First make it good, then make it free.

There’s no intrinsic ordering here: making a public transit system better requires justification through ridership numbers, and making your system free is a fantastic way to improve those numbers.

Why do you believe that? American transit experts are saying things like, “I’ve heard people describe the free fare movement as being a movement for free, terrible service, and that’s how the trade-off ends up working if you expect this to happen inside the budget of an impoverished American transit agency" and "if a transit agency had to choose between devoting funds to reducing fares or to maintaining or improving service, most riders would prefer the latter. It also suggests that the notion of making transit “free”—though politically appealing —would provide less utility to the public than if the equivalence in foregone revenue were spent improving service and continuing to charge a fare."

Sources: https://slate.com/business/2021/06/free-transit-is-not-a-gre... https://transitcenter.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/TC_Whos...

By definition existing riders are those already willing to pay the fee, so of course they’re going to want better service via no fee.

which cities have free or nominally priced transit? Certainly not Paris, anywhere in Germany, Switzerland, Amsterdam, etc.

The Paris metro is €1.90 (from a quick online search), which I’d argue is pretty close to nominal: it’s substantially below even the cheap public transit systems in the US like the NYC subway.

NYC subway is $2.75 / trip. Before the euro lost value those would be equivalent rates.

Single fares in Switzerland are indeed extortionate, but there are a wide variety of passes that cut costs considerably, including one that gives you free travel throughout the entire country.

https://www.sbb.ch/en/travelcards-and-tickets/railpasses/ga....

There's a pass that gives actual free travel, or just unlimited travel for a fixed price?

You pay CHF 3860 upfront, and you get a magical card that lets you ride (almost) every train and bus in Switzerland as much as you like for a year.

That's about $11.50/day, including weekends, or $16/biz day. For a commuter, that's $8 each way. That is a pretty substantial fare.

Which European cities are those? I heard one or two with free transit, which ones are "nominally priced"? In Germany, it’s decently expensive.

Tallinn is the most famous free one, I think. In terms of nominal pricing, I was thinking of Grenoble, where it was around $2 USD equivalent when I was there there.

Edit: Another example is Prague, which is around $1.

~$2 fares are common in the US and I would not describe that as "free or nominally priced."

Okay, but do an in-kind comparison: can I take a public tram for ~$2 in similarly sized US cities?

I can’t think of many; the first that comes to mind is Portland’s MAX, which is $2.50, has a smaller network with longer headways, and services a much larger metropolitan area as justification for its existence.

Not sure how the headway and network size compare, but Los Angeles light rail is $1.75. Good deal when you compare the cost of living to most of Europe!

I agree that some European cities subsidize transit somewhat more than most similar-sized US metros.

Tallinn is not (all?) free. The tram is at least €1.50 for 90 mins transfer. Helsinki is €3.10

I live in Helsinki and spent a lot of time last year in Tallinn - the ‘transit is free in Europe’ thing is very much an exception rather than a rule.

Free public travel is only for Tallinn residents (main address registered inside Tallinn city borders).

I think there's also free public travel for tourists with cars if they park their car (in certain places or under certain circumstances).

> This is in conflict with public transit in many European cities, which is (1) free or nominally priced, (2) has favorable headways compared to nearly every US city, and (3) is more sustainably funded than public transit in the US.

In which European capital cities bus fairs are free?

Luxembourg, I think?

Haven't heard of any others, though.

I didn’t know Luxembourg! Tallinn was the one I was thinking of.