12-20-2015, 09:50 PM
(12-20-2015, 09:14 PM)tomh009 Wrote: But seriously ... what would be the incremental cost to eliminate fares altogether? The taxpayers already pay two-thirds of the costs, and eliminating fares would simplify a lot of things -- not to mention substantially increase ridership. The cost per passenger might not change at all if this were to increase ridership by 50%.
This is a radical option, but is it really so crazy? (Full disclosure: it has been more than 10 years since I set foot on GRT/Kitchener Transit, although I fully intend to use the LRT once it's ready.)
I bet you're right that costs would not dramatically increase if the system were to become free of fares. We'd save on fare collection infrastructure, and we'd save on time. And we'd serve more passengers, as you note.
Hey, off topic, but out of curiosity what makes you expect to use Ion if you're not using GRT now? I've had this conversation with people, and since Ion is not going to be massively different service, we've mostly been at a loss as to how Ion will attract new ridership in the short term. It seems to me that it won't be providing better coverage or frequency than the 200 and 7 services were, but I'm probably missing something there.