Bring us your rich, your energetic, your masses of cyclists

Heaven forbid some energetic child should jump on a fare-free bus. Or a rich person. Horrors!

Trolls are now pushing this line:

"Free transit doesn't work because new riders are mostly pedestrians and cyclists"

Who cares? They are welcome. They can change habits quickly. But gradually, car owners will change their habits... then this is what happens.

A city of 1 million in the US spends $3.6 million per day on gasoline. A 1% increase in weekday ridership on public transit would save the city dwellers $5 million/year. A 10% increase would save $50 million a year.

This is why the trolls are out in force.

Oil trolls provide lies to balance with truth

Here are some troll lies embedded in an NBC story about free public transit.

"But some experts warn that free rides wouldn't solve the issues besetting many public transit systems, including crumbling infrastructure, infrequent and unreliable service, and routes that take workers nowhere near their jobs."

Whataboutism. What about the crumbling infrastructure? What does that have to do with fares? If anything, it shows that charging fares has done nothing for infrastructure.

"For that reason, city leaders should not look at eliminating fares as a "panacea" for transit problems, said Hayley Richardson, a spokeswoman for TransitCenter, a nonprofit group based in New York City that works to improve public transit around the country."

Who is claiming a panacea? Name one.

Instead of eliminating fares, Richardson said, cities need to prioritize creating transit systems that actually serve their customers. The best scenario would be cities where buses arrive every five minutes in dedicated lanes and a country where most Americans can walk to transit.

Here are 15 cases of free public transit where service was expanded and/or improved after fares were removed: https://fptsuccess.blogspot.com/search/label/%23expand 

Oil is not a commodity

Transport --  ships, trucks, trains, planes, and cars all depend on liquid fuel.

The cost of oil is a value-added tax that trickles through every transaction, and every physical activity, in the real economy. Cheap oil production peaked in 2005. Every day since, it takes more joules to get oil to wheels, propellers, and assembly lines than it did the day before. This is a built-in drag on the world economy.

Sitting above the real economy, central banks make up the difference by creating money on their keyboards. This increased debt creates additional economic drag by extracting interest from the real economy.

Any threat to oil-demand is a threat to the bankers. This is why they will attack free public transit.

They want to make riding public transit an unpleasant experience.

Expect attack. Expect intimidation. Expect sowing of doubt and uncertainty.

Bankers face defaults as oil demand falls, increase attack on #freepublictransport

The big banks sit on top of the world economy, extracting interest and draining its life. Now they have impoverished people to the extent that the world economy is sagging badly. No one can afford the oil-tax that is baked into every economic activity, but oil producers can not afford to produce at lower prices.

There is no near-term solution to this paradox except debt default.

To cut their losses, the bankers are mounting a troll attack on the campaign for free public transport. They are setting up straw men, such a claiming that free public transport advocates say that it is a solution to everything.

They are especially concerned about Luxembourg. They are trying to make it all about traffic congestion, and six months in to free transport there, they will have a "study" and declare it a failure.

People will fight back, because they can't afford to get to work, school, shopping, or doctor.

Trolls say we have to have better public transport before we can make it fare-free

Congratulations to @MattHaneySF and the city for this achievement. But if it takes decades to get one car-free street, you can imagine how long it will take to get free public transit.

https://twitter.com/MattHaneySF/status/1222631536542937088

Right now, one of the favorite troll attacks on free public transit is to say -- 

"the system needs to be improved before it can be free"

They disguise themselves as "planners" and "cycle advocates" and pretend that free public transit is just a matter of city planning. It is not. It is a struggle against the oil-auto-sprawl profiteers. A mass movement for free transit will unite us, and then we will have the power to make improvements.

People on Twitter reply to the anti-publictransit trolls

Paid trolls have been tweeting articles that pretend to be neutral, but actually repeat lies about free public transportation. People on Twitter are aware and answering back.

Nope, they don't become homeless shelters. Not a "major city" but Chapel Hill-Carrboro NC has had free public transit for many years. It really is just a huge benefit.

— Alan Britt (@alanlbritt) January 1, 2020

Are you tired of trolls trashing #freetransit?

The physics, the economics, and common sense, are all on the side of fare-free public transit.

We take on the trolls. We will not back down or compromise.

Don't underestimate trolls, or our commitment to expose them. They are paid, directly or indirectly. Because of this, they will not tire. It's their personal survival vs survival of the human race.

We work for free. We need your help. It's easy to blog for #freetransit. No commitment, no pressure, (also no pay). Contact us at fpteditors at gmail. We will provide all the help you need to become a successful blogger.

Fight back against trolls and provocateurs - reframe and mute

The oil industry is desperate for customers, the massive oil-auto-sprawl system is collapsing. They pay trolls and provocateurs to stop efforts to implement fare-free public transit.

How to fight back.

First - reframe the debate. They want to restrict discussion to accounting, saying fare is revenue and needed for expense, or taxes have to go up. Instead let's talk about the costs of the current system and how free transit will reduce them more than lost fares. Here are places to get data on oil-auto-sprawl subsidy:

https://sprawlsubsidy.blogspot.com/

http://freepublictransit.org/Externalities.php

Second - use the mute button. Trolls want to sealion you. That means to drag you down into endless non-sequiturs. Provocateurs want you to run out and get arrested. Don't argue, give one reply if you want, then mute.

For more about trolls and provocateurs click here

There aren't any good arguments against fare-free #publictransit, so,.. out come the trolls

The oil industry, gas industry, and lesser sprawl profiteers don't have any good arguments against making urban buses and trams fare-free. We list the arguments they have tried to use here. With this list we include links to refutations.

Arguments against free public transport with links to refutations

Lately they have unleashed the "city planners" and "urbanists" who write complicated analyses that purport to show that free transit does not work. Mostly they provide assertions without evidence. While we can shows dozens of examples of free transit that works just fine.

Examples of places where free transit is working

The most common attack is that free transit is too expensive. But we showed that it actually saves money.

Explanation and spreadsheet on how your town saves money by eliminating fares

Now they send out the trolls -- disguised as bicycle advocates or urban experts. Here is one:

https://twitter.com/NashvilleSpokes/status/1189006251025408000

We expect many more.