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The point is that it isn't a bad thing if a local government listens to their constituents and builds what they want instead of building what a online vocal min

The point is that it isn't a bad thing if a local government listens to their constituents and builds what they want instead of building what a online vocal minority of people who don't live in their area want. Your argument about subsidies is only logical if you also advocate for no non-use-based taxes and the privatization of all services like healthcare, schools, and transit, since if one shouldn't have to pay for some things they don't use or want to use, then they shouldn't have to pay for anything they don't want to. Transit is also far more subsidized on a per user level than roads are, and I would be perfectly willing to pay the unsubsidized cost of car infrastructure (and so would most drivers), but I suspect that you wouldn't like having to pay the unsubsidized cost of transit. Car infrastructure also doesn't destroy the livability of an area, as shown by the survey results above; no one wants to live in an unlivable area by definition and most people want to live in areas you would deem "unlivable".

8note 5y ago
Im not so confident that car drivers are not sensitive to cost changes. Eg. The gillet jaune protests in France over gas price changes
- quantumwannabe 5y ago
  You missed the point of the comment. The relative price increase for car drivers to pay for 100% of their infrastructure cost is far lower than for transit riders. In my area, which is one of the most pro-density and transit-oriented cities in America, it would take a small increase in gas tax, and we've already had a large gas price increase from the market, so returning to normal prices with a small tax increase wouldn't hurt too much. Meanwhile, a bus ride costs the taxpayer ~$7 and the rider pays ~$3. That number does not include the cost of the roads the buses drive on, as government owned vehicles are exempt from gas tax and the transit system does not contribute anything towards road maintenance. A train ticket costs ~$3 but costs the taxpayer ~$30, not including capital costs. Most of the fare revenue also comes from unlimited use passes that all businesses are forced to buy for their employees if they are over a certain size, even if the employees never use them. Meanwhile, drivers in my state pay a ~-70 cents per mile subsidy (that's a negative in front) for the highways. Local roads are more complex, as nearly every arterial has a bus or bike lane these days and every building needs a road to run up to for a variety of reasons. These numbers are taken directly from my state government and my local transit agency's reports, not from some YouTube editorial or blog post. I find those personalities just speculate on what the "true" cost of infrastructure is instead of actually looking it up. Going from $3 train tickets to over $30 tickets hurts a lot more than going from a 50 cents a gallon gas tax to a 60 cent one. In my particular case, moving to a user-pays system would mean that I would save $500 a year in car registration taxes that are used exclusively to fund the transit system, which would more than cover a fair increase in the gas tax.
  - bluGill 5y ago
    Most of transit costs are fixed, so more users lower per cost. Both roads and transit have these factors
    - quantumwannabe 5y ago
      Those numbers are just the operating costs, which scale much more closely with the number of riders, the cost of the building the infrastructure itself isn't included. Including the capital costs would make transit look even worse.
      - bluGill 5y ago
        That is false, Transit costs go down per rider as things go up. The cost to operate a bus is just over $100/hr in the US (average), including capital costs. It doesn't matter if only the driver is on the bus or it is packed full. It doesn't mater if everyone is riding for an entire hour or they only ride for 5 minutes. The cost operating costs for a train can be much less (a train can be fully automated which really brings costs down), or much more (if you run drivers and conductors). However as until the train is full requiring that you buy more the costs do not change at all. Roads have similar concerns - the cost to build and maintain a road is mostly fixed, but it scales to much slower. A full bus every 5 minutes has far more people than the same road with the maximum number of moving cars, so you need to build more roads faster, thus the capital costs of roads is much higher.
        quantumwannabe 5y ago
        If you have more people who want to ride a bus than the bus can carry, then you need another bus and driver. That is a step function that scales with the number of riders. What you said is only true until the bus reaches capacity, but if people actually use the transit (which is not the case in most of the US, but is the case in the area my numbers are from), then the cost is directly related to the number of riders. Also, most buses don't have 5 minute headways, so if you're going to assume that you may as well assume that every car contains 4 people. Additionally, a 100 person articulated bus coming every 5 minutes is equivalent to 20 single occupancy cars per minute (or 1 car every 3 seconds), which is typical for a busy street. You need really short headways to match a car lane, shorter headways to beat it, and even shorter headways to justify making the lane exclusive to buses.

8note 5y ago

Im not so confident that car drivers are not sensitive to cost changes. Eg. The gillet jaune protests in France over gas price changes

quantumwannabe 5y ago
You missed the point of the comment. The relative price increase for car drivers to pay for 100% of their infrastructure cost is far lower than for transit riders. In my area, which is one of the most pro-density and transit-oriented cities in America, it would take a small increase in gas tax, and we've already had a large gas price increase from the market, so returning to normal prices with a small tax increase wouldn't hurt too much. Meanwhile, a bus ride costs the taxpayer ~$7 and the rider pays ~$3. That number does not include the cost of the roads the buses drive on, as government owned vehicles are exempt from gas tax and the transit system does not contribute anything towards road maintenance. A train ticket costs ~$3 but costs the taxpayer ~$30, not including capital costs. Most of the fare revenue also comes from unlimited use passes that all businesses are forced to buy for their employees if they are over a certain size, even if the employees never use them. Meanwhile, drivers in my state pay a ~-70 cents per mile subsidy (that's a negative in front) for the highways. Local roads are more complex, as nearly every arterial has a bus or bike lane these days and every building needs a road to run up to for a variety of reasons. These numbers are taken directly from my state government and my local transit agency's reports, not from some YouTube editorial or blog post. I find those personalities just speculate on what the "true" cost of infrastructure is instead of actually looking it up. Going from $3 train tickets to over $30 tickets hurts a lot more than going from a 50 cents a gallon gas tax to a 60 cent one. In my particular case, moving to a user-pays system would mean that I would save $500 a year in car registration taxes that are used exclusively to fund the transit system, which would more than cover a fair increase in the gas tax.
- bluGill 5y ago
  Most of transit costs are fixed, so more users lower per cost. Both roads and transit have these factors
  - quantumwannabe 5y ago
    Those numbers are just the operating costs, which scale much more closely with the number of riders, the cost of the building the infrastructure itself isn't included. Including the capital costs would make transit look even worse.
    - bluGill 5y ago
      That is false, Transit costs go down per rider as things go up. The cost to operate a bus is just over $100/hr in the US (average), including capital costs. It doesn't matter if only the driver is on the bus or it is packed full. It doesn't mater if everyone is riding for an entire hour or they only ride for 5 minutes. The cost operating costs for a train can be much less (a train can be fully automated which really brings costs down), or much more (if you run drivers and conductors). However as until the train is full requiring that you buy more the costs do not change at all. Roads have similar concerns - the cost to build and maintain a road is mostly fixed, but it scales to much slower. A full bus every 5 minutes has far more people than the same road with the maximum number of moving cars, so you need to build more roads faster, thus the capital costs of roads is much higher.
      - quantumwannabe 5y ago
        If you have more people who want to ride a bus than the bus can carry, then you need another bus and driver. That is a step function that scales with the number of riders. What you said is only true until the bus reaches capacity, but if people actually use the transit (which is not the case in most of the US, but is the case in the area my numbers are from), then the cost is directly related to the number of riders. Also, most buses don't have 5 minute headways, so if you're going to assume that you may as well assume that every car contains 4 people. Additionally, a 100 person articulated bus coming every 5 minutes is equivalent to 20 single occupancy cars per minute (or 1 car every 3 seconds), which is typical for a busy street. You need really short headways to match a car lane, shorter headways to beat it, and even shorter headways to justify making the lane exclusive to buses.