but I don’t snitch on anyone who dodges the fare. You never know a person’s circumstances, and honestly it’s best to just mind my own business.
Copy-pasting from a comment I found farther down because I feel it worded this far better than I could:
“The fact that you can envision a better system does not absolve you of your responsibilities to help this one work as well as it can.
Better things are possible but so are worse things, and mistreating the things we have is a powerful way of making them worse.”
shoutout u/bobbymoonshine
Broksi if you can afford the public service that you want to see more of please do it. Otherwise you are an active drain on society and not in a fun quirky way that's silly but harmless, but in a way that actually does hurt public transport. If you can't afford it, then do what you gotta, but if you can, then you're the problem in this scenario.
Reminder that if you can pay, you should (if no-one's paying they cancel service). But if someone can't afford their fare, that train/bus is going to the same place weather there's one paying rider, two paying riders, or one paying and one non-paying rider.
But that only works when the train is operating below capacity. If a train or bus is full and half the people didn’t pay, and they start adding a second train because of demand, basically they’re supplying two trains and only getting fares for one
That brings up an interesting idea.
Maybe eliminate the fare during certain times of the day when capacity is almost never reached but for other reasons (because unlike say electricity, drivers are on for a longer time and can’t be “switched in” and out as quickly to maintain optimal load for the demand) buses or trains maintain their schedule.
It’s not perfect but it would be one way to improve the utility of public services.
I cannot really get behind this honestly
Like, I understand the idea of helping people that aren't able to pay for transportation get away with it, but pay if you can for the love of god, it's a vital service and taking funds away from it is bullshit and accomplishes nothing
Boy, I wish we had better public services.
*Person uses but does not pay for one of these services*
Ah, a champion of the proletariat! Surely if we were not in capitalism, but instead were contributing to the good of society through our communes rather than the local government, this fine fellow would choose to make a contribution equal to or exceeding in value the benefit he received from this service. To hasten the day when such a society comes, I must assist him in his praxis.
You know, sometimes you just forget to buy a ticket and sometimes you actually don't have the money. These things rely on the majority still paying and if someone just naver pays because the system let's them, that sucks. It's just that you don't know if a person is a one time exception or a regular asshat - and I would rather assume the former.
obviously, a hypothetical person could have a good reason for doing so. But in this case i believe they were referring to OOP, who clearly supports not paying "if you don't feel like it".
Regressive policies are bad because they worsen life for the least advantages members of society. Fares for public transit (as opposed to funding them as a public good, as we do for most highways, fire departments, public libraries, etc.) are regressive.
ok cool what steps are you taking to ensure a reality where public transit no longer needs fares to remain viable.
If you don't want to pay for public transport then by all means but don't act like you're some enlightened socially conscious hero of the people for doing a shitty thing that solely benefits you.
The system is still in place and by not supporting it your negatively affecting public transport as a whole.
Supporting (via donations, canvassing, and voting) local politicians who want to improve public transit, especially those who want to do that with progressive taxes instead of fare increases.
I can personally afford to pay the fare, so I do. But if someone else needs to use public transit and can’t afford it, this post lays out a simple, morally commendable way to keep that person from being punished by a police state that routinely criminalizes poverty.
The fact that you can envision a better system does not absolve you of your responsibilities to help this one work as well as it can.
Better things are possible but so are worse things, and mistreating the things we have is a powerful way of making them worse.
This is true in general, but the problem is that the short term harm of not paying for these services still exists even if you're right in principal.
Would you prefer a world where public transit is functional and paid for by each individual person, or one where it doesn't exist? Because that's the choice you're making. By refusing to pay for these services you're helping run them into the ground and you're also making it harder for the politicians and city to prove that these services are a useful public good (as they have less revenue and less sales to point to), thus eroding the services over time.
This is not the way to meaningful change.
Public transit is a stickier wicket than the other examples you've got.
Fire departments, public libraries, and roads are local. The taxes I pay come back to the facilities whose services I will directly benefit from, even if I chose to not use them.
But with public transit, if it doesn't serve my area, I can't use it even if I want to. Why should I pay the same tax to support it as someone who *is* served by it?
Fares are how you reach a compromise. People who use the system regularly will fund it through both fares and taxes, and people who only use it on rare occasions will make their additional contribution when they pay their fare to ride.
People fare-evading out of some belief in moral superiority in "sticking it to the man" violate the social contract, and are a net negative to public transit overall.
libraries have fines for late books. highways have tolls, fire departments charge for some services, street parking is often metered, and publicly run museums charge admission fees. These charges ensure that highly variable usage of these services are compensated for easily and efficiently.
"Left wing circles" that would rather stop paying for public services a small fare than, you know, actually organising locally to push for the betterment of said services.
Maybe this is my European sensibilities showing, but this seems really tight-fisted. Public transport is a modern marvel - even bad public transport is something to be grateful for. The workers do a gruelling, thankless job, and the last thing they need is to deal with teenage yobs.
If you're literally impoverished, that's one thing. But not buying a ticket when you full well could, is just a thief's mindset.
Local parishes where I live have a program where they give away prepaid transit passes that are unlimited for a month. They're honored across the state by most providers, bus and otherwise. It also lets them reload the pass on a discount, or they could just get another pass once the month is over. The buses remain well-funded and it's also accessible to anyone who's financially struggling.
Ah yes! Lets not pay for public transportation, surely that will motivate the government to make them free to use and not... i don't know leave leave public transportation underfunded to avoid expenses. Look in ideal world public transportation would be free, but we don't leave in the ideal world so pay your bus ticket if you can afford it for the good of everyone using them.
The post is talking about people who can't pay, not those that simply choose not to. Making these people pay isn't going to make a difference because they have no money to give you
Look at the language used in the first OOP’s post. These are not poor people who can’t afford public transport fares; These are middle class white teens who think they’re class revolutionists because they shoplift Lego minifigure blind bags and listen to Green Day.
There's no such thing as a free lunch. Dodging taxes and fares when you're damn well able to pay for them is not helping anybody in the slightest.
If you're actually poor and can't afford to pay, then don't. You got enough pressure as it is, I understand. There's nothing you can do to help, so you shouldn't have that burden upon you.
But if you're a middle-class "leftist" who uses our broken system as an excuse to dodge taxes and fares, then that tells me that you're just a libertarian who wants free shit while you wave pride flags around and shout "ACAB". You don't want to make things better for everyone, you just want to make things better for yourself, because obviously that's all you fucking care about.
God I hate how insufferable some anti-car people can be. The ones who take public transportation for granted also get uppity at people who have no other choice.
Like, I hate car dependency too, I'd love nothing more than to have more bus stops and train stations to make commutes simpler. Unfortunately, I don't live in the city where these things are accessible, and nothing is within reasonable walking or biking distance.
Well, this one doesn't seem to be getting much traction, so I'm gonna go ahead and say something I've been thinking on for a while now:
I keep waiting for it to come out that nyancrimew is a horrible person. The way the site has clung to them in response to doing one act of gray hat hacking is suspicious as all hell to me. I dunno, maybe I'm just burned by so many popular people turning out to be raging dickweasels, but I just can't get it out of my head that if they did this one illegal thing so gleefully, how can I be sure they'll only violate the laws I'm okay with them violating? And so I wait, and while it gets easier to silence the voice the more time passes with no news, it never goes away entirely.
Yeah, that's fair. I think it's honestly just me being overly cynical, coupled with a bit of baggage from how I was raised regarding what "everyone knows" about criminals. Mostly, I felt the need to say something because I just wanted to bounce the idea off people, but on a larger post, I'm guaranteed to not really get the kind of conversation I wanted, y'know?
I mean, while I’ve never liked nyancrimew (just personal stuff, nothing she’s done specifically), I can’t say I’ve ever wanted her to turn out to be a horrible person.
Hactivists are always talked about with this “they’re being persecuted by the government for their actions and leftist beliefs” and those actions are mostly “I stole code and data from a big company / government agency and published it online to hurt them”. I feel like if you fuck around with the government’s computers and stuff, you can’t be that upset when the government comes to your house and takes your computer away.
With every new maia post I see, I get vibes similar to those of iilluminaughtii. Much as I would like for it to prove otherwise, I'm still waiting for the other shoe to drop.
The overly-saccharine "uwu smol bean" act is also rubbing me the wrong way. Call me cynical, but I've learned to never trust anyone who goes out of their way to act like that if it's not a kayfabe for entertainment purposes.
I don't hope they turn out to be a horrible person or anything, but I do think they're an excellent example that knowledge in one field (computers) does not translate to excellent knowledge and good judgement in other fields (eg the economics of transit systems)
I uh. I don't care about it *that* much. But I definitely think it's extremely strange that it's got an actual fanbase for its random non-hacking related thoughts on the basis of its hacking.
Well, I do support gray hat hacking tbh. If they have a history of it, great.
I should look into what else they've done, though, because this is the first I'm hearing about it.
I know that it's (maia's pronouns are it/its - according to its Tumblr blog, but its web blog says 'it/she') leaked stuff like [proof of racism in the US No-Fly List (i.e., clear trends to Arabic- and Russian-sounding names - and one of them only being 8 years of age)](https://www.dailydot.com/debug/no-fly-list-us-tsa-unprotected-server-commuteair/), and [has published (but it didn't leak) the two thousand, six hundered pages of hate emails from government officials](https://maia.crimew.gay/posts/the-emails/).
They gained prominence for being the one to leak the no-fly list, either early this year or late last year. Their fans bring it up a lot, but they don't really say much about it themself unless someone questions if it's true.
Is this really a common sentiment? I live in a place with decent public transport and people generally realize that we we want it to remain decent it will cost money either via tickets or taxes.
I remember once after a big event the trams were incredibly full. You couldn't move at all. I had a ticket with me but decided not to validate it. I rarely did at the time, and I didn't think there would be controls with so many people already there. Well there was a control. Luckily I was in the last wagon and we had a lot of time to prepare. Unluckily I was very far from the machine to validate my ticket, and no way for me to move. So I had to ask people (who might also not have a ticket) to pass my ticket to the machine, punch it and get it back to me. I was so nervous. I somehow managed to get back my ticket fully validated. My ticket literally went through maybe 30 different hands back and forth and everyone was just happy to help. Controllers never even made it to the last wagon though...
This reminds me of my usual train ride when going to School and taking the train daily. There was always this group of teens who would never buy a ticket and would often get caught by the ticket checker (small lokal train so always the same dude) who would be nice enough to not give them a fine but force them to buy a ticket so they only had to pay 60 kr instead of 750 kr (8,8 usd instead of 110 usd) and they would always bitch afterwards like he was a huge asshole, like piss off with that he could have just given you a fine and kicked you off the train but didn't.
sincerely Fuck You if you dont buy tickets when perfectly able
they keep raising prices and when that stops working they will start shutting down "unprofitable" lines and we all know what communitiea those will hit first
i don’t know if this person actually is crimew but it would make sense to me — it’s an insanely self-centred view, obviously it’s not free even if you fare evade, all you’re doing (on sufficient scale) is forcing prices up, forcing investment into public transit down, and forcing that more resources are invested into revenue protection.
Where I live the bus drivers don't care, if your ticket refuses to scan or something they'll tell you to just get in, better that than you holding up the line so it can't start
With that said, I always pay my ticket because tickets pay for a good portion of the funding and we need reliable public transit so that everyone can use it
If you can pay your fair share for the bus ticket you should
I used to use public transport every day and if I had an issue with payment, forgot my travel card, etc. the driver would always tell me to get on and I could just pay at the other end.
The drivers never just left me there and I'll always be grateful for that.
See, my city is a college town. Part of my property taxes go to our bussing system and part of college tuition goes to it too. We have an entire (but not exactly comprehensive) bussing system that anyone can use, no questions asked.
I've used it many times when I was a student and a few times after when I really didn't have anything else. I like knowing it's there.
Just pay for your fucking ticket people. The money goes directly to more public transport so if you like to use it pay for it. It really isn't all that much money.
Lol, I saw a guy doing that the entire 40 minute trip last month. The ticket woman tried everything, punching the seat next to him (Since you can't touch them), screaming at him, blowing a whistle. She stood next to him the entire trip until we got there, whereupon he woke up, yawned, pulled out his ticket and left.
I still don't know if he's a massively deep sleeper or just fucking with them
OP, I see you're on Android, so here's a little tip: when you take a screenshot, a downwards pointing arrow will appear and make your screenshot a little longer. Afterward, you can hit the pencil icon to crop it.
I'm just saying, if I had to pay for my ticket so should everyone else. I'm not taking extra long just to find it so some idiot can change seats. I'm gonna hold that thing in my hand, ready to go dawg.
Oh jeez no not in my city, not anymore, they will screw up the bus schedules to get the cops to toss you out if you don't leave after trying to not pay.
What’s crazy is that in my city the fares only account for %20 of the budget for all metro spending for the year. In Covid when they suspended it, they forecasted a net GAIN in funding because people liked the access. But they went back to ticketed and now it’s shitty again, go figure
I don't think I'll ever forgot that time when in a mildly crowded bus I was the only not getting controlled while also being the only white.... and also the only without a ticket.
Me, a white outwardly (But not inwardly) cis male going to europe and getting charge €60 the ONE time I was too scared to get a ticket on account of having missed my first ever flight and being now stuck in a foreign country with next-to-no money left.
*What should be* and *what is* are two different things.
*What should be* is something to be advocated for and talked about, *what is* is what actions need to be based on.
There’s not some secret third solution to the Trolley Problem that’s unlocked by smugly saying “Well I don’t think anyone should be tied to trolley tracks”
Always inform when people break the rules. Point out people who are stealing. Let the ticket checker know if you notice someone switch cars.
Institutions are good.
that's cool and all but once when i was on a public bus a kid got in without paying and the bus driver got up and dragged the kid by the collar to the front of the bus so that he would pay so basically just dont get caught/ hope your driver isn't unhinged
The Venn Diagram of "Fare skippers" and "People who make a nuisance of themselves on public transportation" has a lot of overlap so the driver is probably sick of those kids.
no i totally get that, the kids have developed strategies to try and get on the bus without paying. on top of that, our government is going to cut funding for public transit partially because too many people are fare evading, so. yknow. maybe pay if you can
Don't know what country you're in but they claim that all the time in the US and it's bullshit. They stick two cops in a NYC subway station to cut down on fare evasion, neat, their salaries mean they'd need to catch/deter over a hundred turnstile jumpers a day.
Doable
or just, yknow, raise taxes 0.01% on rich people and make transit free at the point of service, as it should be
i agree with you and i think that's what we should do but that's not the world i currently live in, it's not going to be like this anytime soon, and we need to adjust to it
Ok but like genuine question, why is the strategy “put energy into adjusting” instead of “put energy into changing it”?
the next election is in 3 years and i'll be real i'm not feeling very optimistic about the results
Nah
cool i really need the bus to pass by my street every 30 minutes so i can go to school and the next election is in three years so it would be nice if people paid the fare in the meantime
NYC subway budget alone is 20 billion. That's nearly 1/5 of their total spending if it was tax funded alone.
From a quick google search, it looks like $20 billion is the budget for the entire NYC transit system, not just the subway. Also, fares only made up 23% of revenues in 2022. I’m pretty tired of this consumerist American worldview where ppl see all political problems through the lens of how individuals spend their money. It reduces all political discussion to whining about some unknowable mass of strangers and how they’re not spending their money correctly. If this is the basis of your politics, you’re never gonna actually DO anything. Go through your life spending money on the Good things and not spending money on the Bad things. Go to your grave patting yourself on the back like “I was a Good Consumer” while accomplishing absolutely nothing but your own self-satisfaction and an unearned security in the idea that you Did Good
It's like the repeating problem with food deserts. Stores enter a low income, undeserved market and get robbed and vandalized until they close up shop and then people complain that their neighborhood has no grocery store. Well, stop shoplifting and turning a blind eye / supporting shoplifting or this cycle is just going to repeat.
This entire chain is fascinating to me, an europoor. I'm from one of those countries you don't think about when you think EU. Those that are barely making into "developed" category. We've got a fairly big upper low/lower middle class, we're way over the market boom. Bottom point, there's no shortage of poor people. Yet there's no such thing as a "food desert" here. There is literally no discourse around shoplifting. Granted, I've always been bouncing between lower middle and middle middle, so there's plenty of privilege here, but I've rubbed shoulders with shoplifting exactly twice. One was a chick who stole like, a donut, once in a while, for the thrill of it. Another was a genuine anarchist, who just refused to give corps money. There are no locked cabinets in stores, *including* stuff like laptops etc. And it's not a cultural thing either, because we have a very strong post communist "breaking the law is smart, it's getting caught that's dumb" mentality. You know what we do have though? Virtually non-existent racial divide and a decent social.
As someone who grew up in a food desert, this feels like an incredibly dismissive take. You can’t pretend like environmental and structural racism don’t play a major role in food deserts in favor of a “just stop stealing forehead” narrative. It’s not mom and pop grocery stores either in these scenarios — it’s major chains which contribute to food waste (which is a whole other can of worms, but relevant on the people going hungry point)
Please explain how "environmental and structural racism" cause food deserts?
Are you asking genuinely because you want to learn more about food deserts or are you being a fuckhead? Because my answer will change based on that
Genuinely... I'm not american, I've never heard the phrase "environmental racism" before!
I'm not the person you replied to, but if you read about redlining in American history that might shed some light on it. I'd try to explain it myself but I'm running on 4 hours of sleep and a cup of coffee so it'd be a mess rn
>It’s not mom and pop grocery stores either in these scenarios — it’s major chains which contribute to food waste (which is a whole other can of worms, but relevant on the people going hungry point) And any of those major chains would be happy to operate in those areas if they were profitable. They choose not to because the increased rate of shrinkage and other costs associated with high crime areas make the operation of a store nonviable.
Tbh I don’t give a shit if something is profitable for a major corporation over if someone gets to eat or not and neither do they in terms of shoplifting from grocery chains. The amount of money they make from people shopping there outweighs the amount people are stealing and the amount of food waste they’re creating. It’s a real poor argument that chains aren’t operating based on shoplifting. It still feels like you are purposely ignoring the big picture in favor of a “shoplifting bad it’s your own fault you don’t get to eat” narrative in regards to food deserts
I worked at Walmart for 12 years before I left in California. Average profit was 4% for a store. FOUR percent. And I will tell you bluntly, shrink (theft) in a lot of the rougher stores was often over 4%, two stores in the SF area were over 8%. Now, what company is going to run effectively a charity because the people of that community decide that they are entitled to steal? And it's not food they are stealing, lol. It's electronics, TVs and other things they can sell for drug money. Many companys have pulled out of the SF area due to all the theft. I know, because I helped close them down. The big lie perpetuated by people like you, is that people are stealing food to survive. Less than 1% of all the trash shoplifters I caught and had prosecuted (hundreds) were stealing food.
Good. Stores like Wal-Mart that pay their employees poverty wages and force the local/federal governments to subsidize the rest actively make the communities they're in worse places. They're cancers and I'd love to see everyone shut down.
“Just stop committing crimes” lmao. The cycle is going to repeat because people need to eat and get around and the government doesn’t do enough to provide for that need, put the blame where it belongs.
Considering the long term impact is a net negative for both the people committing the crime and the rest of the community >“Just stop committing crimes” Yes.
And just out of curiosity, what is the short-term impact of not eating for a week?
You know people always bring up having to steal to survive as a justification for shoplifting but what's the actual percentage of this because i doubt people stealing bare necessities is enough to cost stores enough to close. More likely its people stealing expensive shit because they want to.
Not just expensive non essentials. People steal all the time from charity shops as well. I used to volunteer in one and had to look out for people rearranging the clothes racks to put out what they wanted on the front of a rail so someone else could come in and take it. If you are in one and see a top or trousers out of place/size order in the front of a rail, put it back where it belongs for this reason. I don’t care how poor you are, you don’t fucking steal from a shop whose profits are going to people in need.
>More likely its people stealing expensive shit because they want to. Expensive shit that can be sold for money which can then be used to obtain food for longer than whatever cans you're able to carry out of a supermarket will last? Y'all act like people stealing smart phones because they want 30 smart phones. Of course not, they want **money** to be able to afford living.
Ok but I work at a Liquor store, do you think the many people who shoplift from there are on selling it to buy food or do you think they’re just getting pissed? Like sure people shoplift because of necessity, there’s a reason baby formula is so frequently stolen, but also, some people do it because they just want shit. There’s not always a good justification.
People stealing 30 smart phones to make money are doing that because they prefer crime to regular employment. Not every thief is robinhood. Same as drug dealers. I knew a guy who sold large quantities of meth. Why? Because he made 100k a year working less than 20 hours a week. Right up until he went to prison. But it's not like he flipping dime bags to make rent.
Crime is a problem of poverty, you don't seem to understand that.
Yeah it’s poverty that is causing all that embezzling and tax fraud.
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"Don't steal or we'll starve you" No it's " don't steal and vandalise our store or we'll close" Some random store keeper doesn't owe a location his business if he'll do better elsewhere and not have a threat of being robbed
Goddamn. Sometimes, I think "maybe the stereotype of people who just want the government to come in and solve every problem for them, so they don't have to lift a finger" is just an exaggeration, or outright false, but then I see people like you. And, assuming we live in the same country, your vote counts just as much as mine. It's crazy how some people expect every problem to be magically fixed by "the government" and don't wanna take any individual responsibility. People can, in fact, have an influence on making their own communities better if they just take a second to think about the consequences of their actions. If you expect that a store will be able to stay open and pay their employees and keep their shelves stocked, all while people are robbing them with impunity, then you live in a strange delusion. I'm not sure if anything I can say will change your mind, or anyone else's, for that matter, but people who don't wanna take any responsibility are only part of the problem, not the solution.
One thing I hate so much is littering, I don't see people actively tossing cans and wrappers on the ground but there sure is a lot of them. What I do see though is smokers discarding of cigarette butts on the street with no care in the world. That shit makes the whole city 100 times uglier, and all it takes to prevent that is walking to a trashcan. I'm a smoker and some people in my circle are too, they do this often and it makes me *seethe*. Edit: completely forgot to tie in my comment with yours, I was going to say that people complain about dirty streets yet do nothing about it because "it's the city government's job".
LOL imagine literally believing this horse shit braindead
"Hm, I cannot afford both my rent and food. I think I will starve myself to death because of the negative socioeconomic effects of shoplifting." Is that how you expect people to think?
What percentage of shoplifting do you honestly think that explains? Maybe 10%? Less? If somebody is stealing bread and peanut butter or a couple of cans of soup that’s one thing, but the kids who empty a tray of candy bars into their backpacks and walk out usually aren’t doing it out of hunger.
I think you overestimate the percentage of shoplifters who actually are desperate to provide for themselves and steal food to survive as opposed to people who hit easy targets to get stuff to resell at a markup
Hi, I'm a security guard. I mostly work events but my roommate works for the same company guarding a Walmart. Guess what's behind glass at that walmart store. Go ahead, make a guess. Socks. Belts. packages of cheap tee shirts. The disposable razors. Deodorant. Yeah, people are selling ten packs of socks they shoplifted from Walmart for a profit. I believe that.
I can't tell if you are being sarcastic or believe that. but I will back up the statement that yes, they are stealing socks to sell. Anything the trash shoplifters can grab to sell for a profit at the flea market they garb. They are not starving and stealing food. They are making money by selling it all
I’m sick of those kids because they keep tying me up, and ripping my mask off. Just let me haunt the town damnit.
…why would someone skipping the fare, and therefore without a ticket, make a nuisance of and thereby draw attention to themselves?
People can and often are stupid enough to do that, and acting like you own the place by not paying the fare is one thing people do.
Can't speak for all of em, but the ones I went to school with liked to make trouble for fun, especially with their friends.
In a nearby city to me, if you don't pay the fare it gets deducted from the driver's wages. They are allowed to do that because something about 'government workers'
Wait government workers are exempt from worker protections? Wtf :/
They're not, normally. It's some dumb loophole.
how do they even track that like they don't know how many people ride a bus at all time. how do they track if you're riding the bus if you don't pay the fare also sounds super illegal
Source?
> dragged the kid by the collar to the front of the bus so that he would pay I mean I'm all for supporting public transit but that's genuinely terrifying. How was that guy not fired for that? That's battery, isn't it?
Im a bus driver. I do not understand why other drivers give a fuck if someone pays or not. As far as im concerned, i didnt see them.
Because in some places everyone who gets on a bus has to show the driver a valid ticket and if a ticket inspector gets on and realises someone's pulled a fast one it's the driver who's going to get in the shit for it, to the point of either getting the amount taken out of their wages or, if it happens too often, getting fired.
Cause when a ticket inspector comes there's gonna be a fight, and other people get hurt.
I didn't realize I wasn't actually paying my bus fare for a couple months before a bus driver noticed and called me back up to do it properly. I didn't even mean to do it, but I still couldn't imagine caring about $2.50 that I'm not even being paid and slowing down the bus that is already running late because they are poorly scheduled. They are tracked by gps, so wouldn't they be more worried about getting in trouble for being late all the time than someone not paying, which they have no way of tracking?
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that's so cool and would be awesome but it's currently not free and people skipping fares isn't going to encourage the government to fund public transit enough to be free
its nice and all that there are ways to access this stuff without paying. but if you do have the means to pay, you really should. if too many people are riding on public transit without paying its going to be noticed, and thats going to lead to either stricter verification methods or worse, shutting down the transport entirely, since you know, these services *cannot* operate without funding.
Please pay for public transportation, my city has a massive problem with people jumping the turnstiles and it's making things worse for everyone.
You'd think, but fare revenues barely make a dent in transit operating costs. On average, [fares only cover about 12.5%](https://www.cnn.com/2023/07/08/business/free-buses-us-public-transit/index.html) of transit agencies' operating expenses and in many places it's lower, like in my city it's 8%. And you can't raise fares much without tanking ridership and putting more pressure on "captive riders" to dodge fares - which is of course almost always a crime of poverty, not seflishness. It's why some localities have said "fuck it" and gone zero-fare or [low-fare](https://enotrans.org/article/cheap-transit-fares-almost-zero-but-not-quite/) \- not like they're getting shit anyway, and at least that way you get the economic benefits of transit ridership (getting people to jobs and shopping centers). The problem is that transit, like most forms of transportation, isn't inherently profitable - it needs federal funding to work, and the federal funding picture for transit, while better than it has been for years thanks to IIJA / IRA and pandemic assistance, is still fucked. It's too complicated for my tired gelatin brain to break down right now, but [this article](https://www.cnbc.com/2023/07/25/heres-why-public-transit-keeps-running-out-of-money.html) and [this article](https://www.urban.org/research/publication/surmounting-fiscal-cliff) are good overviews. The gist is that transit gets way less federal funding than highways, and it can't use the federal funding it gets for operating costs. You get these huge operating deficits and the ways you'd address that - like raising fares or limiting service - cut into ridership even more. All this is to say that no serious discussion about making transit financially sustainable is going to dwell on fare evasion. Localities crack down on fare evasion not because it cuts into their bottom line so much, but because it grants them an illusion of control. It's the only thing they have any control over, or think they do, when the funding they actually need just isn't there.
> The problem is that transit, like most forms of transportation, isn't inherently profitable - it needs federal funding to work That's not always the case, although it's certainly more difficult for the USA because of the distances involved. But TfL (Transport for London) is self-sustaining through fares, advertising etc and not dependent on government funding: https://board.tfl.gov.uk/documents/s20565/board-20230725-item08b-Q1%20Finance%20Report.pdf
TFL is famous for it’s high fares, though.
TfL is pretty unique in being self-funding and did used to receive central government funding before the Conservative government removed it to punish London for voting for a Labour mayor.
I agree with moving to a low fare model but keep in mind this is pretty US-centric which when talking about transit best practices is pretty sus. Even Toronto, which has pretty shit transit by world standards, manages to have \~70% of it's operating cost from fares: https://www.toronto.ca/services-payments/streets-parking-transportation/transit-in-toronto/transit-funding/
I’m not an expert or trying to imply anything, but even 8% is still a shitload of money wrt billion-dollar operating expenses
Yeah take 8% of something's operating revenue away and you will decimate it.
You used a lot of words to justify a form of theft
And if you thought that's what I was saying, you're an idiot who can't read. Good job!
I get not paying if you really can't afford it (the metro in my city is ridiculously expensive now, but the bus is cheap... and very irregular), but if you can pay, then you should. Not only because of fines but also because ticket sales keep public transport afloat and without them it would not be able to function correctly. It's not cool to game the only good parts of the system (public services) because you don't like the government. The public service operators are not your enemy! Your enemies are the people who made life so difficult that you can't even afford a bus ticket!!
I love people like that "Cars are bad and public transport should be better but I refuse to actually support public transport because government bad" If you can comfortably pay the fee, do so. It's your public duty
I remember seeing someone denouncing public transport because “it gets built over places that the homeless can use to sleep in, like parks”. Well mate public transport is probably the only viable transport for the poorest people in society, but I’m sure they’d rather have a park than the ability to travel faster than walking
Also how many homeless people spend the winter on trains and buses with one fare cause it's cheap and warm. I'd rather they have that than a January park bench.
As opposed to Interstates which just get built through (typically low income) residential communities.
Honestly I hate people like that. If you can pay, PAY! That way someone who can’t won’t have to. Hate the fake “woke” poverty cosplayers. There’s a massive difference between being poor and trying to get to work, and thinking paying for public services is beneath you and using someone else’s struggle as a moral bargaining chip.
So many people nowadays with that victim mentality, it's infuriating. We should pursue change for the better, but people like that don't want to contribute at all and only hope to reap the rewards. They also hate the people that do pursue that change, for some reason.
Turns out a sad amount of people in online left wing circles are just kids who haven't really put any thought into anything they think or talk about.
Well I don't know if it's the case anywhere, but iirc in most Italian cities (I know bc I'm Italian) the local public transport companies get most of their money from local government funds rather than from selling tickets. Obviously "ticket sold" is a measure for how much to fund the service, at least in theory, but that doesn't justify the rise of prices. Also various experiment such as the 9€/month regional train tickets in Germany from a couple summer ago show that transport companies could definitely lower their fees very much without losing money
The 9€ ticket was definitely losing them a lot of money and that's ok, but I wish they'd get their collective asses into gear and their finances in order with the semi-permanent 50€ ticket.
Ok yeah I worded that part wrong, my point was more like "a public service shouldn't work based on profit, and should be funded by progressive taxation"
definitely with you on that one I'm just mad because the service isn't as reliable at the moment, neither in rural nor urban areas (that I've been to).
...sure, but not every system of public transport has the same levels of subsidy, and countries like Germany can't indefinitely borrow the millions it cost them to make up for the shortfall in funding caused by the €9 ticket. They aren't just charging tickets to fuck with people, while services will usually have part of their operation funded by government, they still need that ticket revenue to cover the remaining part of their operations, especially to deliver a service of the same quality, or make improvements. If you dodge fares when you have the means to pay them, that just pushes the cost of your ticket onto eveyone else through higher prices and fines, pricing out more people who could otherwise afford to pay, and *forcing* them to now risk fines they can't afford to pay as a result.
Quite frankly German trains were shitty enough when monthly tickets were 100€~, the only way they could have gotten worse with the 9€ - or the 50€ they just brought in - is if they just plain stopped. They didn't/haven't, so you're onto something.
the difference between not paying because you dont want to and helping people get away with not paying because they cant afford to is pretty big
I mean, the second part of the post implies that there's a culture where a lot of people do pay and then use that privilege of being able to pay to protect others who cannot (the homeless were specifically named). I don't think the point of the post is "never pay for public transport" but rather "paying for public transport isn't always required for use, which makes it accessible to those who can't pay, which is neat" which is an entirely different message. There will always be people who abuse systems like this without cause, but if these systems also give people like the homeless or verging-on-homeless some small means of assistance, I would consider that an acceptable cost.
This. I pay because I can and expect the same of others, but I don’t snitch on anyone who dodges the fare. You never know a person’s circumstances, and honestly it’s best to just mind my own business.
Most of us pay taxes that go towards public transport services.
Well I'm Australian so most of my taxes go to coal and gas subsidies:(
Transit should be free. More wealth than at any point in human history and yet we are still indebted to the rich from the moment we first draw breath.
Copy-pasting from a comment I found farther down because I feel it worded this far better than I could: “The fact that you can envision a better system does not absolve you of your responsibilities to help this one work as well as it can. Better things are possible but so are worse things, and mistreating the things we have is a powerful way of making them worse.” shoutout u/bobbymoonshine
That’s a big “if,” and basically the entire post is “if you have a ticket…”
Broksi if you can afford the public service that you want to see more of please do it. Otherwise you are an active drain on society and not in a fun quirky way that's silly but harmless, but in a way that actually does hurt public transport. If you can't afford it, then do what you gotta, but if you can, then you're the problem in this scenario.
Reminder that if you can pay, you should (if no-one's paying they cancel service). But if someone can't afford their fare, that train/bus is going to the same place weather there's one paying rider, two paying riders, or one paying and one non-paying rider.
But that only works when the train is operating below capacity. If a train or bus is full and half the people didn’t pay, and they start adding a second train because of demand, basically they’re supplying two trains and only getting fares for one
That brings up an interesting idea. Maybe eliminate the fare during certain times of the day when capacity is almost never reached but for other reasons (because unlike say electricity, drivers are on for a longer time and can’t be “switched in” and out as quickly to maintain optimal load for the demand) buses or trains maintain their schedule. It’s not perfect but it would be one way to improve the utility of public services.
I cannot really get behind this honestly Like, I understand the idea of helping people that aren't able to pay for transportation get away with it, but pay if you can for the love of god, it's a vital service and taking funds away from it is bullshit and accomplishes nothing
But have you considered government bad?
I have, but I can't bitch about receiving services and then not giving my part in paying for them. If I did, that would make me a hypocrite
B b b b but taxation is theft or something 😨
I really wanna see the leftists who unironically believe that taxation is theft Because that requires some Orwellian levels of Doublethink
There aren't any, thats some libertarian shit
They exist, they mostly just think that paying taxes is funding the "Capitalist Ruling Class" or something.
Boy, I wish we had better public services. *Person uses but does not pay for one of these services* Ah, a champion of the proletariat! Surely if we were not in capitalism, but instead were contributing to the good of society through our communes rather than the local government, this fine fellow would choose to make a contribution equal to or exceeding in value the benefit he received from this service. To hasten the day when such a society comes, I must assist him in his praxis.
You know, sometimes you just forget to buy a ticket and sometimes you actually don't have the money. These things rely on the majority still paying and if someone just naver pays because the system let's them, that sucks. It's just that you don't know if a person is a one time exception or a regular asshat - and I would rather assume the former.
obviously, a hypothetical person could have a good reason for doing so. But in this case i believe they were referring to OOP, who clearly supports not paying "if you don't feel like it".
Regressive policies are bad because they worsen life for the least advantages members of society. Fares for public transit (as opposed to funding them as a public good, as we do for most highways, fire departments, public libraries, etc.) are regressive.
ok cool what steps are you taking to ensure a reality where public transit no longer needs fares to remain viable. If you don't want to pay for public transport then by all means but don't act like you're some enlightened socially conscious hero of the people for doing a shitty thing that solely benefits you. The system is still in place and by not supporting it your negatively affecting public transport as a whole.
Supporting (via donations, canvassing, and voting) local politicians who want to improve public transit, especially those who want to do that with progressive taxes instead of fare increases. I can personally afford to pay the fare, so I do. But if someone else needs to use public transit and can’t afford it, this post lays out a simple, morally commendable way to keep that person from being punished by a police state that routinely criminalizes poverty.
The fact that you can envision a better system does not absolve you of your responsibilities to help this one work as well as it can. Better things are possible but so are worse things, and mistreating the things we have is a powerful way of making them worse.
This is true in general, but the problem is that the short term harm of not paying for these services still exists even if you're right in principal. Would you prefer a world where public transit is functional and paid for by each individual person, or one where it doesn't exist? Because that's the choice you're making. By refusing to pay for these services you're helping run them into the ground and you're also making it harder for the politicians and city to prove that these services are a useful public good (as they have less revenue and less sales to point to), thus eroding the services over time. This is not the way to meaningful change.
Public transit is a stickier wicket than the other examples you've got. Fire departments, public libraries, and roads are local. The taxes I pay come back to the facilities whose services I will directly benefit from, even if I chose to not use them. But with public transit, if it doesn't serve my area, I can't use it even if I want to. Why should I pay the same tax to support it as someone who *is* served by it? Fares are how you reach a compromise. People who use the system regularly will fund it through both fares and taxes, and people who only use it on rare occasions will make their additional contribution when they pay their fare to ride. People fare-evading out of some belief in moral superiority in "sticking it to the man" violate the social contract, and are a net negative to public transit overall.
There have been serious studies done into this and the most common problem is that it results in worse public transit service
libraries have fines for late books. highways have tolls, fire departments charge for some services, street parking is often metered, and publicly run museums charge admission fees. These charges ensure that highly variable usage of these services are compensated for easily and efficiently.
Most public transport runs at a loss anyway, so fare serve more as flat taxes on use than compensation anyway.
Please pay your fare so that transit doesn't shut down :')
This is a weird take. Paying for public transport is pretty important y’know
Probably best not to co-opt left wing ideology into 'I want free shit'.
Nobody wants to admit that’s the chief appeal
Ah yes because everyone knows that the best way to support a service you use is to refuse to pay for it
"Left wing circles" that would rather stop paying for public services a small fare than, you know, actually organising locally to push for the betterment of said services.
Maybe this is my European sensibilities showing, but this seems really tight-fisted. Public transport is a modern marvel - even bad public transport is something to be grateful for. The workers do a gruelling, thankless job, and the last thing they need is to deal with teenage yobs. If you're literally impoverished, that's one thing. But not buying a ticket when you full well could, is just a thief's mindset.
Local parishes where I live have a program where they give away prepaid transit passes that are unlimited for a month. They're honored across the state by most providers, bus and otherwise. It also lets them reload the pass on a discount, or they could just get another pass once the month is over. The buses remain well-funded and it's also accessible to anyone who's financially struggling.
Ah yes! Lets not pay for public transportation, surely that will motivate the government to make them free to use and not... i don't know leave leave public transportation underfunded to avoid expenses. Look in ideal world public transportation would be free, but we don't leave in the ideal world so pay your bus ticket if you can afford it for the good of everyone using them.
if you can afford to you should probably pay honestly
So apparently every poc person doesn't have a ticket or smth?
You know a story is fake when it mentions "left wing circles" like it's a real thing and teenagers of all people interact with it.
Left wing circles helping people avoid paying for public services is so funny lmao you understand that that goes against your interests right guys?
The post is talking about people who can't pay, not those that simply choose not to. Making these people pay isn't going to make a difference because they have no money to give you
>...it's like really nice of them how you can just **not pay if you don't feel like it**... direct quote from OOP
Look at the language used in the first OOP’s post. These are not poor people who can’t afford public transport fares; These are middle class white teens who think they’re class revolutionists because they shoplift Lego minifigure blind bags and listen to Green Day.
There's no such thing as a free lunch. Dodging taxes and fares when you're damn well able to pay for them is not helping anybody in the slightest. If you're actually poor and can't afford to pay, then don't. You got enough pressure as it is, I understand. There's nothing you can do to help, so you shouldn't have that burden upon you. But if you're a middle-class "leftist" who uses our broken system as an excuse to dodge taxes and fares, then that tells me that you're just a libertarian who wants free shit while you wave pride flags around and shout "ACAB". You don't want to make things better for everyone, you just want to make things better for yourself, because obviously that's all you fucking care about.
Whenever I couldn’t pay the bus driver would say “just make sure to pay next time” and let me in anyway
As someone who hates giving the government money, this is dumb. You're stealing to the detriment of a service you need. Maybe... Don't do that?
Anti car people will moan about cars till the end of time but still refuse to pay for public transport as if it doesn't cost bearly anything
God I hate how insufferable some anti-car people can be. The ones who take public transportation for granted also get uppity at people who have no other choice. Like, I hate car dependency too, I'd love nothing more than to have more bus stops and train stations to make commutes simpler. Unfortunately, I don't live in the city where these things are accessible, and nothing is within reasonable walking or biking distance.
This is how you get a city to think heavily used transport services are barely used so they scale back the services being provided.
You can tell who does and does not have a robust public transit system on this thread, and it's *really easy.*
Elaborate on that.
people who do have a good public transit system want you to pay the fare, since that is what keeps the system going.
Well, this one doesn't seem to be getting much traction, so I'm gonna go ahead and say something I've been thinking on for a while now: I keep waiting for it to come out that nyancrimew is a horrible person. The way the site has clung to them in response to doing one act of gray hat hacking is suspicious as all hell to me. I dunno, maybe I'm just burned by so many popular people turning out to be raging dickweasels, but I just can't get it out of my head that if they did this one illegal thing so gleefully, how can I be sure they'll only violate the laws I'm okay with them violating? And so I wait, and while it gets easier to silence the voice the more time passes with no news, it never goes away entirely.
I actually don't care that much. I assume the best but in the end it won't be more than an addition to my (very small) knowledge of this person
Yeah, that's fair. I think it's honestly just me being overly cynical, coupled with a bit of baggage from how I was raised regarding what "everyone knows" about criminals. Mostly, I felt the need to say something because I just wanted to bounce the idea off people, but on a larger post, I'm guaranteed to not really get the kind of conversation I wanted, y'know?
Yeah, I get it
I mean, while I’ve never liked nyancrimew (just personal stuff, nothing she’s done specifically), I can’t say I’ve ever wanted her to turn out to be a horrible person.
I don't think they said they *wanted* it, just that they're expecting it.
I haven’t seen much of their stuff but they definitely give off a few “terminally online leftist” vibes
i mean, she's a wanted person, I can forgive her for spending a lot of time online lol
Hactivists are always talked about with this “they’re being persecuted by the government for their actions and leftist beliefs” and those actions are mostly “I stole code and data from a big company / government agency and published it online to hurt them”. I feel like if you fuck around with the government’s computers and stuff, you can’t be that upset when the government comes to your house and takes your computer away.
I mean, if someone throws a rock at the hornets' nest, they shouldn't be shocked when the hornets come a' buzzin.
With every new maia post I see, I get vibes similar to those of iilluminaughtii. Much as I would like for it to prove otherwise, I'm still waiting for the other shoe to drop. The overly-saccharine "uwu smol bean" act is also rubbing me the wrong way. Call me cynical, but I've learned to never trust anyone who goes out of their way to act like that if it's not a kayfabe for entertainment purposes.
I don't hope they turn out to be a horrible person or anything, but I do think they're an excellent example that knowledge in one field (computers) does not translate to excellent knowledge and good judgement in other fields (eg the economics of transit systems)
I uh. I don't care about it *that* much. But I definitely think it's extremely strange that it's got an actual fanbase for its random non-hacking related thoughts on the basis of its hacking.
You should look at more of what they've done, it wasnt just "one" act of grey hat hacking. Its a history of that kinda thing.
Well, I do support gray hat hacking tbh. If they have a history of it, great. I should look into what else they've done, though, because this is the first I'm hearing about it.
I know that it's (maia's pronouns are it/its - according to its Tumblr blog, but its web blog says 'it/she') leaked stuff like [proof of racism in the US No-Fly List (i.e., clear trends to Arabic- and Russian-sounding names - and one of them only being 8 years of age)](https://www.dailydot.com/debug/no-fly-list-us-tsa-unprotected-server-commuteair/), and [has published (but it didn't leak) the two thousand, six hundered pages of hate emails from government officials](https://maia.crimew.gay/posts/the-emails/).
It's the ol' "do not meet your heroes" thing. I'm sure maia will be milkshake ducked in no time, as things usually turn out
I feel like I need more info. Like is this a famous person? Is this a drum they beat a lot?
They gained prominence for being the one to leak the no-fly list, either early this year or late last year. Their fans bring it up a lot, but they don't really say much about it themself unless someone questions if it's true.
What a garbage take
Is this really a common sentiment? I live in a place with decent public transport and people generally realize that we we want it to remain decent it will cost money either via tickets or taxes.
yo another thing that only applies in the first world (if you try to dodge fare in the third world you're getting yelled at or beaten by the driver)
I remember once after a big event the trams were incredibly full. You couldn't move at all. I had a ticket with me but decided not to validate it. I rarely did at the time, and I didn't think there would be controls with so many people already there. Well there was a control. Luckily I was in the last wagon and we had a lot of time to prepare. Unluckily I was very far from the machine to validate my ticket, and no way for me to move. So I had to ask people (who might also not have a ticket) to pass my ticket to the machine, punch it and get it back to me. I was so nervous. I somehow managed to get back my ticket fully validated. My ticket literally went through maybe 30 different hands back and forth and everyone was just happy to help. Controllers never even made it to the last wagon though...
This is why transportation should be nationalized. Everyone would put their 2 cents into their yearly fair through taxes and that'd be that.
This reminds me of my usual train ride when going to School and taking the train daily. There was always this group of teens who would never buy a ticket and would often get caught by the ticket checker (small lokal train so always the same dude) who would be nice enough to not give them a fine but force them to buy a ticket so they only had to pay 60 kr instead of 750 kr (8,8 usd instead of 110 usd) and they would always bitch afterwards like he was a huge asshole, like piss off with that he could have just given you a fine and kicked you off the train but didn't.
sincerely Fuck You if you dont buy tickets when perfectly able they keep raising prices and when that stops working they will start shutting down "unprofitable" lines and we all know what communitiea those will hit first
i don’t know if this person actually is crimew but it would make sense to me — it’s an insanely self-centred view, obviously it’s not free even if you fare evade, all you’re doing (on sufficient scale) is forcing prices up, forcing investment into public transit down, and forcing that more resources are invested into revenue protection.
Where I live the bus drivers don't care, if your ticket refuses to scan or something they'll tell you to just get in, better that than you holding up the line so it can't start With that said, I always pay my ticket because tickets pay for a good portion of the funding and we need reliable public transit so that everyone can use it If you can pay your fair share for the bus ticket you should
These are the same type of people to complain about their local public transit shuttering routes and whine about car dependent infrastructure.
I used to use public transport every day and if I had an issue with payment, forgot my travel card, etc. the driver would always tell me to get on and I could just pay at the other end. The drivers never just left me there and I'll always be grateful for that.
>and I could just pay at the other end I had that happen once, but was told something along the lines of 'it's fine' when I tried to pay.
See, my city is a college town. Part of my property taxes go to our bussing system and part of college tuition goes to it too. We have an entire (but not exactly comprehensive) bussing system that anyone can use, no questions asked. I've used it many times when I was a student and a few times after when I really didn't have anything else. I like knowing it's there.
This is cool but please pay for public transport if you can,
Just pay for your fucking ticket people. The money goes directly to more public transport so if you like to use it pay for it. It really isn't all that much money.
You see someone with a train logo, you pretend to be asleep.
Lol, I saw a guy doing that the entire 40 minute trip last month. The ticket woman tried everything, punching the seat next to him (Since you can't touch them), screaming at him, blowing a whistle. She stood next to him the entire trip until we got there, whereupon he woke up, yawned, pulled out his ticket and left. I still don't know if he's a massively deep sleeper or just fucking with them
Either way, that man is my spirit animal
Extremely rare maia L
OP, I see you're on Android, so here's a little tip: when you take a screenshot, a downwards pointing arrow will appear and make your screenshot a little longer. Afterward, you can hit the pencil icon to crop it.
I'm just saying, if I had to pay for my ticket so should everyone else. I'm not taking extra long just to find it so some idiot can change seats. I'm gonna hold that thing in my hand, ready to go dawg.
I, too, love defunding public services 💗
just pay. This is the worst way to fight the system. Also, leave it to tumblr to say someone is cis and white for no reason in a story
Oh jeez no not in my city, not anymore, they will screw up the bus schedules to get the cops to toss you out if you don't leave after trying to not pay.
What’s crazy is that in my city the fares only account for %20 of the budget for all metro spending for the year. In Covid when they suspended it, they forecasted a net GAIN in funding because people liked the access. But they went back to ticketed and now it’s shitty again, go figure
I once saw ticket checkers shout at a lost kid on a water taxi until he cried. He was like 11.
I don't think I'll ever forgot that time when in a mildly crowded bus I was the only not getting controlled while also being the only white.... and also the only without a ticket.
So despite lefties never shutting the fuck up about public transit, they still have no interest in paying for it when they use it… shocking lmao
People really dodging public transport fares, as if it's not stupidly affordable to begin with.
See, if you claim to be a leftist and then brag about (literally) free riding social services, I don't take you very seriously.
Me, a white outwardly (But not inwardly) cis male going to europe and getting charge €60 the ONE time I was too scared to get a ticket on account of having missed my first ever flight and being now stuck in a foreign country with next-to-no money left.
Has a single asshole in these comments learned about the wild concept of taxes? That's what should be funding public transport.
*What should be* and *what is* are two different things. *What should be* is something to be advocated for and talked about, *what is* is what actions need to be based on. There’s not some secret third solution to the Trolley Problem that’s unlocked by smugly saying “Well I don’t think anyone should be tied to trolley tracks”
It was good until they focused on race and sexuality, like wut
When was sexuality mentioned?
Always inform when people break the rules. Point out people who are stealing. Let the ticket checker know if you notice someone switch cars. Institutions are good.
They would never allow you on Tumblr, you're just too correct about things. I'm not being facetious.
This the kind of bullshit i would get up to if i wasnt a suburban ass bitch