When you pay a fare on a bus or Subway, the fare you pay does not cover the entire fare (in NYC the Subway Fare covers about 67% of the actual cost of the ride) the government (ie the taxpayers/voters) cover the rest.
So its just just the Charedi fare payer vs the Chilioni fare payer. Its the taxpayers/voters who are subsidizng the cost of the ride.
There are two point I want to make here:
1. Come on, we all know the money is not the issue here. We all know it is an issue of perception of womens inequality, as well as general anti-chareidi sentiment.
2. I don’t see why it should make a difference to taxpayers subsidizing a fare whether the people sit in a way which makes them comfortable. We are talking about separate bus lines which egged agreed to and which only service chareidi neighborhoods.
If the moslems were willing to have egged buses in their neighborhoods, and wanted to have a place to store their prayer mats; would you be opposed to that? If they wanted build minarets on the buses? I wouldn’t mind- live and let live.
The very idea that taxpayers aren’t willing to pay for buses if it is done in a way which accommodates chareidim, is highly bigoted.