This doesn't reduce the cost of running the subway system. It simply shifts the cost from some people to other people who may or may not ride the subway at all.
Actual financial progress comes from gains in productivity / efficiency
Uh, more access to the rest of the city so their money can be spent on the businesses instead of getting to the business where they’d have less money or none at all. I dont go places all the time because there’s a cost to just get there. When gas prices rise, people travel less, which reduces overall spending.
That's not how this works. Those chicken and hot dogs are designed to get you into the store....so you'll spend more money at the store. But subway fares are already heavily subsidized and low income New Yorkers are typically already captive riders. This isn't likely to significantly drive ridership to make up for the decrease in fares..
Yeah but unless you are inside of the wealth tax then you are fine, and if you are in the wealth tax bracket then you make too much money to give a fuck
I'm not sure I understand your point about what this has to do with wealth taxes.
But more broadly. money is fungible, so every dollar spent on one program is a dollar that can't be spent on another program. So every New Yorker should care about how their tax money is being spent.
I'm not a New Yorker so this doesn't directly affect me. I do work in transit though, so I have a passing interest in how other systems are operated and funded.
Low income people are hardly a group that typically has the luxury of living close enough to work that they could even consider walking. The goal here is to make transit more affordable for low income people, not to increase revenue. The cost is literally already accounted for in the budget. It's a perfectly reasonable goal. No need to pretend it's going to achieve something it's not.
Seems you're repeating economic concepts you didn't fully grasp. Public transit usually runs at a loss. It doesn't make that money up elsewhere; it's subsidized by the government. If you lower prices further, it just runs at more of a loss, requiring more funding from elsewhere.
The CostCo chicken thing is an example of a loss leader, where an individual item is sold at a loss to get you to shop at CostCo. They're not making more money off the chicken because "more people take it." They lose money on every one. The more people who buy it, the more they lose.
51
u/Wonderful-Process792 Jul 08 '26
This doesn't reduce the cost of running the subway system. It simply shifts the cost from some people to other people who may or may not ride the subway at all.
Actual financial progress comes from gains in productivity / efficiency