Compost Headlines: No Fare

Hydrogen is not a fuel.

There is no equivalent to oil. It's dirty but it works well for things like keeping planes in the air.

We should use it wisely as it gets more expensive and scarce, and not waste it flying to exotic vacation destinations like South Carolina.

I’m sure at some point we will have hybrid airplanes or other cleaner and greener forms of energy. But in the meanwhile, we can do our part by switching to hybrid or electric vehicles and using mass transit or bicycles whenever possible.
But we need to have a better bus system that gets people where they need to go, at the times they need to use it, and reliable service, even during storms, so people can get to work, school, shopping, appointments, and back home again without getting stranded.
The federal government won’t let transportation be free due to their laws, but we could make it cheaper to encourage more people to use the bus while we try to lobby the feds to change that law. Change the fee to .50 cents and there won’t be a long wait while people pay their fare, and poor people will find it less difficult to afford the ride.

Heather, a clarification. While federal transportation policy is short-sighted, the federal government does not care what bus fares are. A couple of cities are fare free for their entire systems, others have free routes. This does not affect their eligibility for federal finding.

Let's face it, most people riding the bus are barely getting by. Most people don't choose to take the bus. Give 'em a break. Make it free, or significantly discounted (25 cents?). But also make it more efficient. The bus runs by my house on Alden Ave nearly 24/7 and most of the time it is empty. Fix that.

Maybe..but its its mostly empty both ways. And I see lots of mostly empty buses.

HewNaven, hydrogen is a fuel, and there are hydrogen fueled vehicles. But it is correct to say that it is not a commercially-significant fuel. Nor is it likely to become one in the foreseeable future. The alternative that will likely end up being used in aviation is bio-fuels, which have smaller CO2 emissions than aviation gas and similar performance. https://www.energy.gov/eere/bioenergy/sustainable-aviation-fuels

Dennis, an elephant in this room is race. Few non-Hispanic white folks, and even fewer policy-makers, regularly ride buses here or in most other cities. This is part of the reason for the limited service they provide.

In contrast, a substantially larger share of train passengers are white, and this service is substantially more subsidized on a per passenger basis. For MetroNorth, fares covered less than 16% of operating costs in 2022. (The New Haven line accounts for about half of MetroNorth rides and there is no reason to believe that the farebox recovery ratio varies dramatically by line.) So if you have a monthly pass to commute to Stamford, taxpayers are subsidizing your ride by about $800 per month. The farebox recovery ratio for buses is similarly low, which means a bus rider with a monthly pass is getting a subsidy of about $300 per month.