Assaults on bus drivers have significantly increased in Albuquerque, as documented by the news story below. Not coincidentally, Albuquerque began offering free buses on January 1, 2022.
Free transit is supposed to promote transportation equity by making it easier for low-income workers to get to their jobs and other economic opportunities. But it is more likely to permanently drive those people away from transit if they don’t feel safe on board buses.
As I documented in 2020, Austin offered free bus service in 1990. The result was a 200 percent increase in assaults on board those buses. Three out of four bus drivers signed a petition asking that fares be restored.
Free transit is not the only reason why transit crime is increasing. A recent report from the Mineta Transportation Institute found that transit assaults are increasing in many developed nations, though nowhere more than in the United States and Canada. However, the largest increase in attacks were carried out by people who the courts or health professionals determined to be “mentally disturbed” followed by “ordinary criminals.”
Fares provide revenue for transit agencies and also signal how much people are willing to pay for slow, uncomfortable forms of transportation. But they also help filter out potential problem riders such as mentally disturbed people and criminals who would otherwise scare other patrons away, not to mention exacerbate bus driver shortages. Albuquerque should end its year-long experiment with free transit early before it completely destroys its transit system.
Fares serve another purpose…they signal that people are willing to utilize the service you offer. What free transit signifies is its either so abundant you couldn’t charge it….. or so crappy you have to beg people to use it ?
Even if you don’t profit….. a decent farebox recovery is signification you’re needed……or necessary.
They emphasize who needs or wants to ride…
In the 2010s hardly a month went by without a city transit agencies announcing a fare increase.
BLOOMBERG. “The reason local agencies seem to need so many fare increases is that they do a poor job keeping the price of taking a ride near the cost of providing it……. ”
Because they invest in obsolete, labor intensive technologies….cost of providing transit has grown it now costs more than cars per mile……
Another reason is highly regulated labor is extremely cost intensive… ?
Union work rules, hazard pay, rampant abuse of overtime and poor time calculation.
In any case transit has taken an about face…. providing largely free service….at expense ifvthird party taxpayers…. cost efficacy went out the window….. transit agencies will get worse. Service will get worse.
Why isn’t the Antiplanner looking at crime per passenger mile? That should be what we’re concerned about in anything involving transportation.
Jane, ask and ye shall receive:
Transit Crime Rates on the Rise
By The Antiplanner | March 1, 2022
The form of transit that is most criminogenic, that is, most attractive to criminals, is light rail. Over the eight years from 2014 to 2021, light rail experienced 94 crimes per billion-passenger miles, which was at least twice the rate of any other form of transit except for trolley buses. Trolley buses are found in only five cities and 86 percent of trolley-bus crimes took place in just one of those cities: San Francisco.
Hmmmmmmm. Given that transit carries barely less than 1% of all passenger miles BEFORE Pandemic Duvide all crimes divided by 1/100th…. now 1/200th….compare to the 4 plus TRILLION MILES we do on cars. Also car-related crimes… mostly the car is the target not the conveyance….. car jacking, auto theft, robbery of items… transit crimes…. no one is stealing anything onnthevtrain…..I
janehavisham, no matter how you slice it, each on of those crimes has a victim. Let’s address that issue first.
Hmmmmmmm. Given that transit carries barely less than 1% of all passenger miles BEFORE Pandemic Divide all crimes divided by 1/100th…. now 1/200th….compare to the 4 plus TRILLION MILES we do on cars. Also car-related crimes… mostly the car is the target not the conveyance….. car jacking, auto theft, vandalism…. murder and rape are exceptions….. robbery of items is most common.
transit crimes…. no one is stealing anything on the train…..this isn’t India…..where infrastructure vandalism is ubiquitous. And not Carmen sandiego stealing a train…… criminals usually going after people and since trains and buses are hard to evacuate.
Saw some good news today – as SUVs become more popular in the US, they are helping to reduce the number of inattentive children in our nation: a recent study found they are more than 8 times more effective at doing so than passenger cars:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0022437522000810
https://twitter.com/DavidZipper/status/1562058075669921792
And here it is all laid out in one chart: Deaths per 100,000 people by cause, 1900 vs 2010.
About twice as many people died per 100k population from accidents before there were automobiles of any kind.
Source: The New England Journal Of Medicine
Back in 1950 there were no SUVs, yet proportionally there were over twice as many deaths from motor vehicle-related injuries in the U.S. compared to 2018.
CapitalistRoader, why are you using per-capita numbers? Shouldn’t it be per million miles? (Just as we measure gun homicides per bullet fired, not per-capita).
janehavisham, the rate of violent crime is commonly measured by person ( by 100K most often, to be precise ).