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Public Transit Ridership in the United States

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Oh, I am not advocating that the Wall Street bankers and Madison Avenue advertising executives drive to Manhattan.  My argument is that they can afford to pay the full cost of transporting them on the train. Commuter railroads should charge the full fare. If society wants to subsidize low income workers so that they can get to and from low paying jobs in the suburbs, it can underwrite their fares. And it could do it without anyone being the wiser. Today food stamps are not food stamps.  Rather the beneficiary gets a card that looks and acts like a credit card. He or she uses at the supper market to buy food. For the most part no one knows that the card is a food stamp vehicle. The same technique could be used for commuter rail.   As it is providing subsidies for everyone underwrites the commuting costs of high and upper middle income people who could afford to tote the note. Doesn't make sense to me. Now I will add a political note, which I have not done or at least not directly but will make this exception. In a country where 20.7 per cent of the children don't have health insurance and in many instances lack an adequate diet, i.e. they don't get enough to eat, subsidizing wealthy commuters, as well as first class travelers on  Amtrak, strikes me as obscene. The monies, which are limited, could be better spent helping people who really need help and not high income people riding on taxpayer supported railroads.
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