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I agree with this so much. I am sick and tired of subsidizing drivers. I am done with the irresponsible and unsustainable policy of ignoring costs associated

• rayiner 8y ago
  I strongly agree. Also let's end welfare for upper middle class commuters by ending subsidies for rail transit. Here in D.C., taxpayers subsidize Metro commuters, who are typically white collar and make more than the average taxpayer in DC/MD/VA. Why would you expect anything else, given the stratospheric price of housing near Metro stations? Low-income people take the bus. That's what we should subsidize.
  • mamurphy 8y ago
    Life and government isn't this simple. Subsidizing metro draws in high-income earners and thus builds the economy and increases tax revenues. The stratospheric price of housing near Metro stations increases real estate tax revenues as well.
    • inferiorhuman 8y ago
      The increased cost of housing near transit also reflects that various costs associate with sprawl no longer have to be funded (e.g commute time, roads).
  • deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  • apendleton 8y ago
    Both rail and bus are heavily subsidized -- buses come nowhere close to paying for either their operating or capital expenses with fare revenue. It is probably true that if you broke down the WMATA budget and looked at the degree of subsidy per passenger mile on rail vs. bus, you'd get a higher number for rail than bus, but it's tricky to do an apples-to-apples comparison because the rail figure will include the cost of the stations, tunnels, and track, whereas the bus figure won't include the cost of the roads, but the government pays for the roads too, just not as a line item within the transit agency. The reason to subsidize rail is that if you didn't, many people wouldn't take the train, they would drive or take the bus, and we don't have the road capacity for that. Rail is an exceptionally efficient means of moving lots of people with not very much space, and drivers and bus riders benefit from those people having been moved off of the roads in the form of reduced traffic.
    • inferiorhuman 8y ago
      WMATA is at the low end of the farebox recovery ratio (42%). Meanwhile SF's Muni is at 35%, BART at 70%, and Caltrain at 63%.
    • rayiner 8y ago
      That might be a relevant point in some cities, mainly New York. But in the DC metro area, only a tiny fraction of commuters take rail to begin with, in part because Metro is geared to getting people in and out of DC while most jobs in the area are outside DC. I’ve always found it very odd that folks who work ordinary jobs in the suburbs subsidize the relatively high income professionals that work in DC and can afford to live near a Metro stop.
      • apendleton 8y ago
        > only a tiny fraction of commuters take rail to begin with If you define "metro area" expansively, that's true, but rail mode share in the closer-in suburbs (Montgomery county, Arlington county) is decently high, and individual counties' contributions to WMATA's budget are commensurate with use. Not many people in Loudoun county use metro, but they also don't contribute very much, and nobody it Charles county does, but they don't contribute anything.
• baddox 8y ago
  I used to follow libertarian (the American propertarian kind) communities online, and one of the recurring challenges to libertarians is "but who will build the roads if government doesn't?" Of course, libertarians have all sorts of detailed responses to this challenge. Now that I don't really follow or align with libertarianism any more, my response is simple: if government subsidized roads less, there would probably just be fewer roads, and that would probably be a really good thing.
  • gotocake 8y ago
    The history of major roads, especially interstate highways, is a history of the need for roads capable of allowing large military vehicles and troop movements. Has that changed?
    • baddox 8y ago
      I’m sure a very small portion of the benefits of the interstate highways goes to national defense. If it’s truly necessary for national defense, there should still be tolls levied for the side effects: namely the massive subsidies on personal travel and commercial freight.
      • int_19h 8y ago
        The benefit in this case potential, so it's hard to quantify it unless and until it is realized. But if it comes to that, it would be absolutely crucial for national defense.
        • baddox 8y ago
          I don’t think the analysis is that difficult. Imagine that the interstates were only used for military transportation (both for emergencies, which presumably haven’t happened much, and for regular logistics). Surely the ongoing maintenance costs would be vastly reduced. Those costs would be the costs that “we the people” accept as valid usage of taxpayer money. You could throw in costs for other public interests like emergency logistics (e.g. FEMA moving goods and personnel for hurricane relief), first-class mail, etc., and you’re still probably only accounting for a very small portion of the taxpayer money that is currently going toward regular interstate maintenance. The rest of the taxpayer costs are just subsidies of private interests, namely commercial freight and personal transportation. Those subsidies aren’t “free.” They come at the expense of other private interests, like freight and passenger railroads. These subsidies undoubtedly drastically change the economy, pushing everything toward just-in-time fulfillment, increasing greenhouse gas emissions, etc. I would like to see these private subsidies reduced or eliminated, perhaps by charging tolls.