Wheel reinventor

Bad Arguments Against Free Buses The transit world has talked itself into a nonsense understanding of revenue tradeoffs.

Here is a piece covering similar points in the context of Zohran’s free bus proposal in NYC: www.peoplespolicyproject.org/2025/06/17/b...

- Fares, even with concessions, are far more regressive than even flat taxes. Very wealthy people who don’t use PT at all, for example, pay zero in fares, less than a pensioner.
- Do you support congestion charging? PT is a *reverse* congestion charge (a fee for using the less congestion option)

- Replacing fare revenue with tax revenue means more money for badly serviced areas, not less
- Your map is the result of life under fares. And yet, the coverage is still bad. Clearly fare levels aren’t the determinant of service quality

Numerous problems with this logic:

- Fallacy of composition (plenty of poorer people in wealthier areas)
- All infrastructure coverage looks like this. Is charging more for public schools, hospitals and libraries a win for equality because there’s more in wealthier areas? No - nor is it for pt.

It does not matter if collection costs exceed revenue or not. Replacing fare revenue with tax revenue means more money for services, not less, because regular tax revenue is cheaper to collect than fares.

It’s also way better for equality because regular tax is much more progressive than fares.

We have nothing to from lower fares - on the contrary, we should fear the misguided idea that fares mean “more money for services”.

It is the reverse - replacing fare revenue with traditional tax revenue means more money for services by eliminating ticketing and enforcement costs.

It really doesn’t matter. Even if you assume it has zero effect on patronage, replacing fare revenue with tax revenue is such a huge win for equality that you should do it on those grounds alone.

Imagine if antisemitism was killing this many people a month in Australia

Alan, your whole math is bogus.

"The average density of dwellings is 50 per hectare". What you've missed is that new infill is far higher density than this.

This lovely medium density Nightingale development is 400 per hectare, for instance. www.sixdegrees.com.au/projects/nig...

"That's 26 times the size of Melbourne's CBD…every year (across Australia)."

If we assume infill housing is 10-20x higher density than our existing low density sprawl, that's more like 1-2 CBDs of infill per year, which seems... totally reasonable?

Low density means more room for infill, not less!

Alan, your whole math is bogus.

"The average density of dwellings is 50 per hectare". What you've missed is that new infill is far higher density than this.

This lovely medium density Nightingale development is 400 per hectare, for instance. www.sixdegrees.com.au/projects/nig...

Even looking at overall city density is bogus, because Alan is only talking about land on which housing will actually be built, not overall city density.

This typical Nightingale development for instance has 400 apartments per hectare - far higher than 50. www.sixdegrees.com.au/projects/nig...

Vine-covered car parks helping to cool Sydney heat islands Surface temperatures at a busy car park in Western Sydney are being reduced by as much as 35 degrees by vine-covered trellises which were installed two years ago.

Hey siri, what is greenwashing? www.abc.net.au/news/2025-06...

The idea that bike lanes are in conflict with these things is just so stupid.

Workers and customers all get to the city by bike, deliveries already happen by bike (ubereats anybody?)

Permanently banning smaller vehicles/micromobility for “safety” then allowing larger ones. Great policymaking!

This story about a new proposed supermarket focused on the threat to existing smaller retailers, but for me the worst part is this:

YouTube video by Wheel Reinventor Most votes in Australia are wasted votes and get no representation at all

For those following the debate re electoral systems/wasted vote etc, I made this video about how wasted vote still occurs in a preferential system: youtube.com/shorts/QfIGg...

Free public transport for children a sweetener in looming state budget All Victorians under 18 will be able to travel free on trams, trains and buses from next year under Premier Jacinta Allan’s pledge to ease living costs.

The usual talk about how much this will "cost", an arg that I don't accept at the best of times, but particularly silly here given that it will likely increase fare revenue via increased family ridership.

www.theage.com.au/national/vic...

People also object to me being a "non-expert".

My background is merely that I vote in both NZ and Australian elections, in NZ my vote goes directly to more rep for my choice, in Australia it doesn't, and I think that's bad!

Why is that not a valid perspective?

I'm puzzled by the pushback I've gotten against "wasted vote".

People don't have to like it, but I think it's a great way of quantifying:

- non proportionality
- why swing seats matter

The main objection seems to be that it's "unorthodox". But who cares, if it leads to valid conclusions?

Many such cases - parents want their kids to walk or bike to school, but drive them because the roads are too dangerous. Absolute madness

Free PT for seniors but not 5 year olds.

Free travel across the state for seniors weekend tourism - $33 for a family of four to go to the zoo from one stop away on a school holiday weekday. My head is going to explode

Either you are (in your typical fashion) being extremely obtuse and bad faith here or you simply lack high school level reading comprehension skills

Why do think political parties focus on swing seats rather than very safe or very hostile seats?

YouTube video by Jubilee Can 1 Woke Teen Survive 20 Trump Supporters? | Surrounded

get @crikey.com.au to do the 1 vs 25 debate format, but it’s @wheelreinventor.bsky.social surrounded by Australian election analysts

youtu.be/68aej2qmCtw?...

Oh i see this is some weird credentialism or insider/outsider thing. Boooooring.

Yes, I already said that. You clearly agree with the article in broad terms so why get so aggressively personal about how much you hate it?

Yeah. You’ve made the identical conclusion to the article here, the same article you think is bad, so it’s obvious you simply didn’t read it at all. bsky.app/profile/poll...

Getting a lot of “didn’t actually read the article” vibes from this post. Like, it’s a very straightforward description of disproportionality and why that’s a problem. If you find that incoherent that’s on you and your reading comprehension