Comment from Ray Pixley
Ray PixleySupportIndividual
Summary: The commenter supports the importance of family-friendly public transit and highlights the need to address long wait times. They also advocate for including a public survey on the possibility of free public transportation, while suggesting that a small fee might be necessary to prevent frivolous use.
Public Transit for families is important. There are many people who can't drive, either because of age or disabilities, but government's assumption that everyone can drive ends up isolating such people from the community. I grew up in Astoria (Queens), NY and rode the subways while growing up just to attend a magnet high school, go to colleage, and to attend a church in manhattan, and go out with friends, which including sailing small dingies out of City Island (Bronx) NY. The most frustrating thing was the wait time for the next train, especially if I had to take 2 or 3 trains to get to where I wanted to go. Long dwell times during the off hours is not family friendly, more like family hostile. There has been some talk about making the subways free, but I think that is a mistake. Charging even a small fee will prevent frivilous uses. I leaned that while collecting the cost of attending a church weekend retreat. At first, participants only had to sign up. One "evangelist" signed up 20 people becuase signing up was free. That meant I had to arrange for beds, meals and transportation for 20 people who didn't show. The next retreat, we asked for a $5 deposit. (This was in 1971-1972 when the entire cost was around $30 per person.) Only the "evangelist" had a problem with this policy. The same concept should be considered for having small public transit fare. The fee should at least cover the cost of collecting the fare, but no more than that, if Free public transportation is desired. But I'm sure there will be someone with the same mindset as the "evangelist". Your survey should include the public's consideration of this idea.