Kansas City is first major city in U.S. to offer no-cost public transportation
Seattle used to have this for an area of the city.  It was called the "Free Ride Zone" - and it had some unexpected consequences.<p>The primary problem is that homeless people would get on the bus because it's warm, and would fall asleep.  The busses became rolling homeless shelters.<p>This caused other people to take the bus less, because of public safety concerns, as well as simple quality-of-life issues like unpleasant smells.<p>Eventually it was scrapped.<p>But this issue has been returning as it's now common knowledge that Seattle bus drivers are instructed not to collect fares from anyone that declines to pay.