Today we discussed whether all public transit should be free and paid for by the government or not. We had four groups:
- Community
- Car owners
- City government
- Ecologists
The outcome of a contest was decided by judge.
- Car owners believed that the more people we have taking buses, trains, and subways, the less people we have on the road.
- Ecologists thought the fewer cars we have on the road, the less pollution we have going into the atmosphere. All of us want a cleaner planet for our future and the future of our children.
- In turn city government pointed out that while the idea of having free public transportation may sound great in reality it isn’t feasible. Carrying the public from A to B costs money, and instead of providing free public transport the government is likely to charge car users so much money to use their cars that they will stop, and pay for public transportation instead as it will be the only alternative.
- Community argued that public transport should be more accessible for poor people as well.
In conclusion all sides agreed that perhaps the question asked ought to be not whether public transport should be free, but whether it should be subsidized by the government now, before they spend vast sums of money implementing ways to force people to use it in the future.
