The purely economic argument supports free transit. If community created value such as location rents was not privately captured by private owners, but could be applied to support the transit systems instead, there would be more than adequate funding to provide free transit. But the political challenge is greater than the economic one, a class stratified society values control more than value. The landlords will continue to be free riders, capturing value they do not create, while the transit rider pays the fare.

Poor but sexy Berlin has only 3 zones despite being well over twice the population of Munich, the city gets by with a much smaller set of zones. Not to mention monthly tickets that can start any day of the month. To get to the airport in Munich you need a 10 euro day card. In Berlin a 2,80 A B A ticket. The more precarious and itinerant population seems to manifest in the fare system. Obviously, a system of fares intended to cover provisioning costs would not. Fares are a political, not economic consideration.

Urban mobility is just one tier in the structure of o mobility restriction. As the mixing of the classes is restricted, so is the inter-city flow. However fare economics are quite different. Train travel becomes less and less attractive relative to air fare. Given the high economic, social and environmental costs of air travel relative to train travel this hardly can be a factor of funding cost. A few differences come to mind that relate to control. Train stations are in urban centers. Airports are in remove locations. Trains tickets often have variable travel times, as well as well as optional routes and transfers. Airline tickets, at least the cheap ones, are for one specific flight with fixed connections. Train stations have casual security and require no ID. Airports have strict security and require official ID. Once again fare prices make are better understood from the perspective of control than provisioning cost. Authorities have a lot more information on when and where the air traveler is going than the train traveler, and a lot more control.

Transit is media. Mobility control is censorship. The victim of censorship is not only the one silenced, but all those who a narrower social dialogue impoverishes. The city is a dialogue, restrictions on mobility are a gag. Narrowing the dialogue, narrows what can be imagined. What can’t be imagined is’t denmamed.

The city of Munich has 16 fare zones in the transit system, bizarraly going 3 stops can mean 8 fare zones. Riders stand and stare in utter confusion at the complexity of ticket machine and various graphs and charts around it. While single tickets work in zones, day tickets work in ring, of which there are 3, that partially overlap. This makes day ticket cheaper than a one way ticket if crossing more than 2 zones. Usually. More odd is that weekly and monthly tickets abandon the ring system and revert to zones. And have fixed starting days, i.e. Weekly tickets can only start on monday and monthlies on the 1st. What sort of administration would create such a system, one thinking of funding transit or one trying to control mobility, not looking at questions of costs associated with riding, which could not be lower for a day card than a one way ticket, but rather classes of riders; employed, unemployed, tourist or visitor.

The value of property near transit rises, this is captured in property rent. The economic beneficiary of transit is the landlord. The real free rider is not the rider, who already pays in rent burdened prices. The real free rider is the landlord, who captures the value of transit without paying for it. Transit fares imposed on riders is a form of class antagonism. It’s purpose is not to fund transit, but to create economic barriers to urban mobility.