07-31-2017, 12:25 PM
(07-31-2017, 11:49 AM)tomh009 Wrote:(07-31-2017, 11:20 AM)Viewfromthe42 Wrote: We could move towards a system where we considered boardings a per-use cost (punishing those who don't live on direct routes based on their transportation needs), on a distance cost (punishing those who live farther from their destinations), on a time cost (punishing those who aren't able to use express buses and have to take milk run routes), (...)Punishing? Based on this argument, the current system punishes those who live on direct routes, and those who don't make stopovers, and those who only take the bus (or LRT) for a short distance.
Seriously, in my mind a distance-based cost is the most fair (you are effectively paying by distance when you drive (gas/wear and tear), bicycle (effort/wear and tear) or walk (effort/shoes).
Or make the entire system free of charge. But I don't think there is much support for that.
In my example, "punishing" would mean that the "punished" situation involved having to use more fares than someone else (e.g. if you couldn't transfer and needed 4 buses to make a return trip to work, you would pay 4 times for potentially a shorter commute than someone who lived and worked on opposite ends of a long route and only needed to pay 2 fares to get to and from work). Indeed, few people do short hop bus jaunts because they are paying a full fare for a very short distance/time savings, whereas these are extremely popular for U-pass holders since there is no disincentive to hop on a bus and ride 1 or 2 stops to class to save a tiny bit of time and effort.
Distance-based could be argued to be a less optimal solution in some ways. If I ride a bus from Conestoga to Galt, I've gone ~40km(?), but I've only required one boarding, only taken up one seat on a single route. If my journey requires 3 boardings because I transfer twice, I've slowed down that bus and all its occupants (especially if I'm the only person getting on/off each of the three buses, now it's 6 boarding/disembarcation cycles). Additionally, if the short distance I'm on each bus (let's say 1km) happens to have a very high boarding area right after I get on, I might have displaced 3 people on 3 separate bus routes who each might have wanted to use the full length of the system, but my being on that bus prevented them from getting on. In this case, I would suggest that the "short" 3km jaunt on 3 buses used far more resources and inconvenienced far more people than someone sitting on the 200 end-to-end.
Also, I think you mean to say you are paying by distance when you use a car/bike/walk, but you are not paying a cost of those systems. As we all know, no amount of walking or cycling pays any direct fee into sidewalks or bike infrastructure, and certainly someone using a hybrid for an all-electric trip or an electric car for any trip pays no gas tax (if you believe that to be any kind of fee for road use, which I do not), just as someone using the 401 during rush hour isn't imposing the same cost on our highway system as a trucker who flies through Toronto at 3am, since we built the system to accommodate the commuters of rush hour and have no problem accommodating the users of seldom-used times of day.