4 ms·

Your issue seems to be with funding. Fares are usually quite a small component of transit system’s budgets. We don’t require users of city streets to pay fares

Your issue seems to be with funding. Fares are usually quite a small component of transit system’s budgets. We don’t require users of city streets to pay fares to use that transportation infrastructure, with exception of the occasional toll-funded highway/bridge/tunnel, and we spend many many billions of tax dollars more on those than we do on public transit. If free transit is a bad idea so are free city streets.

minitoar 4y ago
arguably fuel tax is that fare
- mertd 4y ago
  If fuel tax is enough why do we keep passing trillion dollar infra bills and allocating majority of it to road repair?
  - Bluecobra 4y ago
    The current fuel tax (in the USA) not enough. Federal fuel taxes have not been raised in 30 years and not adjusted for inflation/cost of living. I’m sure it would be a political death wish to try to raise it again. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_taxes_in_the_United_States https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_taxes_in_the_United_Sta...
    - wahern 4y ago
      Fuel tax is complicated by the fact that poorer families tend to live further away from work and thus drive more, both because housing is cheaper the further away from a city you get, but also because non-skilled labor doesn't aggregate along transit corridors the same way it does for office workers. So a low fuel tax is in effect a subsidy to the poor, notwithstanding that it also benefits corporations which maintain the infrastructure. You can see this in every part of the world--cheap fuel is the easiest way to placate the working class. Public transit can be a remedy, but outside Manhattan I don't think any locale in the U.S. has remotely the density to make it truly viable at scale for the poor and working classes. Obviously public transit is critical for some poorer subgroups, but those groups tend to be the ones trapped in ghettos. To truly bridge the gap so public transit is a substitute for fuel subsidies would require an order of magnitude increase in the size and reach of our public transit networks, plus a dramatic shift in zoning to reduce the costs of housing in urbanized areas, plus a dramatic shift in geographical demographics. Note that poor and working classes will hold onto the white picket fence ideal for much longer than the middle classes. So you're dealing with very strong counter-veiling pressures when it comes to the groups you're attempting to help the most.
      - arcticbull 4y ago
        > Public transit can be a remedy, but outside Manhattan I don't think any locale in the U.S. has remotely the density to make it truly viable at scale for the poor and working classes. Chicken and egg. Density is built along transit because transit supports dense houses. Build transit, get density. Fail to build transit, get sprawl.
        wahern 4y ago
        > Build transit, get density. Building transit does not guarantee you get density. There are regulatory hurdles at play. In California, for example, cities will often be forced to up-zone the immediate couple of blocks around a station, but then everything else beyond that remains zoned for single-family housing, or at least zoned for far less density than the market could support. Moreover, there's a time gap between when housing is built and when it becomes economically accessible lower down the income ladder. New housing is expensive, even absent regulatory hurdles, and affordability mandates can't magically change financial viability. New housing can have immediate effects on housing costs, but indirectly on the costs of older housing; and on a regional scale it takes awhile to incentivize people at the periphery to move inward. Long-story short, to get from the current equilibrium to a more optimal equilibrium requires careful, coordinated policy management across decades. We could and should start, but we live in an age where if people don't see results in 6 weeks, they complain; and even when there are results, they still complain. They complain, vote people out, and vote in new people that promise more immediate results, but invariably can't deliver meaningful results.[1] I mean, this is how democracy has always worked, but the public reactions are far more compressed, while the necessary time spans for effective change are no shorter than they were before. [1] Case in point: rather than improving public transit, the popular panacea du jure is free fares. Free fares will not improve public transit in any way shape or form; if anything, they'll hasten its degradation. They'll make it cheaper for some, but for the most part not those at the bottom of the ladder, who already enjoy free transit. These gimmicks are popular because they're immediate.
  - minitoar 4y ago
    I didn’t say it was enough, I was just pointing out that it’s analogous to a transit fare.
- atyppo 4y ago
  Car culture is massively subsidized in America. Why are we subsidizing (overwhelmingly wealthy) owners of EVs? Can I get a tax credit for an e-bike?
  - bushbaba 4y ago
    Yes you can! Here's just a few of the rebate programs. https://electrek.co/2022/04/28/denvers-electric-bike-rebates-are-making-car-alternatives-cheaper-other-cities-should-listen-up/ https://electrek.co/2022/04/28/denvers-electric-bike-rebates... https://electrek.co/2022/05/03/vermont-launches-the-first-state-e-bike-incentive-program-in-the-us-plus-other-ev-programs/ https://electrek.co/2022/05/03/vermont-launches-the-first-st... https://electrek.co/2022/11/29/another-us-state-adds-electric-bike-subsidy-this-time-with-up-to-1700-rebate/ https://electrek.co/2022/11/29/another-us-state-adds-electri... https://www.siliconvalleypower.com/home/showpublisheddocument/71185/637436242629670000 https://www.siliconvalleypower.com/home/showpublisheddocumen... https://www.peninsulacleanenergy.com/ebikes/ https://www.peninsulacleanenergy.com/ebikes/ https://www.alamedamp.com/407/Rebates-and-Incentives https://www.alamedamp.com/407/Rebates-and-Incentives
rayiner 4y ago
Fares revenues make up half of WMATA’s operating budget, which is on the low side. The London Tube fully covers its operating costs.
- woodruffw 4y ago
  Where did you get that from? WMATA’s farebox recovery ratio is 24%, as of 2020[1]. Edit: And from a quick look, that’s high for the US. The average seems closer to 10-15%. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farebox_recovery_ratio https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farebox_recovery_ratio
  - WillPostForFood 4y ago
    2020 data is totally wrecked because of Covid. Check the 2019 data for comparison. Average is 39%. NY was 54%, WMATA was 39%. https://www.transit.dot.gov/sites/fta.dot.gov/files/2020-11/2019%20Top%2050%20Profiles%20Report.pdf https://www.transit.dot.gov/sites/fta.dot.gov/files/2020-11/...
    - woodruffw 4y ago
      Thanks! I’ll note that that’s still a far cry from half, but it’s certainly more favorable than 24%. (NY’s 54% number is probably because of mixing of different fareboxes: recovery is much higher on the LIRR and MNRR than it is on the city buses and subways.)
      - arcticbull 4y ago
        Incidentally broken out at [1], the 2019 MTA recovery rates were: - MTA heavy rail was 70%. - Commuter rail was 55%. - Commuter bus was 32%. - BRT and Bus was 30%. [1] https://www.enotrans.org/article/the-mass-transit-fiscal-cliff-estimating-the-size-and-scope-of-the-problem/ https://www.enotrans.org/article/the-mass-transit-fiscal-cli...
    - Retric 4y ago
      That 39% is for all transit Bus is 19.7% Nationally and 13.6% for WMATA. Nationally in millions, Bus: (Fare Revenues 3,778) / (Operating expenses 16,110.4 + Use of capital funds 3,0444.7) = 19.7%. They also break out Bus Rapid Transit which is much worse 16.1 / (166.1 + 51.7) = 7.4% as is Commuter Bus 57.9 / (597.7 + 170.7) = 7.5% Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority, Bus: $124,011,141 / ( $731,946,008 + $182,850,687 ) = 13.6% So for WMATA forgoing Bus revenue wouldn’t move the needle very much. PS: And that’s ignoring the overhead of collecting fairs. Not only are some operating expenses devoted to collecting fairs, busses can move faster if people aren’t stopping and fiddling with payment.
up2isomorphism 4y ago
[flagged]
Overtonwindow 4y ago
Not quite true… A few years ago, the district of Columbia decriminalized fare evasion. So many people stopped paying the subway fare that the gap in the budget became very significant on the order of millions of dollars. What you see as a small component of transit systems budgets, they seem to see as a quite significant part of their budget. I think this is going to lead to worst outcomes, and a worse funded system. "Metro estimates it lost $40 million due to fair evasion in the 2022 fiscal year." $40 million is not "quite small" https://www.nbcwashington.com/news/local/transportation/metro-begins-issuing-fare-evasion-tickets-nov-1/3196489/ https://www.nbcwashington.com/news/local/transportation/metr...
- bradleyjg 4y ago
  Fare evasion is now de facto legal in nyc as well as the DAs refuse to prosecute. The MTA estimates it’ll cost $500 million a year.
- kennywinker 4y ago
  I don’t trust those “lost revenue” figures. What are they based on? My city used to not have fare gates. They made up insane estimates for how much adding fare gates would increase revenue - when the gates went in it ended up costing far more per year than it earned in increased revenue. And 40 million is not a small number for a person, but for a city with a budget of about 20 billion it’s not a very large number at all - especially when viewed in comparison with spending on roads and bridges. You don’t have to spend billions on another road bridge if everyone is taking the train
  - Overtonwindow 4y ago
    I can't really do your research for you, but I guess if you looked at the budgets which are publicly available for the Washington metro area, transportation authority, you might find out. Also, WMATA's budget is separate from the city...
viknesh 4y ago
I'm not sure that it's just funding. Collecting fares also creates capitalist incentives which is ultimately good for an end user, since the transit system is incentivized to do things (increase frequencies during rush hour, create more reliable systems) in order to collect additional fare revenue. You could argue that it's all "just funding," but fares can help to prioritize work which will help collect the most future fares, creating the largest positive impact for end users.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

minitoar 4y ago

arguably fuel tax is that fare

mertd 4y ago
If fuel tax is enough why do we keep passing trillion dollar infra bills and allocating majority of it to road repair?
- Bluecobra 4y ago
  The current fuel tax (in the USA) not enough. Federal fuel taxes have not been raised in 30 years and not adjusted for inflation/cost of living. I’m sure it would be a political death wish to try to raise it again. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_taxes_in_the_United_States https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_taxes_in_the_United_Sta...
  - wahern 4y ago
    Fuel tax is complicated by the fact that poorer families tend to live further away from work and thus drive more, both because housing is cheaper the further away from a city you get, but also because non-skilled labor doesn't aggregate along transit corridors the same way it does for office workers. So a low fuel tax is in effect a subsidy to the poor, notwithstanding that it also benefits corporations which maintain the infrastructure. You can see this in every part of the world--cheap fuel is the easiest way to placate the working class. Public transit can be a remedy, but outside Manhattan I don't think any locale in the U.S. has remotely the density to make it truly viable at scale for the poor and working classes. Obviously public transit is critical for some poorer subgroups, but those groups tend to be the ones trapped in ghettos. To truly bridge the gap so public transit is a substitute for fuel subsidies would require an order of magnitude increase in the size and reach of our public transit networks, plus a dramatic shift in zoning to reduce the costs of housing in urbanized areas, plus a dramatic shift in geographical demographics. Note that poor and working classes will hold onto the white picket fence ideal for much longer than the middle classes. So you're dealing with very strong counter-veiling pressures when it comes to the groups you're attempting to help the most.
    - arcticbull 4y ago
      > Public transit can be a remedy, but outside Manhattan I don't think any locale in the U.S. has remotely the density to make it truly viable at scale for the poor and working classes. Chicken and egg. Density is built along transit because transit supports dense houses. Build transit, get density. Fail to build transit, get sprawl.
      - wahern 4y ago
        > Build transit, get density. Building transit does not guarantee you get density. There are regulatory hurdles at play. In California, for example, cities will often be forced to up-zone the immediate couple of blocks around a station, but then everything else beyond that remains zoned for single-family housing, or at least zoned for far less density than the market could support. Moreover, there's a time gap between when housing is built and when it becomes economically accessible lower down the income ladder. New housing is expensive, even absent regulatory hurdles, and affordability mandates can't magically change financial viability. New housing can have immediate effects on housing costs, but indirectly on the costs of older housing; and on a regional scale it takes awhile to incentivize people at the periphery to move inward. Long-story short, to get from the current equilibrium to a more optimal equilibrium requires careful, coordinated policy management across decades. We could and should start, but we live in an age where if people don't see results in 6 weeks, they complain; and even when there are results, they still complain. They complain, vote people out, and vote in new people that promise more immediate results, but invariably can't deliver meaningful results.[1] I mean, this is how democracy has always worked, but the public reactions are far more compressed, while the necessary time spans for effective change are no shorter than they were before. [1] Case in point: rather than improving public transit, the popular panacea du jure is free fares. Free fares will not improve public transit in any way shape or form; if anything, they'll hasten its degradation. They'll make it cheaper for some, but for the most part not those at the bottom of the ladder, who already enjoy free transit. These gimmicks are popular because they're immediate.
- minitoar 4y ago
  I didn’t say it was enough, I was just pointing out that it’s analogous to a transit fare.
atyppo 4y ago
Car culture is massively subsidized in America. Why are we subsidizing (overwhelmingly wealthy) owners of EVs? Can I get a tax credit for an e-bike?
- bushbaba 4y ago
  Yes you can! Here's just a few of the rebate programs. https://electrek.co/2022/04/28/denvers-electric-bike-rebates-are-making-car-alternatives-cheaper-other-cities-should-listen-up/ https://electrek.co/2022/04/28/denvers-electric-bike-rebates... https://electrek.co/2022/05/03/vermont-launches-the-first-state-e-bike-incentive-program-in-the-us-plus-other-ev-programs/ https://electrek.co/2022/05/03/vermont-launches-the-first-st... https://electrek.co/2022/11/29/another-us-state-adds-electric-bike-subsidy-this-time-with-up-to-1700-rebate/ https://electrek.co/2022/11/29/another-us-state-adds-electri... https://www.siliconvalleypower.com/home/showpublisheddocument/71185/637436242629670000 https://www.siliconvalleypower.com/home/showpublisheddocumen... https://www.peninsulacleanenergy.com/ebikes/ https://www.peninsulacleanenergy.com/ebikes/ https://www.alamedamp.com/407/Rebates-and-Incentives https://www.alamedamp.com/407/Rebates-and-Incentives

rayiner 4y ago

Fares revenues make up half of WMATA’s operating budget, which is on the low side. The London Tube fully covers its operating costs.

woodruffw 4y ago
Where did you get that from? WMATA’s farebox recovery ratio is 24%, as of 2020[1]. Edit: And from a quick look, that’s high for the US. The average seems closer to 10-15%. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farebox_recovery_ratio https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farebox_recovery_ratio
- WillPostForFood 4y ago
  2020 data is totally wrecked because of Covid. Check the 2019 data for comparison. Average is 39%. NY was 54%, WMATA was 39%. https://www.transit.dot.gov/sites/fta.dot.gov/files/2020-11/2019%20Top%2050%20Profiles%20Report.pdf https://www.transit.dot.gov/sites/fta.dot.gov/files/2020-11/...
  - woodruffw 4y ago
    Thanks! I’ll note that that’s still a far cry from half, but it’s certainly more favorable than 24%. (NY’s 54% number is probably because of mixing of different fareboxes: recovery is much higher on the LIRR and MNRR than it is on the city buses and subways.)
    - arcticbull 4y ago
      Incidentally broken out at [1], the 2019 MTA recovery rates were: - MTA heavy rail was 70%. - Commuter rail was 55%. - Commuter bus was 32%. - BRT and Bus was 30%. [1] https://www.enotrans.org/article/the-mass-transit-fiscal-cliff-estimating-the-size-and-scope-of-the-problem/ https://www.enotrans.org/article/the-mass-transit-fiscal-cli...
  - Retric 4y ago
    That 39% is for all transit Bus is 19.7% Nationally and 13.6% for WMATA. Nationally in millions, Bus: (Fare Revenues 3,778) / (Operating expenses 16,110.4 + Use of capital funds 3,0444.7) = 19.7%. They also break out Bus Rapid Transit which is much worse 16.1 / (166.1 + 51.7) = 7.4% as is Commuter Bus 57.9 / (597.7 + 170.7) = 7.5% Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority, Bus: $124,011,141 / ( $731,946,008 + $182,850,687 ) = 13.6% So for WMATA forgoing Bus revenue wouldn’t move the needle very much. PS: And that’s ignoring the overhead of collecting fairs. Not only are some operating expenses devoted to collecting fairs, busses can move faster if people aren’t stopping and fiddling with payment.

up2isomorphism 4y ago

[flagged]

Overtonwindow 4y ago

Not quite true… A few years ago, the district of Columbia decriminalized fare evasion. So many people stopped paying the subway fare that the gap in the budget became very significant on the order of millions of dollars. What you see as a small component of transit systems budgets, they seem to see as a quite significant part of their budget. I think this is going to lead to worst outcomes, and a worse funded system. "Metro estimates it lost $40 million due to fair evasion in the 2022 fiscal year." $40 million is not "quite small" https://www.nbcwashington.com/news/local/transportation/metro-begins-issuing-fare-evasion-tickets-nov-1/3196489/ https://www.nbcwashington.com/news/local/transportation/metr...

bradleyjg 4y ago
Fare evasion is now de facto legal in nyc as well as the DAs refuse to prosecute. The MTA estimates it’ll cost $500 million a year.
kennywinker 4y ago
I don’t trust those “lost revenue” figures. What are they based on? My city used to not have fare gates. They made up insane estimates for how much adding fare gates would increase revenue - when the gates went in it ended up costing far more per year than it earned in increased revenue. And 40 million is not a small number for a person, but for a city with a budget of about 20 billion it’s not a very large number at all - especially when viewed in comparison with spending on roads and bridges. You don’t have to spend billions on another road bridge if everyone is taking the train
- Overtonwindow 4y ago
  I can't really do your research for you, but I guess if you looked at the budgets which are publicly available for the Washington metro area, transportation authority, you might find out. Also, WMATA's budget is separate from the city...

viknesh 4y ago

I'm not sure that it's just funding. Collecting fares also creates capitalist incentives which is ultimately good for an end user, since the transit system is incentivized to do things (increase frequencies during rush hour, create more reliable systems) in order to collect additional fare revenue. You could argue that it's all "just funding," but fares can help to prioritize work which will help collect the most future fares, creating the largest positive impact for end users.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]