this post was submitted on 14 Apr 2024
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Even of the trains aren't free, it's mathematically true that every person who takes PT instead of driving reduces congestion by that amount.
It's not all that complicated a tasks to work out which has better value. If the money spent on roads will not reduce congestion by as much as the same amount spent on PT, then it's a fool's errand.
I think if you halved public transport costs (so it's clearly cheaper than driving) then you'll get a bunch more users. I knew many people during half-price fares that used public transport when before they didn't. I'd have full support for returning to the half price fares (so long as you had some way of mitigating pocmeting this since public transport is run by private companies since the law was changed to prevent councils running it themselves).
However, I'm less convinced that the second half of that cash is well spent. We would likely get most of the benefits from half price fares. You probably won't get the same benefit for money spent as you would for the first half, so you have to consider what that money would otherwise be spent on.
As an example, would you rather have free PT, or half price PT and rail to the airport?