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I live in the SF Bay Area. For a family weekend day trip to SF, taking BART costs $50+, and we always elect to just drive. I wonder how much the traffic would
by yegle 11mo ago
I live in the SF Bay Area. For a family weekend day trip to SF, taking BART costs $50+, and we always elect to just drive.
I wonder how much the traffic would improve in/out of SF if BART is cheaper.
- raybb 11mo agoIf you have any transfers as part of that to muni or other services you'll be happy to know that they'll be much cheaper/free starting in December. https://clipper2.hikingbytransit.com/ https://clipper2.hikingbytransit.com/
- bombcar 11mo agoSo many public transit options just absolutely fall about if you have more than the standard 1.5 kids. It adds up super fast; even “kids ride free with parent” would go a long way.
- ericmay 11mo agoPerhaps, but with more transit options that means fewer people on the road which is good for those who have 2+ children to lug around. On a side note we should drop the public bit of this because it implies a bus is “publicly funded” but highways aren’t. Both are subsidized by the taxpayer.
- bombcar 11mo agoIt distinguishes it from private transit like Uber and taxis and even shared ride vans.
- eru 11mo ago> On a side note we should drop the public bit of this because it implies a bus is “publicly funded” but highways aren’t. Both are subsidized by the taxpayer. Arguably, neither of them should be. Give poor people money, instead of giving free highway access (and bus transit) to rich and poor alike. Rich people don't need our help, and poor people would rather have the money to spend as they wish instead of other people deciding for them what alms they should consume. Individual cars have worse externalities than busses, so that means we should tax them more than busses. Though I suspect once drivers of cars and busses are paying non-subsidised prices for road access and fuel, busses will naturally look better in comparison, no extra tax differential needed.
- PaulHoule 11mo agoHighway is paid for in vehicle registration and gas taxes.
- chii 11mo agobut not completely - and this is only even talking about maintenance. The initial investment is absolutely not "paid for", because the economic returns from them are privatized, and the tax collection of those private benefits aren't really up to par imho. If it was a private business who did this road/highway investment, they'd be losing money (due to the cost of capital, and the lack of returns from collected tolls/taxes, not to mention the maintenance outlay that comes as a big lumpsum).
- eru 11mo agoRoads are also not public goods in the economic sense. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_good https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_good > In economics, a public good (also referred to as a social good or collective good)[1] is a commodity, product or service that is both non-excludable and non-rivalrous [...] That's because roads are rather excludable (see toll roads), and if you've ever been in a traffic jam, you'll notice that road use is rivalrous.
- bluGill 11mo agoThe poor I want to help the most are not mentally able to handle money. I know someone who gave money to 'nigerain prince' scams several times - a nice guy but he has no idea scams exist even after that.
- subroutine 11mo agoWhy are you equating busses to roads and not cars? Cars are not subsidized and in fact car-related taxes (vehicle sales, gas tax, yearly registration fees, in some cases tolls) have historically covered the majority of roadway infrastructure costs. Without car related taxes, we would absolutely need to charge bus fees to subsidize roadway costs, and they would probably need to be pretty steep.
- defrost 11mo agoWho Pays for Roads? How the "Users Pay" Myth Gets in the Way of Solving America's Transportation Problems ~ https://frontiergroup.org/resources/who-pays-roads/ https://frontiergroup.org/resources/who-pays-roads/ Road Taxes and Funding by State, 2025 Most states fail to collect enough in user fees to fully provide for roadway spending. This necessitates transfers from general funds or other revenue sources that are unrelated to road use to pay for road construction and maintenance. Only three states—Delaware, Montana, and New Jersey—raise enough revenue to fully cover their highway spending. The remaining 47 states and the District of Columbia must make up the difference with tax revenues from other sources. The states that raise the lowest proportion of their highway funds from transportation-related sources are Alaska (19.4 percent) and North Dakota (35.1 percent), both states which rely heavily on revenue from severance taxes.
- ericmay 11mo agoThanks. Yea also not accounting for other social costs - obesity, teen deaths, first responders and police spending time rescuing people who are maimed in car crashes. There are benefits too and all, just saying we don’t really have a full cost readily available for comparison because it’s hard to measure, never mind the literal dollars and cents that go into funding.
- subroutine 11mo agoLooking through the list, https://taxfoundation.org/data/all/state/state-road-taxes-funding/ https://taxfoundation.org/data/all/state/state-road-taxes-fu... that's about what I expected. And that's not even including sales tax from car purchases, and maintenance related spending. Suffice to say, without cars, a year bus pass would need to run ~ however much the average person spends per year on all car related taxes.
- outside1234 11mo agoWe just need to subsidize public transport like we subsidize roads.
- rootusrootus 11mo agoIsn't most public transit already subsidized?
- Aurornis 11mo agoVery much so. When I was younger I assumed fares were for the cost of the public transport, but after following some local budgeting discussions I was stunned by how little the fares covered operating costs. Small amounts of cost sharing are a useful technique for incentivizing people to make wise decisions in general, so there’s some value in having token small fares. It’s the same difference that shows up when you list something for $10 in your local classifieds as opposed to listing it as FREE. Most people who use classifieds learn early on that listing things for free is just asking for people to waste your time, but listing for any price at all seems to make people care a little more and put some thought into their decisions. I’ve often given things away for free after listing them for small amounts in classifieds because it filters for people who are less likely to waste your time.
- loeg 11mo agoFares income isn't insubstantial -- just as an example I'm familiar with, King County Metro (Seattle area) was ~33% funded by fares before Covid (which destroyed both ridership and percent non-stealing riders). It is material; not "token."
- Aurornis 11mo agoWhat was funded? You mean operating costs? That’s only part of what it costs to build the lines and do all of the construction, among other things.
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- zbrozek 11mo agoWhen I had a solar-charged EV, taking transit to SF only made sense if I was going by myself and didn't need to do any transfers. Any additional people or modes and it was always better to drive.
- skylurk 11mo agoI've found this to be the case nearly everywhere I've travelled, regardless of the kind of vehicle. The only exceptions are the places with free public transit and expensive parking, like Luxembourg.
- throwaway2037 11mo agoThis is misleading. How far is your drive from home to your destination in SF? I bet the total cost of ownership per kilometer driven far exceeds the BART fare.
- skylurk 11mo agoLike many households, they probably have a car already for other reasons. To me this is big reason why transit has to be basically free to attract riders. It has to compete with marginal cost per kilometer of private car use, not total cost.
- sagarm 11mo agoMarginal cost of driving is much higher than people think, because they don't count depreciation, maintenance, and insurance. There's a reason the IRS reimbursement rate is $0.70/mi.
- skylurk 11mo agoTrue, though it depends quite a lot on the car. If you're driving a second-hand civic or prius, the marginal cost per mile will be much lower than a Mini or a truck. I don't know what it's like for EVs. Where I live and with what I drive, once there is a single passenger, the car breaks even on the milage. But parking can shift things back in favor of public transit. It's close enough that traffic is always the deciding factor for which mode I take. If transit were free, I would probably just take it most of the time.
- throwaway2037 11mo agoThis. No matter what is said to drivers in HN (and the "Real World"), they always have a good reason to drive instead of take transit. No worries about them. We, transit riders, can be productive (read, work, sleep, etc.) during our commutes.