The NYC subway is using AI to detect fare dodgers

Fare evasion is like stealing bread. It's a crime of desperation.

This kind of budgetary indulgence only indicates the MTA doesn't much like the public of the city it serves.

Nah definitely not. If you're that desperate where are you even going on the subway? I've literally seen homeless people pay the fare. The only time I'd consider it justifiable is if you're in a rush, the train is right their, and your payment isn't working. Otherwise like what, where you gonna go and what you gonna do if you can't even afford $2.75?

If it was free, conservatives would put more effort into killing it off like they did in the 60s and 70s when they killed off trains and subways in a bunch of cities, killed off the trolley systems in several cities, etc. Otherwise their donors would lose too much money on people switching from driving. But yeah, it's almost entirely funded by taxes anyway. Would be logical to make it 100% funded, but keeping a small fare keeps it a smaller target of conservatives.

Yes bad actors are always a problem. So I guess we should never do anything substantial to reform the system because rightwing shitheads will try to sabotage it.
- I didn't say that. It's just that first we need to fix the election system that is totally broken through gerrymandering, funding cuts, re-expanding mail in voting and early voting, making election day a mandatory holiday for all but emergency services, get the big money out of politics by removing personhood from corporations and thus removing their "right to free speech" as well as their ability to donate unlimited funds through various means and possibly even making all election ads paid for by public funds that are equally distributed if requested, etc. Then once everyone can vote without losing their job for having to take off almost an entire day and they can vote for local politicians rather than ones that will mostly be responsible for conservative areas connected to their sliver of the city, we need to organize progressive people to actually do it. But I think once it becomes apparent that their votes actually have some chance of making a difference, it won't be as hard as it is now.
  
  Oh sure yeah lol none of this is realistic as our election system, and our representation system are massively defective, and of course a lot of people have lost their fucking minds.

Maybe they should start electing people to charge property taxes correctly to those ultra luxury condos.

Local mass transit should be free. It is already really heavily subsidized, often almost entirely subsidized, so it wouldn’t cost as much as you think.

America won't achieve that with such low tax rates

Mass transit barely exists in most of America.
Yes. Interestingly US taxes aren't even low if you factor in what you have to pay for directly, compared to what other countries pay though taxes.
Lol have you seen the taxes in the US
- It's like 5% federal only in some states
  
  Most states aren't and income tax isn't the only tax ther's capital gains sales etc

Mass transit cannot be free.

It should however be without toll. It can quite reasonably be funded with tax.

But free? No. Someone somewhere has to pay for the infrastructure and operations.

Free to use, funded by taxes. Like how healthcare should work.
This seems like needless nitpicking. The end result is the same, it's still free at the point of use.
Free as in free to use. Just like roads.
- Roads should be tolled. Every single one.
  Governments waste obscene amounts of money building car infrastructure, which loses money with no return.
  
  Governments maintain such infrastructure likely to maintain their military logistics backbone. That it's free for citizens to use is incidental.
  
  Building toll infrastructure also wastes money. It might make sense for highways, but even that is big undertaking.
  I do think most people (at least in Germany) take roads as a given, unlike other forms of transportation infrastructure (trains etc).
I'm curious how much of the budget is covered by fares. I think here in Europe it tends to be roughly 50%. But the trains are much better than NYC and the fares are cheaper.
Capitalism makes it not free just like it holds people's lives hostages to pay a fee to live
- But doesn’t life always come with a fee to pay? If we had no society you’d still have to work in terms of finding food
  
  I'm talking in terms of money fees
  You've taken my comment out of context
  People should be free to live, not pay money to live to corporate overlords
  
  Exactly if you are a hunter and are too lazy to go hunt you die of starvation. They have no idea how economies and just want the government to do everything for them while they sit home all day and play video games
  
  The person you are responding to took my comment out of context
  I was talking about money fees
  And your comment seems pretty ignorant of the issues of capitalism
  All capitalism does is make people wage slaves, they are not free to be them
  In the past humans worked together in tribes and used their strengths in each area to be effective
  Now people are stuck as wage slaves working their life away so corporate overlords can live in luxury
  
  What you don't understand is money, money is an abstraction of the value you created through your labor, when you buy something you exchange your labour for someone else's labour.
  What you are asking is for you to provide no labour but get free food from another person's labour ( also known as slavery ).
  No matter the economic system the simple reality that things like food and housing aren't free are true, so someone has to work.
  The free market simulates everyone using their strengths since people end up in the jobs they are best at and are actually needed by other people ( if you want to make art all day it better be good enough for another people to exchange their labour for it). In capitalism you are forced to be useful to others
  People's lifes today are better than they have ever be, instead of being jealous that some people have it better because of their contributions to the economy ( other people valued their labour highly so they got paid more) maybe be grateful of the living conditions you are given. If you really want to live in a mansion work hard for it and maybe one day you'll get it.
  I know it's trendy to hate on capitalism but please study some economics before trying to demolish the very thing that enables you to have a phone and post here

this

It's a service that costs money to maintain

Damn, if only we paid taxes that could be used for maintenance.
- Yeah but for it to be free they'd have to raise taxes so it's better to just privatise them which would lower taxes and provide a better service
  
  They did it where I live. The result is it on average a bit more expensive. Long trips (6-7 hours-ish) is controlled by the state. Prices are about the same as when the railway was owned by the people. But the shorter trips are under the rules of capitalism, and therefore the prices have gone up.
  If you only travel from Trondheim to Oslo, you pay the same as before. If you travel only 1-3 stops, or under two hours in total, the prices have increased alot. If you live outside of Oslo, but work in Oslo, your daily expenses have gone up.
  Before I could catch a train at a very, very low price and take my bike with me to explore. Now it is almost impossible because it is expensive, and the private companies that runs the different routes do not want you to take anything large with you.
  And don't get me started on trying to navigate between all the companies that run the different routes. It is a cluster fuck compared to when it was all one company owned by us, the citizens of Norway
  
  "by the people" you mean the government they're not on your side. Also you were paying for it inderectly through the ridiculous taxes without even realising it. And the situation would be better if it wasn't an overegulated industry
  
  We're not the same culture. The taxes I pay are OK for the services I, and others, get for them
  
  If it was voluntary and a flat amount it would be fair, you might like it because it benefits you but it's completely ridiculous for a billionaire who doesn't event want to use these insufficient services
  
  Billionaires have zero income, and they find other ways to not pay taxes. Some even "move" to Switzerland, and only stay there enough to not be forcibly moved out of Switzerland and back here.
  They still use our services, though. Roads, trains,, ferriesz airports etc
  
  And it should be that way but some people want to change that because they're selfish. Most billionaires still pay around 1% tax which is way more money than your average person paying 50%. Also it depends on the place but tax heavens like the islands in the Caribbean don't really have public infrastructure ( since ther's no tax) so it's perfectly fair. And if they visit or do business in a high tax country they're still paying sales tax or inderectly contributing to income tax through creating more/better job opportunities
Yes it is. Luckily we have a system of taxation. By ‘free’ I mean of course ‘at the point of use’. We could provide 100% subsidies for mass transportation for probably around 100 years before we would approach equity with the subsidies we have given to fossil fuels and private transportation.
- The reason people don't use public transport is because right now it absolutely sucks in most places if you want more people to use them then they need to be privatised so a business that actually has an insentive to provide a good service can take over and make them great ( for example look at Japan). This way you can also lower taxes a bit which is great for the economy
  
  Oh I agree. Use cost is one major problem, quality and non-existence is the other. However privatization is neoliberal bullshit. It doesn’t guarantee quality. It guarantees that profits will be extracted and therefore use cost will increase and/or quality will decrease.
  
  Companies actually have to make their customers happy, if there is adequate competition it will definitely work out, if you look at almost any industry (that isn't overegulated) the customers are satisfied, companies have real insentives governments don't.
  
  There is no competition for train lines. That is just stupid. Also multiple competing local bus services is equally stupid. Some services just don’t fit in the neoliberal model.
  
  Ther's no competition if you have a bureaucrats approving only specific train lines if you just live it to the free market it'll be alright
  
  I’ll try this slowly: it would be idiotic to have multiple rail systems providing the same routes.
  Please research ‘natural monopolies’ because that is the history of the unregulated development of the rail industry. If you are going to spout right-libertarian ideology, at least have some understanding of the history of capitalism.
  
  Ther's nothing wrong with having many rail systems serve the same route but the bureaucracts won't let it happen, which is exactly how monopolies are formed. If the government only approves one company to build a train somewhere of course it's going to be a monopoly. Monopolies cannot happen in a completely free market, without artificial boundaries competition will always be able to provide a service more attractive to consumers expect if the established company is providing an excellent service
  
  yes please i really want even more of my already-overpopulated living space consumed by redundant concrete and metal, sounds great!
roads and car infrastructure costs money to maintain, but anyone wealthy enough to buy a car can use it for free
- anyone wealthy enough to buy a car can use it for free
  Anyone with a car is paying additional taxes for fuel and car registration.
  
  Those typically don’t cover all of transportation dept budgets, and fuel taxes are on the permanent decline.
  
  Ticket prices don't cover the full costs of train infrastructure and maintenance either. The point is the statement "anyone wealthy enough to buy a car can use it for free" is demonstrably false and using a demonstrably false statement as a counterpoint is...inadvisable.
  
  Felt there was an implicit understanding that cars need gas, but yeah that’s fair.
  
  I should have specified “… can use the infrastructure for free”. The car will cost money, but you can only use it because everyone subsidises roads, bridges, parking and much more.
  
  Car drivers are demonstrably paying taxes for the ability to drive on public roads, they are demonstrably not "using the infrastructure for free". They pay taxes for every mile they drive on a public road. Gas is taxed and cars have regular registration taxes.
  
  Not to mention, roads are also used for logistics.
  
  fuel tax in the US is a joke, in Europe it’s higher but still doesn’t cover anywhere near the infrastructure cost.
  This video illustrates it nicely.
- Ther's ussually tolls there too