Public transportation should be free

BART gets hundreds of thousands of people where they need to go every day. I know I wouldn’t be able to go to the mall or visit the city as often as I do without it. A round trip fee from Castro Valley to San Francisco will run you about $10.50; a daily fee many. 

It’s no secret that people “avoid” paying this fee all the time. It’s incredibly easy to hop the barrier or walk through the emergency exit without consequences. People have been doing so comfortably for decades and BART always tries to curb this issue. Recently, BART phased out paper tickets and opted for Clipper cards. This was for Covid safety at first but now it’s used as another way to catch fee violators. BART police will frequently board trains and ask passengers to scan their Clipper cards. If they haven’t been used recently enough or if you happen to not have one at the moment you will be written a ticket.

This begs the question of who should be paying for public transportation. BART is a necessity for many people and a daily fee of $10 or even $5 adds up quickly. The current system relies mainly on low-income people and is unable to keep both the stations and trains clean. Socializing public transportation, relying on taxes would be a better system that would allow a better environment for passengers.

This would be beneficial for everyone. Having more people taking advantage of public transit could take 2,000 cars off the road for each train. This would help decrease traffic congestion and would be much better for the planet. As more people start to use public transportation, the demand for cars will go down and it will become easier for those who need one to buy one. Having a larger train system would create hundreds of jobs for people.

In March of 2020, Luxembourg became the first country to eliminate train fares entirely and saw a marked increase in passengers. In 2020, the city of Olympia, Washington eliminated transportation fees entirely and will continue to do so for four more years. 

Free public transportation would lower the cost for thousands of middle and low income Americans while simultaneously decreasing cars on the road and greenhouse gas emissions. It’s an important step in creating a more environmentally and class conscious society.