Very much so. When I was younger I assumed fares were for the cost of the public transport, but after following some local budgeting discussions I was stunned by how little the fares covered operating costs.
Small amounts of cost sharing are a useful technique for incentivizing people to make wise decisions in general, so there’s some value in having token small fares. It’s the same difference that shows up when you list something for $10 in your local classifieds as opposed to listing it as FREE. Most people who use classifieds learn early on that listing things for free is just asking for people to waste your time, but listing for any price at all seems to make people care a little more and put some thought into their decisions. I’ve often given things away for free after listing them for small amounts in classifieds because it filters for people who are less likely to waste your time.
That ignores the massive amount of parking and highway subsidies that make the car-first model in the US viable at all. The absurd amount of space given away for free (or below value) in the city to support cars is actually insane. Its just not properly account for.
In a sane world you would either not have any public parking spots, or parking spots that cost so much that about 10-20% of them are empty, and you would have a road use tax (like Singapore).
And American transit systems are uniquely bad at fare recovery because they are just uniquely bad at everything.
Fares income isn't insubstantial -- just as an example I'm familiar with, King County Metro (Seattle area) was ~33% funded by fares before Covid (which destroyed both ridership and percent non-stealing riders). It is material; not "token."
More or less the same thing as patio11's "pathological customers" premise[0]. People who are unwilling to pay a few dollars to ride the bus tend to be extraordinarily antisocial in other ways. Public transit is for the masses; it's not a homeless shelter.
Small amounts of cost sharing are a useful technique for incentivizing people to make wise decisions in general, so there’s some value in having token small fares. It’s the same difference that shows up when you list something for $10 in your local classifieds as opposed to listing it as FREE. Most people who use classifieds learn early on that listing things for free is just asking for people to waste your time, but listing for any price at all seems to make people care a little more and put some thought into their decisions. I’ve often given things away for free after listing them for small amounts in classifieds because it filters for people who are less likely to waste your time.