The truth of this old chestnut has been demonstrated to Ned yet again by the actions taken by his local bus service. The local has been paid for until recently half by Ned's local university, and half by fares with a minor subsidy from the city. However, the beancounters apparently got together with the do-gooders and decided that the amount of money taken in by fares was insignificant, given that the drivers had to deal with people who had no change, and check the ID cards of the local students every time they got on the bus. Moreover, they figured that the fares, modest as they were, especially for geezers (35 cents) were discouraging ridership, so they abolished fares altogether--the buses are now free.
Great idea, right?
Well, maybe. But what has happened is that abolishing of the fare has indeed led to a surge in ridership--so much so that the buses are now chronically late, and on certain runs it is impossible to find a seat. Moreover, as to be expected, the "homeless" have discovered that the buses are a nice, warm, relatively safe place to be, so they are usually to be found in abundance. And finally, many students will wait ten minutes for a bus, then ride it two or three stops, apparently to avoid walking a quarter of a mile.
All this adds up to a bus service which used to be reasonably on time, and reasonably uncrowded, but which now is ten to twenty minutes late--or sometimes on time which can mean that those who expect it to be always late may miss it on the rare times that it is in fact on time.
The free buses are now so popular that the service may be ruined, because there is no money to expand it to accommodate the surge in ridership.
Ned recalls a saying popularized by Yogi Berra, which is not so nutty after all: "Nobody goes there anymore--it's too crowded."
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