每日英語跟讀 Ep.K122: 大眾運輸免費是可行的嗎？Should Public Transit Be Free？

Dionisia Ramos gets on the 37 bus twice a day, rooting through her handbag to dig out the fare and drop it into the slot, so it came as shock several months ago when the bus driver reached out his hand to stop her.

迪歐妮希雅·拉莫斯每天搭37號公車兩次，從包包裡翻出車資投丟入錢箱，因此在數個月前，當公車司機伸手阻止她時，她大吃一驚。

“You don’t have to pay,” he said. “It’s free for the next two years.”

他說：「您不必付款。未來兩年免費。」

Ramos had never heard of anything like this: Someone was paying her bus fare? At 55, she lives on a monthly unemployment check for $235. So saving $2.40 a day, for her trip to and from community college, past the hulking mills of Lawrence’s industrial past — that meant something.

拉莫斯從未聽過這種事，有人幫她付車錢？現年55歲的她靠著每月235美元的失業金生活。因此，對於她往返社區大學、路過麻薩諸塞州勞倫斯市工業時代留下的大型工廠的旅途來說，一天節省2.4美元十分有感。

Since a pilot program began in September, use of the buses has grown by 24%, and the only criticism Ramos has of the city’s experiment with fare-free transit is that it is not permanent.

自9月計畫試行以來，公車使用率增加了24%，拉莫斯對這座城市免費運輸實驗唯一的批評是，它並非永久性的。

“Transportation should be free,” she said. “It’s a basic need. It’s not a luxury.”

她說：「運輸工具免費。這是基本需求，非奢侈享受。」

That argument is bubbling up in lots of places these days, as city officials cast about for big ideas to combat inequality and reduce carbon emissions. Some among them cast transportation as a pure public good, more like policing and less like toll roads.

近來，隨著城市官員廣尋妙計以因應貧富差距並減少碳排放，這種主張也在很多地方深得人心，當中一些人把交通運輸視為一種純粹的公共財，比較像治安，而不像收費公路。

The City Council in Worcester, Massachusetts’ second-largest city, expressed strong support last month for waiving fares for its buses, a move that would cost between $2 million and $3 million a year in lost fares. And fare-free transit is the splashiest policy recommendation of Michelle Wu, a Boston City Council member who is expected by many to run for mayor in 2021.

上個月，麻州第二大城渥斯特的市議會對於停收公車費表達強烈支持，一年損失的票錢將介於200萬到300萬美元間。免費運輸是波士頓市議員吳弭最引人注目的政策建議，眾人預料她將在2021年競選市長。

Larger experiments are underway in other parts of the country. The cities of Kansas City, Missouri, and Olympia, Washington, both declared that their buses would become fare-free this year.

更大規模的實驗正在美國其他地方進行。密蘇里州堪薩斯市與華盛頓州奧林匹亞市均宣布，今年起公車免費搭乘。

The argument against fare-free transit is a simple one: Who is going to pay for it?

反對公共運輸免費者理由很簡單，即誰來買單。

In communities where ridership has been falling, the cost of waiving fares may be less than expected.

在搭乘率一直下降的社區裡，免費搭乘的成本可能低於預期。

Mayor Daniel Rivera of Lawrence, intrigued after hearing his friend Wu speak about fare-free transit, asked his regional transit authority how much was collected on three of the city’s most-used bus lines. The answer was such a small amount — $225,000 — that he could offset it from the city’s surplus cash reserves.

勞倫斯市長丹尼爾·里維拉聽吳弭談到免費運輸時很感興趣，詢問屬下區域運輸當局，市內搭乘人數最多的3條公車路線能收多少車資。答案是為數不多的22.5萬美元，他用市府剩餘的預備金就可攤銷。

“What I like is the doability of this, the simplicity of it,” Rivera said. “We are already subsidizing this mode of transportation, so the final mile is very short. It isn’t a service people need to pay for; it’s a public good.”

里維拉說：「我喜歡的是它的可行性和簡單性。我們已在補貼這種運輸方式，所以最後一哩路並不長。這不是人們需要付費的服務，這是個公共財。」

Around 100 cities in the world offer free public transit, the vast majority of them in Europe, especially France and Poland.

世界上約有100個城市提供免費公共運輸，絕大多數在歐洲，尤其是法國跟波蘭。

Source article: https://udn.com/news/story/6904/4397156

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