Reasons to campaign for fare-free #publictransit #freepublictransport

1. It works. See this blog for examples and lists of locations.

https://fptsuccess.blogspot.com/


2. Many other solutions to climate/energy do not work.

https://fptwrosol.blogspot.com/


3. Free transit too expensive? Autos, sprawl, and oil are heavily subsidized.

https://sprawlsubsidy.blogspot.com/

Sprawl is "extremely subsidized" #autosprawlsubsidy

We have to make it a conversation about cost and consequences. Sprawl is extremely subsidized, and the chickens are coming home to roost on that. Cities and regions are starting to see pseudo-bankrupt conditions. The tax generation doesn’t match the cost. Not even close.
I’m not going to tell you your choice is fundamentally wrong. I’m going to point out that your choice is being subsidized by me, who’s paying more taxes and using less infrastructure.

https://www.vox.com/2017/6/23/15815510/toderian-suburbs 

US makes another grab for Venezuela oil

The cheapest way to get oil is to steal it.

Except for Kirkuk, Iraq, there is basically no easy-to-get oil left in the ground.

Why is oil so precious? Isn't there a glut? No. US shale loses money on every barrel. It's subsidized by debt. Saudi oil is half water and going more and more for air conditioning every year.

The entire developed world, it's transport systems, manufacturing, farming, and military are dependent on liquid fuel. There is no substitute for oil. Whoever controls oil has great power.

The government of Venezuela is subservient to the bankers, but they have some leverage. But this is competition, not war. There will be no US/Russia war. They are rivals, not enemies. All major governments serve the banks.

When oil was cheap, debt was run up on the expectation that it would always be so. The world now has $250 trillion in debt. The banks will use government power against us, the common people, who work every day to pay the interest on the debt.

What to do. Make buses fare-free in your town. Move away from autos. Be resilient.

Soil will likely reach carbon saturation sooner than previously thought

"Essentially, if there were no droughts and heat waves, if there were not going to be any long-term drying over the next century, then the continents would be able to store almost twice as much carbon as they do now," says Gentine. "Because soil moisture plays such a large role in the carbon cycle, in the ability of the land to uptake carbon, it's essential that processes related to its representation in models become a top research priority."
Read more at: https://phys.org/news/2019-01-climate-sooner.html

What can fare-free urban buses and trams do for you?

Even if you never use public transit and intend never to do, fare-free public transit can improve your life.

Here we have a list of the benefits.

Here we have a spreadsheet that shows how your town will save money.

Please take a look at these. And the next time you want to honk at the car in front of you, think. Maybe if public transit were free, that guy would not be there.

The power of the corporate media

The most underestimated power in the world is the US-based corporate media [CM], which includes TV, movies, and entertainment.

People get excited when their hopes are raised as CM exposes oppression and fraud. But they just do this to keep you engaged, hoping for more crumbs from them.

They decide who gets time in the spotlight, and how much. Ever notice how elections are so close all the time? They keep it that way so any one politician can't get too much power.

They are currently promoting anything to divide the American people. Small groups of right wingers and fake left get coverage out of proportion to their numbers.

Do we think the billionaire elites leave the CM to chance? Do we think they do not meet and plan?

They put Trump in, and when and if they choose, they will take him out.

Idea of #freetransit coming under attack

They were able to ignore it for a long time, but now freetransit is catching on and we are seeing more attacks.

First a list of failed attacks that have been mostly abandoned.

1. "nothing is free." this came from libertarians who should be marching against car subsidy.
2. "homeless will ride" this is too heartless for public consumption.
3. "homeless will ride" this is also code for non-whites. This racism is too obvious.
4. "people will stop walking/biking" asserted with no evidence. We have contrary data.

Latest attack:

"you can't get to work on time"
Free transit doesn't "solve" the problem of cars, it begins the solution. The argument admits that cars have a monopoly and the whole system is dependent on them. This means that a private profit system (cars, oil, sprawl builders) are subsidized, but the subsidy looks like "necessity." So the more you have cars, the more you have to have cars. How far do we want to go with this? 

Capitalism has reached the limits to growth

 

ourfiniteworld.com  

The economy is a self-organizing structure that operates under the laws of physics. Many people have thought that when the world economy reaches limits, the limits would be of the form of high prices and “running out” of oil. This represents an overly simple understanding of how the system works. What we should really expect, and in fact, what we are now beginning to see, is production cuts in finished goods made by the industrial system, such as cell phones and automobiles, because of affordability issues. Indirectly, these affordability issues lead to low commodity prices and low profitability for commodity producers.

Accumulated economic production and energy use are in direct proportion.

This suggests a "Power Theory of Value", that energy consumption and economic wealth are tied by a constant. Importantly, this is a falsifiable hypothesis. And, as shown above, it seems to be borne out by the data. Summing wealth over all the world’s nations, 7.1 Watts is required to maintain every one thousand inflation-adjusted 2005 dollars of historically accumulated economic production.

http://nephologue.blogspot.com/2018/05/a-power-theory-of-value.html 

11,000 net additional humans every hour

https://populationmatters.org/

Half of CO2 comes from richest 10%

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/dec/02/worlds-richest-10-produce-half-of-global-carbon-emissions-says-oxfam

How will economic growth end? By ignoring the laws of physics, we will suffer more.

As with any other natural system, civilization is composed of matter. Internal circulations are maintained by a dissipation of potential energy. Oil, coal, and other fuels “heat” civilization to raise the potential of its internal components. Dissipative frictional, resistive, radiative, and viscous forces return the potential of civilization to its initial state, ready for the next cycle of energy consumption.
....
Linking physical to economic quantities comes from a fixed relationship between rates of global energy consumption and historical accumulation of global economic wealth. When growth rates approach zero, civilization becomes fragile to externalities, such as natural disasters, and is at risk for accelerating collapse.

https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/2013EF000171

As it reaches limits, human activity will degrow. To the extent that we degrow voluntarily, we may be able to reduce the pain. In any case, physics will rule. We can fight it, but not overcome it. 

Missoula, MT, #freetransit big success, more service planned

missoulacurrent

As you may recall, in January 2015, Missoula city and county governments joined forces with 13 other local businesses and organizations to invest in a three-year Zero-Fare demonstration project with the goals of removing barriers to riding public transit, helping buses operate more efficiently, and increasing Mountain Line ridership for the overall health of our community.
By all measures, the Zero-Fare project has been an incredible success, demonstrating how thoughtful public investments can be leveraged with private donations to achieve important community goals.