If you live in a city where a significant/most people don't pay for buses/streetcars, do the socialists tend to pay or not pay?

I feel like a lot of the time it's more expensive to hire fare inspectors than the amount of potential recovered losses. However, most places still hire fare inspectors because the cruelty is the point.

Like, if a fare inspector is $100,000 per year, and fare is $3, that's a lot of fares to catch before it's worth it.

Saying that, I used to not pay a lot. Now I do, mostly because I can afford it. I didn't used to be able to.

that's a lot of fares to catch before it's worth it

you don't have to catch that much. if there's a bigger known risk, people will start paying too
- The administrative apparatus is usually pretty expensive. Management, IT, payroll, training, HR etc

The cops here are annoying. They might check your ticket, they might not. I’m not sure what they’re being paid for because if they’re just standing there on their phone, their salary would cover dozens of people’s tickets.

Regardless, I tend to pay for mine because I have no idea when they check. I’d probably pay for it even if they didn’t check because my naive self wants to believe that money is going to the transportation agency and not the military. It probably is, but it’s not going to workers.

Usually you can negotiate a discount/free pass with some workplaces, so I would do that if I can.

I pay cause i can afford to but its not some deep socialist position lol

I'm not sure if that makes sense though. I'm sure there's a lot of things you can afford to pay for but don't. Like a 30 dollar pizza or a 15 dollar coffee, for example
- I meant that when i was a broke student, i didn't, cause i would have to eat ramen more frequently.
  
  Well, the difference is i get a service, not a luxury one (which in that case would be like uber black or whatever). the driver works to drive the train, people serve the train at night, clean tracks, clean platforms, people build the train, its an embodiment of labor. Now, would be nicer if didn't pay for some porkies salaries as well, but last i checked transport company here is oscillating at 2-3 % percent profitability.

Where I've lived, mostly people who can afford to pay do so, and those that can't but still need to get somewhere, try not to pay.

Currently I don't pay, partly because its very expensive (1/2 an hours work), but also because I work for a private company who had significant public funds invested and assistance given in order to exist in that location. So everyone has already paid for my employer in that sense - I don't see why I shouldn't also be subsidised, with the same logic that business tax returns will eventually make up for the public investment. Also, my public transit runs promotions for various other recreational events where people who are going get free transport, so again I assume that there's no reason this shouldn't also apply to myself, to go to work.

Really, I have the position that I (and others) already pay enough in tax to competantly run public utilities, its the people at the top & private sector that are making it difficult to function by their theft and enclosures, so they can sort that out before I'd think about paying. It annoys me that companies don't pay for transport for workers - they used to when they were more desperate & conditions were different, like with worker's buses etc. Now everyone is expected to have a car & pay extortionate fees and taxes for that too, to get to work so the owners can make money from them.

They're pretty aggressive about getting you to pay here, even though almost 90% of the service is paid by taxes. Lots of stations have turnstiles with security guards at them, and ticket inspections are pretty regular. Bus drivers will yell at you a bunch and not move the bus if you just walk on (even during last month when the service was free).

So I assume most socialists pay.

Public transit should be free for everyone. Payment could be voluntary.

If a significant/most people (over 50% of the users) dosen't pay, it's because is free on some way. Im that case, I would look for how to access to the free access too.

People just walk on, there's almost no fare inspectors, and the drivers don't care either

Most people don’t pay for public transit here, which is why our public transit may as well not exist. The people who use it do pay for it (tho I’d rather part of my property tax go toward it.. we have a lot of below-poverty housing communities in my area, which is already a vLCOL area.. and I’d rather pay than they do)

It still does exist in a very basic sort of way, but the funding just isn’t there to expand to anything better than bus routes which take 4x as long as any other options. Despite the fact that the entire region is split by freight rail tracks that don’t allow passenger travel..

I’d love to give up my car. I would. I hate maintaining it and paying for fuel. I hate driving. But public transit here is such a joke as to not even enter the convo unless you are completely screwed.

I’d pay money for transit I don’t need just to know it’s there. But I can’t because that’s not actually an option.