If this impedes progress in the future is this really good? We already have a good situation with fares, we should make it better - and when you look at the data (as opposed to what people say) it consistently shows that the main reason most people don't use transit more is lack of service and not the cost. Optimizing on cost helps a few really poor people (which everyone against this plan has already said we need some program to just help them), while it does nothing for everyone else who need service.

Or to put it a different way, it costs money to run transit. So what if we take the money you are proposing to add to cover the loss of fares and give it to the transit agency but retain fares: they could afford to add more service and I contend that this would do far more for ridership. (assuming we are smart about what service we add)