But for the most part, every significant European transit system has fares - and almost invariably with higher farebox recovery rates (percent of costs covered by fares) than systems in the U.S. There's a very good reason why they do that. It's very hard to run a solid transit system if you cut yourself off from fare revenues.

Reminds me of a conversation I had with a British couple about what the government can run and what it can't. Their experience was to privatize the trains - they would run well then. But I asked them about Mussolini making the trains run on time and nothing was forthcoming.

My experience is poor people can afford bus passes, but they need reliable schedules. The buses can make them late for work, and all some managers see is that - that they're late for work. Or they get to the license office with 30 to 15 minutes left instead of an hour left till it closes. Or that the connecting bus is a block away so they run/hustle to catch it, and sometimes miss it. They get caught in crunches and squeezes and no one is sympathetic, because they look and have mannerisms/accents like the poor. It's an easy trap to blame the poor for being poor and therefore they are unworthy.