A common argument against free public transport, goes something like this:

"Making public transport free would encourage a lot of unnecessary trips, that could be taken on foot or bike. And there's government support for poor folks who need it anyway."

Sounds very rational and 'economic' on the surface, right? Just working out the numbers, and that's the outcome, right? No ideology, just logical thinking about what's economically responsible, right?

Well, not quite: when you think about it, it doesn't *really* make sense. Transit is usually cheap enough that people with some disposable income can easily afford to take it even for short trips, so they're not disincentivized by this.

So what this *really* says, once you scratch away the veneer of 'economics', is:

"*Poor* people should not be able to ride public transport unless we deem it to be necessary for them."

This is how neoliberal propaganda works. It takes some kind of ideological stance (usually some version of "poor people do not deserve autonomy"), and then packages it into an economic-sounding argument that conveniently omits some details and consequences to make it sound neutral and objective.

This is how neoliberals make people believe that oppressive policies are "just the necessary thing to do".