> theres plenty of essentially free park and ride stations.
Which is a huge pain, because now you need to have a car, and already be in it to drive to the park and ride. A drive on which there could be traffic. Which means you could miss your train unless you leave early, but then you're standing around the train station doing nothing (and not getting paid) even when there isn't traffic, instead of spending that time either at home or at work. Whereas if you lived near the train stop you wouldn't have to leave early to not miss your train.
Meanwhile if you already need to have a car, and you're already in it and driving it, most people aren't going to drive northeast to the park and ride and then take a train southeast to their destination instead of saving time by just driving directly east all the way to the destination. So the thing that gets them on the train is not having to drive to get to it.
> theres commuter rail access in basically a 1 hour drive radius of the city.
There's commuter rail lines that go an hour from the center of the city. That's not at all the same thing as there being a stop within walking distance of every suburban home.
> they think they are going to get stabbed on the subway.
The people who think they're going to get stabbed on the subway are not going to use the subway. We're talking about the people who might actually use it.
> if the subway was faster, safer, cleaner, but more expensive, more people would use it.
The way you make it faster is to get more people to use it so you can justify more frequent service, which eliminating fares facilitates. The way to make it safer and cleaner is to get more people to use it, so there are more people who care if it's safer and cleaner because they're using it. Which is again facilitated by eliminating fares.
The only thing fares get you is an amount of money that represents less than 1% of the state budget, and then you lose a significant proportion of that to the cost of collecting the fares. It's taking a privacy-invasive deadweight loss to create a deterrent to something you're trying to encourage people to do.
Which is a huge pain, because now you need to have a car, and already be in it to drive to the park and ride. A drive on which there could be traffic. Which means you could miss your train unless you leave early, but then you're standing around the train station doing nothing (and not getting paid) even when there isn't traffic, instead of spending that time either at home or at work. Whereas if you lived near the train stop you wouldn't have to leave early to not miss your train.
Meanwhile if you already need to have a car, and you're already in it and driving it, most people aren't going to drive northeast to the park and ride and then take a train southeast to their destination instead of saving time by just driving directly east all the way to the destination. So the thing that gets them on the train is not having to drive to get to it.
> theres commuter rail access in basically a 1 hour drive radius of the city.
There's commuter rail lines that go an hour from the center of the city. That's not at all the same thing as there being a stop within walking distance of every suburban home.
> they think they are going to get stabbed on the subway.
The people who think they're going to get stabbed on the subway are not going to use the subway. We're talking about the people who might actually use it.
> if the subway was faster, safer, cleaner, but more expensive, more people would use it.
The way you make it faster is to get more people to use it so you can justify more frequent service, which eliminating fares facilitates. The way to make it safer and cleaner is to get more people to use it, so there are more people who care if it's safer and cleaner because they're using it. Which is again facilitated by eliminating fares.
The only thing fares get you is an amount of money that represents less than 1% of the state budget, and then you lose a significant proportion of that to the cost of collecting the fares. It's taking a privacy-invasive deadweight loss to create a deterrent to something you're trying to encourage people to do.