All public transit should be free.
Kids want to go ride the monorail, street cars, and "subway" (underground lightrail) today so I'm researching how to pay for public transit, as I think my old ORCA card expired. Or maybe I lost it.
Holy crap is this all more complicated than it needs to be: which agencies cooperate, which day passes are valid for what, whether 18yo and younger need a physical free "youth pass" or not, etc.
Just make it free for everybody! Tax me & my cars! Rawrghg.
@bradfitz This was the case in the canton of Zurich 32 years ago. Then, an association of transportation providers was created (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Z%C3%BCrcher_Verkehrsverbund), which started issuing tickets for all their members. The result is that over the 8 years I live here, I've never taken a means of public transit within the canton that wouldn't be covered by tickets from that system, with the single exception of taking a bicycle on a ferry.
That's not to say that free-for-the-traveller public transit wouldn't be better, but the problem you're pointing out can be solved (starting from, ttbomk, the same kind of mess you're describing) without that.
