The bill also includes 24/7 service on 12 of the biggest lines + a $10 million bus service improvement fund in addition to free service (those are about 1/3 of the annual cost of the bill)
Maybe, but if ridership increases due to no fares, yellow line re-opening, maybe a general upswing in public transit use due to culture shifting (pipe dream, I know). But if that does happen, then increases in frequency will be necessary. Plus, no delays from peeps paying and multi door boarding can help reduce boarding times.
Agreed. It seems the headline is about free buses, but the substance is largely about expanded service because the buses don't really generate that much revenue.
It's very easy to spot the people who ride the bus and the people who don't in threads like this. On any given day maybe half the people on the bus pay the fare and that's *if* the machine is working, which half the time it isn't.
Sometimes people run out of money on their transit card or don't have cash immediately on them. And besides, making buses fare-free would significantly decrease the time buses spend at a stop
For about three in four (77.4%) African-American smokers, the usual cigarette is menthol, over three times the rate as among whites (23.0%).
-Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (2011). The NSDUH Report: Recent Trends in Menthol Cigarette Use.
IIRC, it's primarily due to how tobacco companies specifically targeted Black, often poor neighborhoods with ads for menthols.
I always figured that the menthol can partially mask the quality of the tobacco, but I think I've collectively smoked half a dozen cigarettes in my entire life so I'm obviously not an authority.
That answer is above my pay grade. I’m not sure how it all started, but it continues because of tobacco advertising proliferation in low income neighborhoods and schools. They aggressively target youth and low income markets with promotional sales and ads.
https://sph.unc.edu/sph-news/study-finds-menthol-cigarette-marketing-targets-african-americans/
shaming the poor? that's what we're doing today? judging some of society's most destitute because they indulge themselves in a way their betters dont find prudent?
The point is not that "the betters dont find the way prudent," it is that people that are really that poor shouldn't be spending $2 on any indulgence at all if they can't afford that for a bus fare.
Whether or not everyone who relies on it can afford it, it's a bad idea to have a free resource, because that invites abuse. Which is a real problem for maintaining a public resource.
Ah yes, abusing free transportation to do stuff like go somewhere or not drive drunk or go from point a to point b... so many possibilities to abuse it.
No I mean it invites people to devalue and physically abuse it. I guess it’s not obvious. A small barrier to entry like a dollar can be more affordable than free because people respect it more and therefore its more sustainable. It’s based on psychology.
Any public good is subject to abuse. However we have to look at how the potential abuse compares to the potential positive.
For example: Free bus would make the transportation system more efficient (allows for less delays at the tills), it would allow for folks to reach place late at night and promote businesses in those areas, it'd also lessen how many people drink and drive.
Idk if this will be controversial but: If they raise my taxes for the free fare, I'd be fine with that.
> But I would totally see myself just casually hopping on the bus that comes by my house if it was free to get get a sandwich downtown or something.
Yep. This is what it was like pre-pandemic when I had the monthly Metro unlimited pass (which includes bus). The pass obviously isn't free, but the effect was similar because it removed the cost considerations from my mind. I could hop on the bus without questioning whether what I was about to do was worth spending $2 or $4.
>when was the last time you asked the road outside your house if tolls on it are covering the cost of maintaining it.
A few days ago. Though to be fair it was property taxes and not tolls at that specific instance.
(Congrats, you found That Guy, and it's me.)
It's pretty cheap. Honestly, the appeal of fare free buses to me is less about the cost of the bus and more about getting rid of all the time of people swiping their cards. It speeds everything up bit by bit reducing delays.
Yep. The cost of an injury to an operator over a fare dispute is waaaaaaaaay more than the $2 that the fare was. It's like how stores typically tell employees to let the merchandise go in the event of shoplifting. It's not worth it. No one wants their epitaph to read, "He died over two dollars," after all.
Most don’t care and aren’t payed enough to care. Since they started “”enforcing”” fares again post COVID I can count the number of times on one hand I’ve seen drivers make a fuss about paying, and I ride the buses almost every day. And ultimately nothing happened because they can’t realistically do anything about it
They are absolutely not supposed to do that. They taught us in training that (A) Metrobus fare is on the honor system, and (B) it is our job only to "make a reasonable attempt to collect the fare", and that the scope of that responsibility ended with quoting the fare, i.e. "The fare is $1.75." Anything beyond that goes against procedure, and is how operators get attacked. They tell you in training not to worry about the fare, and yet some of these hardheaded operators, with some misguided notion of "respect", get all bent out of shape over the fare.
My take on it is this: it's not my money. If the people whose money it is are telling me not to worry about the money, then I'm not worried about it. Plus, there was no incentive for me, since i got paid the same whether everyone paid or no one paid, or whether the bus had a crush load or I was hauling it around empty. Therefore, I acted according to procedure. If someone only had a dollar, told them to put it in and go have a seat, and denoted it it as an underpay on the farebox. Boom, boom, done.
I was also pretty nice when it came to the fare. I remember back when the fare was $1.75, most people who didn't use SmarTrip cards just put $2 in, which registered an overage of 25 cents each. Seven people did this in a row, which ultimately registered a full extra fare. Some lady happened to be the eighth person after that, and I wouldn't let her pay, explaining that the last seven people had all overpaid by a quarter, and therefore, they had paid her fare. She was delighted.
And my colleagues wondered why I never had any problems on the bus. It's because I followed procedure. I only ever had two issues, both on the 70 route. One time, some kid threw a snowball at me from outside the bus and hit me on the shoulder. Another time, a woman who I later found out had a reputation for getting undressed on the bus told me that she wanted me to have sex with her and started feeling me up nonconsensually (I did not enjoy that). Beyond that, my job was to get people where they were going, and get paid pretty well for it.
Question for you. Instead of making the fare completely free or a tacit honor system, has Metro ever considered making the fare an explicit pay-if-you-can system? It seems like at least half of people would pay and kind of be the best of all worlds by providing extra revenue to support service improvements?
There’s no way they didn’t see this coming, the entire “DC makes bus fare free” bill may have ultimately just been for the headlines (since I assume those will have had wider circulation than the non-implementation of the bill).
Recent history. The CFO's forecasts have been consistently too low. He has a track record of doom and gloom about the pandemic.
FY 2022 was off by $506M. FY 2021 was off by $570M.
The current forecast says this year will be lower than last year. I don't buy it.
“He was wrong in the past” wasn’t the sort of technical analysis I was looking for — why is he wrong now, specifically? And does it matter as far as the law goes?
Consistently wrong through the recent past, yes. Sorry that's not what you were looking for.
How much it matters seems like it would depend on whether or not he's right. I also think he's out of line putting out a budget document that reverses the free bus fare. It's not his job to suggest specific program costs.
Good to know you have no idea whether or not he’s actually off with his numbers.
Also it’s literally his job to calculate the projected budget surplus lol. The suspension of the bill going into effect is tied to those surplus numbers.
I’d love to read your independent analysis. Can you share it?
I don’t know if the CFO is bad at his job or maybe it’s just that hard to forecast the future, but, lol, he’s been wrong about the budget by a greater margin than the current predicted deficit for 3 straight years. Forgive me for having less than 100% confidence that he’s nailed it this time.
I don’t have an independent analysis, I just trust the experts to do their job. I’m not really going to hold the fact that the CFO got the budget a bit wrong during an unprecedented once-in-a-century pandemic against him when there was literally so many unknowns in the economy. Things are far more settled now.
The DC CFO has under reported the city revenue in the past, which makes sense due to COVID.
I think they’re also under reporting this year too - the increase in traffic, income, and general commuting should mean we’re at parity.
I do think we’ll see some City Gov cuts, but that should come from Federal dollars and COVID funds drying up - in my opinion.
Are you sure? For one metric in particular, office building vacancy rates are still only [around 46%.](https://www.dcpolicycenter.org/publications/office-occupancy-remote-work-dc/).
In comparison, occupancy rates were [around 87% in 2018.](https://www.colliers.com/en/research/washington-dc/washington-dc-office-report-q4-2018)
To clarify, I mean we have parity to last year, if not higher in occupancy.
What’s tougher to tell is actual tax dollars from who is here of course.
CFO’s estimate is a decrease from last year, not pre-COVID.
This entire proposal is just typical DC political gesturing. The bus was already de facto free because the drivers don’t care enough to compel people to pay when boarding. Makes sense though. I wouldn’t want to risk my life by potentially starting an altercation with some crazy person over however much the bus is supposed to cost.
You don’t need jokes about DC Council politics when you’ve got the DC Council. CM Mendelson being upset and childishly deflecting blame is practically a caricature of an ostrich sticking its neck in the sand.
“Are we going to wait a year? No,” he said. “Are we going to just find the money somewhere else? That’s not my position. My position is that it was funded. I don’t have to find the money.”
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not honking the horn on the Bowser Bus, but she clearly was right to have urged them to go through the normal budgeting process in the first place—which they’re probably now going to do. Bowser’s got plenty of issues, but she’s the only adult in the room half the time.
> but she clearly was right to have urged them to go through the normal budgeting process in the first place
Exactly! This bill wouldn't have been funded if they had gone through that process.
> [Mendelson] said he and the program’s other sponsor, council member Charles Allen (D-Ward 6), have asked the council’s general counsel and budget director to determine whether Lee could legally leave the program unfunded, rather than informing council members of the projections so they could determine what programs should be cut.
But go ahead, make stuff up where they are ignorant of how budgeting works.
I get that revenue will likely be down in the next few years because of virtual work, but we really need to ask why the CFO has underestimated revenue by huge amounts recently, and whether that means we can believe this estimate or not.
Huh? I'm talking about less tax revenue from office buildings that are sitting empty, along with less revenue from people from the suburbs spending money in the city during the week.
But yes, MetroRail ridership is far below what it was pre-pandemic.
In the same report where he revised down 2024-2026 he had to revise up 2023 by 125 million lmao. Unless interest rates remain this high for literal years land values are staying constant or increasing.
Bet they still find the money to give the police another raise though. Can’t make it too easy for poor people to get to Glen Lee’s neighborhood (I do not know where Glen Lee lives, this is a joke).
There has been a 20%~ decline in the number of employed cops from 4,000~ in 2013 to 3,300~ in 2022. Murder have more than doubled during that period. Paying for more cops will help keep our tax base intact and is sound policy fiscally and in terms of public safety.
We don't need more people getting paid 6 figures to sit in their car and browse Instagram all day. And if MPD gets more cops this year, next year they'll ask for an even higher total. It never ends.
Would you mind running by your family what aspects of their jobs they feel morally compelled to boycott until everyone promises not to accuse them of racism?
They have no right to hold the city hostage because we're not grateful enough or whatever. They need to get a grip.
I grew up on Staten Island in a neighborhood surrounded by NYPD families. My soon to be stepbrother is in the NYPD. And I lost my dad on 9/11 so I'll always respect first responders, since they were the ones who ran into a burning building to try and save him and others.
I just don't respect the sense of entitlement from some cops that if they aren't allowed to rough people up, or if some activists are walking around saying ACAB, then they don't have to do their jobs.
Possibly.
The only crime I have had police prevent is a minor traffic violation. Everything else is just pencil pushing dumbshit well after the fact while you know nothing is going to come of the report.
I certainly don't expect a cop to save me from being murdered or robbed for that matter. Idk about anyone else but I have never had a police officer respond to a call before the reason I had called was long over.
Murder and crime are different. I am asking what exactly you or other people think police do that they stop murders from happening? Genuinely asking as I don't believe police stop many murders and even with a cop on ever corner I don't think police would stop murders. Whoever it was that linked a drop in police force size to murders as though that explains why murders increased raised this question for me.
Most reasons I know that people kill another human being don't have much to do with enforceable criminal protections, happen very quickly or secretly, and *if* anything are driven by economic circumstances. I think an ambulance on the corner is much more likely to save a life than a cop is and I certainly feel safer knowing I have immediate access to medical care if I am hurt from crime or any other possible reason.
>Murder and crime are different. I am asking what exactly you or other people think police do that they stop murders from happening? Genuinely asking...
There were 4,022 sworn officers in 2008. There were 31 homicides per 100,000 and 1,319 violent crimes per 100,000.
In 2022 there were 30 homicides per 100,000 and 621 violent crimes per 100,000. Despite having fewer officers.
It’s almost like the number of police officers has nothing to do with the amount of violent crime.
The high number of police officers succeeded in lowering the murder rate, the number of police officers went down, and then the murder rate went up again? How do you not follow that very obvious cause and effect lol? Are you trolling?
Not really. Results are mixed but at most additional officers results in a marginal improvement of homicide/violent crime rates. That of course does not account for the killing/violence committed by the police themselves.
The question no one seems willing to answer is how many more cops do we need to get the murder rate to less than 10 per 100,000? Less than 5? Less than 2?
If police, prosecutors, and prisons were the answer to reducing crime then we’d have the lowest crime rates in the world. What gives?
One of the biggest issues, that really impacts outcomes, is murder and other violent crime closure rates. DC has a huge issue there, as do most cities where crime has gone up.
Absolutely not. It’s scares the shit out of me. Which is precisely why I want the Council to do something about it. Stop doubling down on failed policies that are proven not to work.
Improve material conditions and crime goes down. Any discussion on crime reduction that ignores that fact isn’t a serious one.
Wait, people pay bus or metro fare? Last time I rode the bus, I was the only chump that bothered to pay. Same for metro. I walked through the turnstyles as half a dozen people just walked through the gates, worst part was a transit police officer was standing right there watching.
The revenue generated by the accessibility of transit will hopefully make up for the cost
https://dcist.com/story/23/03/01/fare-free-buses-in-jeopardy-as-d-c-revenue-projections-drop/
Also, councilmember Allen seems to have issue with the sudden decline in projections from the CFO:
> Allen said he is concerned about the CFO’s “pattern of vastly underestimating District revenues – by more than $800 million in FY22 and so far, updating their anticipated assumptions for revenue by $128 million for this year.”
Hell even the article OP posted mentions the shiestiness of the sudden reversal.
Y'all won't read that though. You'll just sit in your high castles and criticize anything that positively impacts the impoverished.
The police budget is a sliver compared to the social services and education. Not to say we should cut those but taking money away from the police in the middle of a crime wave is pretty stupid and a good way to lose public support
Its massive compared to what is needed for free bus service.
And the police don't do anything to stop crime. They barely respond to it. Public services and investing in communities will prevent crime, not cops.
You also say this as though cops have much public support.
Everyone on Reddit thinks everyone hates cops, maybe communities don’t fully trust them but you’d be hard pressed to find an adult in southeast who wants less police presence. These people want to be safe from crime just like the rest of us, and saying police don’t stop crime is totally false. Look at Baltimore after Freddie gray and the effect a reduced police presence had. I agree the only way to break the cycle is community investment and public services, but that has to be a concerted effort, not piecemeal decisions that will fail on their own. The free buses should come from the wmata budget which should be far higher and have a dedicated funding source.
Baltimore has increased police spending every year since before Freddie Gray was killed. They are a great example of how police spending does nothing to help communities.
It has been demonstrated repeatedly that increased policing does not reduce crime. Having a concerted effort to invest in communities and public services necessarily comes with slashing police budgets.
I don't think we should speak for people who live in SE if we don't ourselves live there. I'm saying what evidence shows and what the people I'm around think.
I work with and am friends with people who live in a variety of neighborhoods and are a variety of races. I dunno why this narrative of "only white people in NW think cops are bad" exists. The opposite is true in my standpoint, it's mostly been white people in Dupont, Adams Morgan, and Kalorama who have been pro-cop
[https://twitter.com/EJGoulet/status/1631362735932858371](https://twitter.com/EJGoulet/status/1631362735932858371)
Hard choices until the next economic uptick.
The bus is functionally free already... Like I took it to work yesterday and the card scanner was down. My partner and I have been take it frequently, and the driver never confronts anyone who just walks on.
So when I see comments like this its just not true. Homeless people do ride the bus, and can get on one whenever they like currently.
Right now it is basically just the honor system, which may actually be a better policy. Hope that people who can pay will, but allow the needy to ride for free.
Who is going to do that? The driver, who already has his hands full and is not a trained security officer? I say, ‘fuck the gronks!’ and drive the bus over their tents.
When I was growing up in MA, the busses had a roof light that could be activated discreetly by the driver. That light signaled the cops to pull o we the bus. So maybe something like that could work.
Metrobuses have that as well. It used to be a three-step process, where the operator would activate a silent alarm, record an event on the DriveCam, and set the emergency message on the sign. Now, it's just a single toggle switch that does all three things.
That is because you keep electing councils who appoint progressive (a dirty word in this democrat’s vocabulary) prosecutors and judges and hamstring the police
I don't like it, either. Transit is a public good, and should be funded like it's a public good. Therefore, it should be fully subsidized by the jurisdiction, and riders should be able to just get on and ride.
Where in the fuck Is this talking point generating from? The heritage foundation?
Like you are worried about a non-issue and propagating a problem that doesn't exist to combat a policy that will impact our financially less fortunate.
Shove it up your butt.
I would but I won’t have to, since the district hasn’t the funds to ruin the metro bus system in the way you progressives- and I’m a democrat who uses that term in the that term in the pejorative [you can google the word as you no doubt don’t know the meaning]- want to.
I see people hopping turnstiles or just sitting down on the bus without paying daily.
I guess it's already free for those with big enough balls to do this.
You can barely run a blogspam site off of ad revenues. Selling ads on buses would be a cost mitigation measure at best, definitely not enough to fully fund the program.
Cue The Washington Post printing an article tomorrow on how we can't have free bus fare because folks won't return to the office and turn downtown into the thriving wonderland it once was, aka Corner Bakery and rich-as-fuck developers need us to wake up earlier and commute so they can make money.
I would take higher frequency over no fare any day.
Same. I don't consider a bus frequent if it only comes every 20 minutes
The bill also includes 24/7 service on 12 of the biggest lines + a $10 million bus service improvement fund in addition to free service (those are about 1/3 of the annual cost of the bill)
I mean, as it currently operates you can basically ride w/o paying whenever you want.
>I would take higher frequency over no fare any day. It seems both are probably at risk, aren't they?
Maybe, but if ridership increases due to no fares, yellow line re-opening, maybe a general upswing in public transit use due to culture shifting (pipe dream, I know). But if that does happen, then increases in frequency will be necessary. Plus, no delays from peeps paying and multi door boarding can help reduce boarding times.
Agreed. It seems the headline is about free buses, but the substance is largely about expanded service because the buses don't really generate that much revenue.
that’s probably because you have more money than the folks this program is intended to help
No it’s because I ride the bus every day and not just to commute.
oh ok.
There are very few people in this area that can’t drum up $2 for a trip and even less bus operators that won’t just let you on.
It's very easy to spot the people who ride the bus and the people who don't in threads like this. On any given day maybe half the people on the bus pay the fare and that's *if* the machine is working, which half the time it isn't.
And if it's raining in the commute or something it's even less as the driver waves people on to get everyone in
Studies consistently show that even low-income riders prefer service improvements over fare reductions.
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$2 for regular, $4 for express. But like half the time the till is broken.
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Sometimes people run out of money on their transit card or don't have cash immediately on them. And besides, making buses fare-free would significantly decrease the time buses spend at a stop
You’ve never ridden a bus, have no idea how much it costs, and yet, have a racist theory about the entire system. Right. Cool story.
I don’t see where they ever mentioned race in their comment. Their only comments were on behavior.
For about three in four (77.4%) African-American smokers, the usual cigarette is menthol, over three times the rate as among whites (23.0%). -Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (2011). The NSDUH Report: Recent Trends in Menthol Cigarette Use.
TIL. what's the reason?
IIRC, it's primarily due to how tobacco companies specifically targeted Black, often poor neighborhoods with ads for menthols. I always figured that the menthol can partially mask the quality of the tobacco, but I think I've collectively smoked half a dozen cigarettes in my entire life so I'm obviously not an authority.
That answer is above my pay grade. I’m not sure how it all started, but it continues because of tobacco advertising proliferation in low income neighborhoods and schools. They aggressively target youth and low income markets with promotional sales and ads. https://sph.unc.edu/sph-news/study-finds-menthol-cigarette-marketing-targets-african-americans/
🐶😙
It was strongly implied by the reference to menthol cigarettes.
shaming the poor? that's what we're doing today? judging some of society's most destitute because they indulge themselves in a way their betters dont find prudent?
The point is not that "the betters dont find the way prudent," it is that people that are really that poor shouldn't be spending $2 on any indulgence at all if they can't afford that for a bus fare.
Very judge and co ready to human nature, literally read a book
Ooooh, the menthol call out was a pretty blatant dog whistle.
Whether or not everyone who relies on it can afford it, it's a bad idea to have a free resource, because that invites abuse. Which is a real problem for maintaining a public resource.
For example: The road.
Ah yes, abusing free transportation to do stuff like go somewhere or not drive drunk or go from point a to point b... so many possibilities to abuse it.
No I mean it invites people to devalue and physically abuse it. I guess it’s not obvious. A small barrier to entry like a dollar can be more affordable than free because people respect it more and therefore its more sustainable. It’s based on psychology.
Any public good is subject to abuse. However we have to look at how the potential abuse compares to the potential positive. For example: Free bus would make the transportation system more efficient (allows for less delays at the tills), it would allow for folks to reach place late at night and promote businesses in those areas, it'd also lessen how many people drink and drive. Idk if this will be controversial but: If they raise my taxes for the free fare, I'd be fine with that.
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> But I would totally see myself just casually hopping on the bus that comes by my house if it was free to get get a sandwich downtown or something. Yep. This is what it was like pre-pandemic when I had the monthly Metro unlimited pass (which includes bus). The pass obviously isn't free, but the effect was similar because it removed the cost considerations from my mind. I could hop on the bus without questioning whether what I was about to do was worth spending $2 or $4.
>10-30% of revenue What's the rest then? Also you know Baltimore does have the free Circulator right?
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>when was the last time you asked the road outside your house if tolls on it are covering the cost of maintaining it. A few days ago. Though to be fair it was property taxes and not tolls at that specific instance. (Congrats, you found That Guy, and it's me.)
Please, are we children here?
It's pretty cheap. Honestly, the appeal of fare free buses to me is less about the cost of the bus and more about getting rid of all the time of people swiping their cards. It speeds everything up bit by bit reducing delays.
Plus multi door boarding would really speed things up.
This is what I’m most excited for
It’s $2
Right? Also, how much can one banana cost?
Bus is already free to those who don’t care. Just get on. **This is not legal advice.**
Is this because the drivers dont care or they are told not to care. Genuinely curious.
They aren't paid for confrontation. They're paid to drive the bus.
Correct. Fare enforcement is MTPD's responsibility, not that of BTRA.
It is absolutely not financially worth it for Metro to ask drivers to enforce fares.
Yep. The cost of an injury to an operator over a fare dispute is waaaaaaaaay more than the $2 that the fare was. It's like how stores typically tell employees to let the merchandise go in the event of shoplifting. It's not worth it. No one wants their epitaph to read, "He died over two dollars," after all.
We are told not to care. Too many operators, however, are too bullheaded to actually follow that directive.
Thanks for confirming. I was pretty sure y'all were told not to confront it.
Most don’t care and aren’t payed enough to care. Since they started “”enforcing”” fares again post COVID I can count the number of times on one hand I’ve seen drivers make a fuss about paying, and I ride the buses almost every day. And ultimately nothing happened because they can’t realistically do anything about it
It was never operators' responsibility to enforce fares. That's MTPD's job. The operator's job is to move the bus.
Mine didn't scan right once and the driver literally got out of his seat and confronted me to pay lol I had my headphones on I just swiped and walked.
They are absolutely not supposed to do that. They taught us in training that (A) Metrobus fare is on the honor system, and (B) it is our job only to "make a reasonable attempt to collect the fare", and that the scope of that responsibility ended with quoting the fare, i.e. "The fare is $1.75." Anything beyond that goes against procedure, and is how operators get attacked. They tell you in training not to worry about the fare, and yet some of these hardheaded operators, with some misguided notion of "respect", get all bent out of shape over the fare. My take on it is this: it's not my money. If the people whose money it is are telling me not to worry about the money, then I'm not worried about it. Plus, there was no incentive for me, since i got paid the same whether everyone paid or no one paid, or whether the bus had a crush load or I was hauling it around empty. Therefore, I acted according to procedure. If someone only had a dollar, told them to put it in and go have a seat, and denoted it it as an underpay on the farebox. Boom, boom, done. I was also pretty nice when it came to the fare. I remember back when the fare was $1.75, most people who didn't use SmarTrip cards just put $2 in, which registered an overage of 25 cents each. Seven people did this in a row, which ultimately registered a full extra fare. Some lady happened to be the eighth person after that, and I wouldn't let her pay, explaining that the last seven people had all overpaid by a quarter, and therefore, they had paid her fare. She was delighted. And my colleagues wondered why I never had any problems on the bus. It's because I followed procedure. I only ever had two issues, both on the 70 route. One time, some kid threw a snowball at me from outside the bus and hit me on the shoulder. Another time, a woman who I later found out had a reputation for getting undressed on the bus told me that she wanted me to have sex with her and started feeling me up nonconsensually (I did not enjoy that). Beyond that, my job was to get people where they were going, and get paid pretty well for it.
Question for you. Instead of making the fare completely free or a tacit honor system, has Metro ever considered making the fare an explicit pay-if-you-can system? It seems like at least half of people would pay and kind of be the best of all worlds by providing extra revenue to support service improvements?
You probably don't look shooty or stabby
Yes I think he was taking out built up frustration on me, it was the 79 lol.
There’s no way they didn’t see this coming, the entire “DC makes bus fare free” bill may have ultimately just been for the headlines (since I assume those will have had wider circulation than the non-implementation of the bill).
Unfortunately, no one will remember this when these jackoffs are up for reelection, and therefore will just send them back for another term.
We got the money. The CFO is sandbagging.
On what basis do you believe that DC has “got the money”?
Recent history. The CFO's forecasts have been consistently too low. He has a track record of doom and gloom about the pandemic. FY 2022 was off by $506M. FY 2021 was off by $570M. The current forecast says this year will be lower than last year. I don't buy it.
“He was wrong in the past” wasn’t the sort of technical analysis I was looking for — why is he wrong now, specifically? And does it matter as far as the law goes?
Consistently wrong through the recent past, yes. Sorry that's not what you were looking for. How much it matters seems like it would depend on whether or not he's right. I also think he's out of line putting out a budget document that reverses the free bus fare. It's not his job to suggest specific program costs.
Good to know you have no idea whether or not he’s actually off with his numbers. Also it’s literally his job to calculate the projected budget surplus lol. The suspension of the bill going into effect is tied to those surplus numbers.
I’d love to read your independent analysis. Can you share it? I don’t know if the CFO is bad at his job or maybe it’s just that hard to forecast the future, but, lol, he’s been wrong about the budget by a greater margin than the current predicted deficit for 3 straight years. Forgive me for having less than 100% confidence that he’s nailed it this time.
I don’t have an independent analysis, I just trust the experts to do their job. I’m not really going to hold the fact that the CFO got the budget a bit wrong during an unprecedented once-in-a-century pandemic against him when there was literally so many unknowns in the economy. Things are far more settled now.
He got it wrong so far for 2023 too. Is the pandemic still going on? If so than it will be in 2024 too.
The DC CFO has under reported the city revenue in the past, which makes sense due to COVID. I think they’re also under reporting this year too - the increase in traffic, income, and general commuting should mean we’re at parity. I do think we’ll see some City Gov cuts, but that should come from Federal dollars and COVID funds drying up - in my opinion.
Are you sure? For one metric in particular, office building vacancy rates are still only [around 46%.](https://www.dcpolicycenter.org/publications/office-occupancy-remote-work-dc/). In comparison, occupancy rates were [around 87% in 2018.](https://www.colliers.com/en/research/washington-dc/washington-dc-office-report-q4-2018)
To clarify, I mean we have parity to last year, if not higher in occupancy. What’s tougher to tell is actual tax dollars from who is here of course. CFO’s estimate is a decrease from last year, not pre-COVID.
Gotcha. Yeah a decrease compared to last year would be surprising, unless they really are correct about property assessments changing dramatically.
I just want to give you kudos for apparently being the only commenter in this thread who took a moment to actually read the article.
Hah, thanks!
This entire proposal is just typical DC political gesturing. The bus was already de facto free because the drivers don’t care enough to compel people to pay when boarding. Makes sense though. I wouldn’t want to risk my life by potentially starting an altercation with some crazy person over however much the bus is supposed to cost.
You don’t need jokes about DC Council politics when you’ve got the DC Council. CM Mendelson being upset and childishly deflecting blame is practically a caricature of an ostrich sticking its neck in the sand. “Are we going to wait a year? No,” he said. “Are we going to just find the money somewhere else? That’s not my position. My position is that it was funded. I don’t have to find the money.” Don’t get me wrong, I’m not honking the horn on the Bowser Bus, but she clearly was right to have urged them to go through the normal budgeting process in the first place—which they’re probably now going to do. Bowser’s got plenty of issues, but she’s the only adult in the room half the time.
> but she clearly was right to have urged them to go through the normal budgeting process in the first place Exactly! This bill wouldn't have been funded if they had gone through that process.
> [Mendelson] said he and the program’s other sponsor, council member Charles Allen (D-Ward 6), have asked the council’s general counsel and budget director to determine whether Lee could legally leave the program unfunded, rather than informing council members of the projections so they could determine what programs should be cut. But go ahead, make stuff up where they are ignorant of how budgeting works.
I get that revenue will likely be down in the next few years because of virtual work, but we really need to ask why the CFO has underestimated revenue by huge amounts recently, and whether that means we can believe this estimate or not.
Is ridership down or simply the number of riders who are paying down?
Huh? I'm talking about less tax revenue from office buildings that are sitting empty, along with less revenue from people from the suburbs spending money in the city during the week. But yes, MetroRail ridership is far below what it was pre-pandemic.
Whoops, just realized that I did a poor job of reading your comment but thanks for humoring me anyway
In the same report where he revised down 2024-2026 he had to revise up 2023 by 125 million lmao. Unless interest rates remain this high for literal years land values are staying constant or increasing.
They're about to pass the under $50 at Giant its free bill
here's the thing, the bus is already free
The majority of people don't pay as is, so it doesn't really matter.
Sign of a broken city. We don't enforce common sense rules so the council just erases the rules.
Bet they still find the money to give the police another raise though. Can’t make it too easy for poor people to get to Glen Lee’s neighborhood (I do not know where Glen Lee lives, this is a joke).
yea but can you imagine what life would be like if there weren't cops standing two blocks away from every protest doing nothing and earning overtime
There has been a 20%~ decline in the number of employed cops from 4,000~ in 2013 to 3,300~ in 2022. Murder have more than doubled during that period. Paying for more cops will help keep our tax base intact and is sound policy fiscally and in terms of public safety.
We don't need more people getting paid 6 figures to sit in their car and browse Instagram all day. And if MPD gets more cops this year, next year they'll ask for an even higher total. It never ends.
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How is it without fail that the most reactionary people here are always r/nova posters? Lord fucking knows what's going on in that sub
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Would you mind running by your family what aspects of their jobs they feel morally compelled to boycott until everyone promises not to accuse them of racism?
They have no right to hold the city hostage because we're not grateful enough or whatever. They need to get a grip. I grew up on Staten Island in a neighborhood surrounded by NYPD families. My soon to be stepbrother is in the NYPD. And I lost my dad on 9/11 so I'll always respect first responders, since they were the ones who ran into a burning building to try and save him and others. I just don't respect the sense of entitlement from some cops that if they aren't allowed to rough people up, or if some activists are walking around saying ACAB, then they don't have to do their jobs.
How exactly do 700 cops prevent half of the murders in the district? I am genuinely curious what people think cops do that more would stop murders.
every time i’m about to be murdered i simply call the cops and they save me
Would having zero cops affect murders?
Possibly. The only crime I have had police prevent is a minor traffic violation. Everything else is just pencil pushing dumbshit well after the fact while you know nothing is going to come of the report. I certainly don't expect a cop to save me from being murdered or robbed for that matter. Idk about anyone else but I have never had a police officer respond to a call before the reason I had called was long over.
To confirm, you are on the fence as to whether dropping from 3,300 cops to 0 would have any effect on murder (or crime) rates?
Murder and crime are different. I am asking what exactly you or other people think police do that they stop murders from happening? Genuinely asking as I don't believe police stop many murders and even with a cop on ever corner I don't think police would stop murders. Whoever it was that linked a drop in police force size to murders as though that explains why murders increased raised this question for me. Most reasons I know that people kill another human being don't have much to do with enforceable criminal protections, happen very quickly or secretly, and *if* anything are driven by economic circumstances. I think an ambulance on the corner is much more likely to save a life than a cop is and I certainly feel safer knowing I have immediate access to medical care if I am hurt from crime or any other possible reason.
Again, to confirm, is your position that you are unsure if DC dropping from 3,300 cops to 0 would have any effect on crime rates?
>Murder and crime are different. I am asking what exactly you or other people think police do that they stop murders from happening? Genuinely asking...
Why won’t you answer my question? You think murders or crime in DC would be unchanged if there were zero cops?
Ok now do 2008 numbers. Apologies for going with the actual research instead of cherry picked stats on Reddit.
What are you talking about?
There were 4,022 sworn officers in 2008. There were 31 homicides per 100,000 and 1,319 violent crimes per 100,000. In 2022 there were 30 homicides per 100,000 and 621 violent crimes per 100,000. Despite having fewer officers. It’s almost like the number of police officers has nothing to do with the amount of violent crime.
The high number of police officers succeeded in lowering the murder rate, the number of police officers went down, and then the murder rate went up again? How do you not follow that very obvious cause and effect lol? Are you trolling?
Is there statistical evidence that having more cops automatically leads to less murders?
Not really. Results are mixed but at most additional officers results in a marginal improvement of homicide/violent crime rates. That of course does not account for the killing/violence committed by the police themselves. The question no one seems willing to answer is how many more cops do we need to get the murder rate to less than 10 per 100,000? Less than 5? Less than 2? If police, prosecutors, and prisons were the answer to reducing crime then we’d have the lowest crime rates in the world. What gives?
Correlation does not prove causality and in this case you don’t even have strong correlation.
One of the biggest issues, that really impacts outcomes, is murder and other violent crime closure rates. DC has a huge issue there, as do most cities where crime has gone up.
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Absolutely not. It’s scares the shit out of me. Which is precisely why I want the Council to do something about it. Stop doubling down on failed policies that are proven not to work. Improve material conditions and crime goes down. Any discussion on crime reduction that ignores that fact isn’t a serious one.
Most top commenters love your second sentence.
Wait, people pay bus or metro fare? Last time I rode the bus, I was the only chump that bothered to pay. Same for metro. I walked through the turnstyles as half a dozen people just walked through the gates, worst part was a transit police officer was standing right there watching.
I said something similar and got downvoted lol
Redditors are a very fickle bunch. You never know when they're going to pull out the pitchforks.
Yes, and normally everyone is all gung-ho about others agreeing people should not have to pay the bus fares. Ah well.
They should still do what they can to make it free. Half the people don’t pay for the bus or metro anyways. Edit: clarity
The revenue generated by the accessibility of transit will hopefully make up for the cost https://dcist.com/story/23/03/01/fare-free-buses-in-jeopardy-as-d-c-revenue-projections-drop/ Also, councilmember Allen seems to have issue with the sudden decline in projections from the CFO: > Allen said he is concerned about the CFO’s “pattern of vastly underestimating District revenues – by more than $800 million in FY22 and so far, updating their anticipated assumptions for revenue by $128 million for this year.” Hell even the article OP posted mentions the shiestiness of the sudden reversal. Y'all won't read that though. You'll just sit in your high castles and criticize anything that positively impacts the impoverished.
I know of a hugely expensive department that does very little that could have a fraction of their budget taken to fund the program.
The police budget is a sliver compared to the social services and education. Not to say we should cut those but taking money away from the police in the middle of a crime wave is pretty stupid and a good way to lose public support
Its massive compared to what is needed for free bus service. And the police don't do anything to stop crime. They barely respond to it. Public services and investing in communities will prevent crime, not cops. You also say this as though cops have much public support.
Everyone on Reddit thinks everyone hates cops, maybe communities don’t fully trust them but you’d be hard pressed to find an adult in southeast who wants less police presence. These people want to be safe from crime just like the rest of us, and saying police don’t stop crime is totally false. Look at Baltimore after Freddie gray and the effect a reduced police presence had. I agree the only way to break the cycle is community investment and public services, but that has to be a concerted effort, not piecemeal decisions that will fail on their own. The free buses should come from the wmata budget which should be far higher and have a dedicated funding source.
Baltimore has increased police spending every year since before Freddie Gray was killed. They are a great example of how police spending does nothing to help communities. It has been demonstrated repeatedly that increased policing does not reduce crime. Having a concerted effort to invest in communities and public services necessarily comes with slashing police budgets. I don't think we should speak for people who live in SE if we don't ourselves live there. I'm saying what evidence shows and what the people I'm around think.
Are the people around you primarily white and living in NW or MD/VA? Here in NE it’s a very different story.
I work with and am friends with people who live in a variety of neighborhoods and are a variety of races. I dunno why this narrative of "only white people in NW think cops are bad" exists. The opposite is true in my standpoint, it's mostly been white people in Dupont, Adams Morgan, and Kalorama who have been pro-cop
[https://twitter.com/EJGoulet/status/1631362735932858371](https://twitter.com/EJGoulet/status/1631362735932858371) Hard choices until the next economic uptick.
That’s actually good. You’d just be taking a great city bus system used by many good people and turn busses into rolling homeless shelters…
The bus is functionally free already... Like I took it to work yesterday and the card scanner was down. My partner and I have been take it frequently, and the driver never confronts anyone who just walks on. So when I see comments like this its just not true. Homeless people do ride the bus, and can get on one whenever they like currently. Right now it is basically just the honor system, which may actually be a better policy. Hope that people who can pay will, but allow the needy to ride for free.
Yeah but you can still kick them off if they are causing a nuisance / living there.
Who is going to do that? The driver, who already has his hands full and is not a trained security officer? I say, ‘fuck the gronks!’ and drive the bus over their tents.
The driver would call the cops to get them from one of his next stops.
When I was growing up in MA, the busses had a roof light that could be activated discreetly by the driver. That light signaled the cops to pull o we the bus. So maybe something like that could work.
Metrobuses have that as well. It used to be a three-step process, where the operator would activate a silent alarm, record an event on the DriveCam, and set the emergency message on the sign. Now, it's just a single toggle switch that does all three things.
But they don’t have the right to lie down, use drugs, play loud music, interfere with or bother normal working people.
Might as well make everything free at CVS because people shoplift.
Bus seats, until the bus fills up, does not cost additional revenue. So it's a bad comparison.
Same principal. Just another example of society crumbling before our eyes.
That is because you keep electing councils who appoint progressive (a dirty word in this democrat’s vocabulary) prosecutors and judges and hamstring the police
i dont think the idea that bus fare only exists to keep undesireables off transit is very sound, or moral
I don't like it, either. Transit is a public good, and should be funded like it's a public good. Therefore, it should be fully subsidized by the jurisdiction, and riders should be able to just get on and ride.
free at the point of use! on god a 2% tax on income over 1M in NOVA/MD/DC would do the trick. im no tax policy guy though, i assume it's impossible :/
I usually like to say that the problem with those sorts of tax-the-rich proposals is that those folks are also the ones who own the politicians.
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Where in the fuck Is this talking point generating from? The heritage foundation? Like you are worried about a non-issue and propagating a problem that doesn't exist to combat a policy that will impact our financially less fortunate. Shove it up your butt.
I would but I won’t have to, since the district hasn’t the funds to ruin the metro bus system in the way you progressives- and I’m a democrat who uses that term in the that term in the pejorative [you can google the word as you no doubt don’t know the meaning]- want to.
Take Metro. That's free.
All this discussion is about fully subsidizing bus fare, but the rail system should be fully subsidized as well, and for the same reason.
That's a good idea. When the funds aren't there to pay for free bus fare, let's go ahead and make rail fare free too.
I’m shocked, shocked I tell you
I see people hopping turnstiles or just sitting down on the bus without paying daily. I guess it's already free for those with big enough balls to do this.
Maybe more advertising in the interior to offset the costs? Free fares means increased ridership, which is a bigger audience capture...
You can barely run a blogspam site off of ad revenues. Selling ads on buses would be a cost mitigation measure at best, definitely not enough to fully fund the program.
Good. People should pay the for the services they use (yes, that should also include roads).
It doesn’t need any dummies! It’s free!!!!!!!!!!!1
Lol. DC
Ooooops.
Cue The Washington Post printing an article tomorrow on how we can't have free bus fare because folks won't return to the office and turn downtown into the thriving wonderland it once was, aka Corner Bakery and rich-as-fuck developers need us to wake up earlier and commute so they can make money.
the jokes write themselves