alt Hacker Newsok, but hear me out
let's say the fare system costs $1 million to operate and maintain
and let's say the fare system collects $10 million in fares
couldn't you just collect $10 million in additional taxes, just add a "railway fare" line item, and save everyone the $1 million?
Replies
If you have a sovereign currency taxes don't pay for government spending. Governments should spend to expand the economy to its productive capacity (processes, labour, IP, infra of all kinds, social services, R&D), and use taxes to control investment and inflation.
Neoliberal governments don't do this, but they lie about why.
Other than that - of course you could.
Governments also lie about who gets subsidised, and why.
Generally subsidies go to the oligarchy, which makes constant attempts to "cut wasteful and inefficient public spending", because the oligarchy believes poor people don't deserve nice things.
(Not just rhetoric, btw.)
It's a political issue, not a practical one.
There are sociological reasons why you might want some kind of fare income, but they're more to do with adding some token resistance to accessing the system than making money from it.
1) It's not a 10:1 ratio though, it's much more than that. These fare collection systems are very cheap relative to the money they bring in.
2) If there's sufficient money and will available to fund the transportation system to that level, then sure, that's great. But in most cases, I think it's better to just direct expansions in government train budgets towards expanding the network, not making it cheaper. Most people who drive cars don't drive because trains are expensive, they drive cars because there's no train at the time and place they want. Making trains cheaper doesn't address this problem.