> Maintaining a bus and subway system is extremely expensive in terms of resources, both in terms of equipment expenses, salaries (for employees who could be providing other benefits to society instead of operating a bus) fuel, and use of land.

Mass transit systems are not as expensive expanding and building up roadway systems in favor of automobile transit.

> There is no 100% certainty that buses/subways are more efficient than cars.

Mass transit is more efficient in a variety of ways compared to cars, esp. on cost per rider and utility cost of infrastructure per rider.

> Luckily however, we have a way to tell which is more efficient: The free market! The free market is not perfect, but it is likely that a person who pays a fare to ride a bus is getting significant value from that bus ride, and if the fare CAN COVER THE EXPENSES of running the buses, then we can be confident that buses are an efficient mode of transportation.

The free market has already demonstrated that cars are not as efficient as mass transit systems. Most cities prior to mass car adoption had mass transit systems, typically subways or street trolley systems. A lot of these existing systems were dismantled in favor of expanded roadways and bus systems. The net result is that riders are less able to move about on roads/buses, the cost is greater to riders to take any form of transit, pollution got worse, and roads now consume far more resources than those mass transit systems do.

> If you just make the buses free, people may take more roundabout trips to get to where they need to go, just to be able to make use of the free bus, causing inefficiency and waste.

If buses were free, then there would be not need to take a longer route since the most direct bus route would be free. Further, fee based mass transit does nothing to stop this right now and for most fee systems the fee does not completely cover the operating expense of the system, so this is something that already happens in lieu of free mass transit. Further, longer trips on some types of mass transit are far more environmentally friendly compared to the same trip made in a car or bus.

> Or, it may cause people to take more inefficient taxi trips (because the bus doesn't take them to their precise destination like a personal car would) or they may do a million other things that are damaging to the environment and wasteful (like eating out more because they can take free bus trips to restaurants.)

The people that most need cheap or free transit are unlikely to be able to afford taxis, as they most certainly are not free and wouldn't be scalable as a free transit option. Eating out at a restaurant is not necessarily more wasteful than other options, esp. in locations were food transit and delivery generate pollution due to delivery method, such as trucking (a lot of places do not grow or produce enough food stuffs to avoid importing).

> If you read this post and think I'm crazy and say to yourself "What an idiot, cars are obviously guaranteed to be less efficient than buses" I would argue you don't understand how incentives behave in a complex system.

We have already seen how incentives the car and roadway system work, and that system most certainly is complex. Suffice it to say that this system has not been effective in providing transit needs for the masses and expansion of those system is not working as scalable solution for transit. As density increases, roadways become less efficient for travel period.

> If you think cars are so horrible, you should work to stop subsidies to oil companies so that gas prices reflect the true cost of energy. But in my view there is absolutely no way making public buses free is going to make cities more efficient and/or help the environment.

You can do more than just fight against oil energy policy to attack the public of public pollution from transit systems. If buses can displace a certain amount of cars on the road for a population they are more environmentally friendly and making such transit as accessible as possible is the best way to maximize ridership.