ysabetwordsmith | Public Transportation

Philadelphia's innovative transit program tackles transportation barriers by giving free rides to low-income residents

Getting to where you need to go is a matter of economic and social justice. Now, low-income Philadelphia residents are getting a boost.

In August, the city began a two-year Zero Fare pilot program, Next City reports, distributing 25,000 SEPTA Key cards (valued at $204 each) for unlimited free rides — and the majority of participants don't need to take any action to enroll.

"Transportation has been identified as a barrier for folks seeking employment, especially in Philadelphia, because of the high poverty rate," says Nicola Mammes, Zero Fare program director. Over 20% of Philadelphians live below the poverty line, and 50% of those households don't own a car.

This is a small step, but it's in the right direction.

What we really need is for society to recognize travel as a right, not a paid privilege. Start by making public transportation free for everyone who doesn't have a car -- children, seniors, the poor, etc. One thing that makes Terramagne's system work so well is that it's distributed. They have buses and commuter trains, but also, most apartment buildings have a bus and sometimes also a pickup truck for hauling heavy things like furniture. A community center, church, mall, etc. will have buses and vans for reaching its customer base. Clinics have cars and vans to pick up clients for appointments and take them home after. So there's much less risk of people getting shut out of society for travel reasons.

Plus of course, they have more walkable, bikeable neighborhoods. That includes plenty of benches for people who can't walk as far. Bus stops typically have a shelter and at least one bench. Racks for bicycles, skateboards, and other human-powered vehicles encourage those travel modes and connect them to others, like buses.

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From:

dialecticdreamer

Disabled transport on fixed routes is just another passenger, for the most part.

I pay as much for the paratransit trips per month as I do for my power bill. That is NOT inexpensive. Still, if I used fixed routes, the cost would be halved, which is NOT inexpensive either, but would bring the cost below three digits. I make two trips in an average week, and the cost for transport, especially paratransit, would actually BAR me from volunteering more than once a week, or getting a part time job, because so much of the "extra" money would have to go right back to transportation cost.

I lived in an area with free busses and it was fantastic, 10/10 would love to have it again. I didn't make more trips per week, but I also wasn't automatically saying "Can I afford to go to X?" when there was something in the community that I wanted to get involved in. So anyone who argues that free transit would encourage people to "abuse the system" can be shut down immediately.

The cost of transportation is keeping me from engaging with society as much as I /want/, and even only most necessary trips have to be budgeted carefully. Which says a lot about America, doesn't it?

From:

ysabetwordsmith

>> Disabled transport on fixed routes is just another passenger, for the most part.<<

As long as the vehicles are accessible, yes. L-America is iffy on that. T-America does much better. Part of that is flexibility -- a vehicle with a lift and docking tracks can be used for flat transport, wheelchair transport, or hauling large cargo at different times so that you get more use out of the same vehicle.

>> I pay as much for the paratransit trips per month as I do for my power bill. <<

Paratransit needs to be free. Charging money to disabled people, who often can't drive and are usually not permitted to work, is just abusive. That's before getting into the extra social abuse of how those programs are typically run.

>>I lived in an area with free busses and it was fantastic, 10/10 would love to have it again. I didn't make more trips per week, but I also wasn't automatically saying "Can I afford to go to X?" when there was something in the community that I wanted to get involved in. <<

Thanks for the input. That's very useful.

>>So anyone who argues that free transit would encourage people to "abuse the system" can be shut down immediately.<<

The whole point of free transit is encouraging people to do more things, so they are healthier and happier, which makes a better society for everyone. L-America prefers them to stay home and die quietly.

>>The cost of transportation is keeping me from engaging with society as much as I /want/, and even only most necessary trips have to be budgeted carefully.<<

That sucks.

>> Which says a lot about America, doesn't it? <<

America is a shithole society and a failed state. >_<

Look at people bitching and whining about the "loneliness problem." But they put all the burden on lonely people to solve it. Hell, if they could do that, they wouldn't be lonely! There are many quite easy solutions society could apply to this. Walkable neighborhoods. Community centers for free activities. Free transportion to remove the cost barrier to interaction. Each town could set up clubs the way colleges do, where you could search and find what's available in your interests. A "new in town" club could help people make connections. It's not hard to set up such things. But they don't, because people don't actually care. They just want something to whine about.

From:

dialecticdreamer

I've been trying to reach out, being conscious of attempts to socialize, since becoming a widow. The success rate so far is abysmal, but I can clearly see what many of the barriers are: inaccessible times or locations (either not when bus service is accessible because the call center closes before the busses stop running, or because the location itself is a building with many ste4ps and no ramp access), prohibitive cover fees (frex, museum entrance fees range from $25 per adult to $85 per adult), or events located outside the bus routes, so that I'd have to sign up for a ride service JUST to attend the event.

That winnows out a LOT of events, or charities that I would love to support, before getting down to sorting through things like clubs that meet in a pub, where one is expected to order a meal when joining in, and so on. If I had prohibitions against alcohol, I could very well avoid any clubs that meet where alcohol is served. But the sieve has already eliminated at least three-fourths of the events advertised in the area for the current month.

At some point, it really is TOO MUCH BOTHER to try to join in activities that other people find easy to access, and afford. If I could find a "silver-haired gamer" channel on an MMORPG, I would be VERY tempted to pay for that in order to use the time for both fun and socialization.

From:

ysabetwordsmith

>> I've been trying to reach out, being conscious of attempts to socialize, since becoming a widow.<<

Sensible.

>> The success rate so far is abysmal, <<

Sadly, not a surprise.

>> but I can clearly see what many of the barriers are: inaccessible times or locations (either not when bus service is accessible because the call center closes before the busses stop running, or because the location itself is a building with many ste4ps and no ramp access),<<

Yeah. We have a car, but barriers for me include:

* crowds, as I don't like being around too many people

* noise

* just plain a lack of activities in my interests

>> prohibitive cover fees (frex, museum entrance fees range from $25 per adult to $85 per adult), <<

Museums are supposed to be free. They're public places of learning, like libraries. Otherwise they're just toys for the rich.

>> or events located outside the bus routes, so that I'd have to sign up for a ride service JUST to attend the event.<<

Bummer.

>> That winnows out a LOT of events, or charities that I would love to support, before getting down to sorting through things like clubs that meet in a pub, where one is expected to order a meal when joining in, and so on. If I had prohibitions against alcohol, I could very well avoid any clubs that meet where alcohol is served. <<

It sounds like what's needed is a charity for people who have a hard time getting out, or even for widows in particular to support socializing.

Used to be, churches did a lot of the community maintenance, particularly when it came to ridesharing and visiting people who didn't get out much. There's little of that safety net left. I did find one church that still has descriptions of all its volunteer positions, though, dozens of them, including various types of visitors.

>>But the sieve has already eliminated at least three-fourths of the events advertised in the area for the current month.<<

That sucks.

This spring I tried to look through listings of events. I had the most luck with town-wide rummage sales, those seem to be growing in popularity. We caught a couple of them. I think we've hit a couple of street fairs, and the country fair twice since the weather was temperate for once, although it's a sad shadow of its former glory. People aren't good at using even the resources they have.

>> At some point, it really is TOO MUCH BOTHER to try to join in activities that other people find easy to access, and afford.<<

Yeah. It takes time to search for the listings, and then if you don't find much or anything, that's wasted time and energy.

>> If I could find a "silver-haired gamer" channel on an MMORPG, I would be VERY tempted to pay for that in order to use the time for both fun and socialization.<<

Worth a look. All I found, though, were references to other people looking for the same, or how badly those types of games are unsuited to seniors. :/

I find it ironic that, in the internet age, it is so much harder to locate some resources. And that's killing people.

Re: disabled transport

From:

dialecticdreamer - Date: 2024-08-15 02:04 pm (UTC) - Expand

Re: disabled transport

From:

ysabetwordsmith - Date: 2024-08-17 07:36 am (UTC) - Expand

Re: disabled transport

From:

mama_kestrel - Date: 2024-08-18 09:33 pm (UTC) - Expand

Re: disabled transport

From:

ysabetwordsmith - Date: 2024-08-19 09:19 am (UTC) - Expand

From:

fyreharper

Yeah, I have very much appreciated how EBT also gets me access to a lot of museums for free-or-cheap. Not that getting out the door is easy even then, but at least I’m not looking at the entry cost and going ‘well, I guess that’s not for me’…

Probably applicable to more people, albeit more annoying to use: my library also has a system for (more-limited, often once per year per museum) free entry to various museums etc.

Re: disabled transport

From:

ysabetwordsmith - Date: 2024-08-17 01:40 am (UTC) - Expand

From:

whispersilk

Can I ask what L-America and T-America mean? I haven't seen the terms before and can't find them via search or parse them out from context.

From:

ysabetwordsmith

L-America means "local-America," the one we're stuck with. That L- or local- prefix is consistent.

T-America means Terramagne-America. Terramagne is my superhero fantasy setting for the series Polychrome Heroics. You'll see us talking about this a lot because it's a more functional society than here, but a surprising amount of the goodies are replicable with extant technology here, not all reliant on having superpowers. We explore a lot about what makes it such a compelling place and how they make it work. Some examples:

"From the Deepest Parts of Ourselves"
A tour of beautiful Bluehill in Terramagne-Missouri.

How to make your home town more like Bluehill
Based on several fans wishing they could move there.

Value Per Acre
Or why towns in Terramagne have more money than here.

And if you look on my How To Memories page, search for "Terramagne" and you can find more.

Those are all kind of in the middle of things. If you want to start from the beginning, just look at the top of the series page and work down. It's series-chronological-ish.

I have dozens of settings. I need an efficient way to discuss them. So I tend to use that same framework a lot. Quixotic-Earth / Q-Earth / Quorth goes with Quixotic Ideas. Nether-Earth or N-Earth goes with The Steamsmith. And so on. Typically when I'm writing notes, I try and remember to write out the first instance, but just casual blogging it often just gets shortened. Sorry for the confusion.

From:

elinox

Figures that PA would do something positive transportation-related after left the Transportation Committee.

Although any progress towards benefitting the people is great, yay Philly!

From:

ysabetwordsmith

Perhaps your work helped to lay the foundation for this. Some things take time to develop.

From:

acelightning73

Public transit where I live is nearly useless. I need to get a taxi, or someone to give me a ride, to the nearest bus stop, which is further away that I can walk, and there aren't any places to sit down and rest along the way. The bus will eventually take me to the train station, where I can get a train into the city. But the subway and train stations are full of stairs I can't climb easily (how far across the building do I have to walk to find the elevators?) Now, most of the doctors I have to visit are in one of the major hospitals on New York's East Side, and I'd have to take a bus or taxi from the train station. And I no longer feel safe to drive, since the small stroke I had that made me easily startled.

NYC offers reduced-pricing for mass transit if you can prove your income is low enough. Maybe that's where Philly got the idea.

From:

dialecticdreamer

I've been in urban areas with the same problem, and rural ones, too. It's not a function of distance, but the way that access to routes is set up. I couldn't even get temporary paratransit access to take myself to chemotherapy and radiation, so hubby had to miss a LOT of work to drive me. That was urban.

In the rural area, the system had to cut their least-traveled routes, and one of them was the closest, which then cut my paratransit access because I no longer lived within X distance of an established route stop. The next nearest route stop was at the grocery store, four miles away... which was my usual destination for the paratransit in the first place.

You point out the other problem of access, in that "transportation" doesn't stop at the door to the bus, train, or taxi. The patron has to account for everything from their front door and back to it, and THOSE hurdles can cause different kinds of havoc. I've got a few of those stories, and each and every one is a major hurdle for both the trip when it happens, and every trip for weeks afterward.

American taxes on roads are supposed to be used to support the road infrastructure and mass transit, but that's disproportionately spent, which only makes the overall access patchier and less dependable even when available.

From:

acelightning73

Most of the doctors I see work in NYU Langone Hospital, on New York's East Side (it's next door to the UN, where I once worked). To get there by public transit, I'd have to get a taxi to the bus stop, and take the bus to the train station. I'd have to walk up several flights of stairs to get to the platform, and ride to New York's Penn Station, and climb a bunch of stairs and escalators from the NJ Transit level to the subway level. Or I'd have to go out to the street and hail a taxi, or take a crosstown bus. Instead I only book appointments on days when my husband doesn't work, so he drives me into the city. But soon the Congestion Pricing is going into effect in Manhattan, and driving there and getting a place to park will be awkward. And it'll add sixty dollars to the cost of gas, tolls, and parking for the trip (the tolls add up to $23). This is grossly unfair to anybody who doesn't do stairs well.

From:

dialecticdreamer

That is HORRIFYING.

My deepest sympathies.

One of my favorite benefits of Medicaid insurance was the ride service to and from appointments. Yes, there were delays, about which I kvetched mightily when those delays interfered with meals or taking meds, which messed up my body for at least a day afterward.

There should be exemptions from those Congestion Pricing fees for those with disabled plates. If there aren't, it makes me think that this is yet another way in which disabled citizens are excluded.

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