Sometimes a free ride proves costly and inefficient
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From Monday to the end of December, Guangzhou public transportation, including buses and subway service, will be free.
This decision was made by the Guangzhou government to reduce the financial burden on commuters and serve to ease traffic congestion for the Asian Games, which will be held from November 12 to 27.
According to local media reports, traffic congestion has partly been reduced recently. Traffic has eased no-ticeably due to measures such as the rotation of even and odd license-plate numbers, which bans half of the cars on the road.
While many measures do work well, the plan to provide cheaper public transportation will actually backfire. With millions more Guangzhouers than usual flocking to the free services, public transportation infrastructure is teeming with apprehensive commuters, some of whom had to wait for several trains before they could squeeze into packed cars.
The free ride is turning into the ride from hell, where many commuters would rather pay the usual fee to have a normal commuting experience.
Contrary to egalitarian concerns that free public services benefit the public, as a whole, free services are not really necessary.
After all, the free service has to be subsidized by the government to cover the cost. Taxpayers still foot the bill but this way they do it indirectly.
