How We Talk About Funding for Transit

[M II A II R II K]

How We Talk About Funding for Transit


07/09/2012

By Alex Vuocolo

Read More: http://americancity.org/daily/entry/...ng-for-transit

After months of compromise and deliberation, Congress reauthorized the Surface Transportation law this month with just enough to keep both sides satisfied but neither elated. If anything was proven during the debate, it’s that a gap exists between how advocates and politicians talk about mass transit and its potential benefits. If we are to make any progress in the future, we’ll have to clarify some key points in the conversation. For example, a June op-ed in the Washington Examiner by Josh Barro contests transit advocates’ claims that government subsidies are tilted in favor of automobiles.

- Which is to say that transit needs a bigger chunk of taxpayer dollars than automobile-related services to even operate, let alone prosper — a crime it shares with other government-funded staples such as health care and scientific research, considering Barro pegs government subsidies at just 10 percent of the total cost of road travel. Barro correctly cites zoning and planning as major causes of transit’s difficulties, but seriously underestimates how an economic and cultural emphasis on road travel has impeded the development of transit. By contrasting them in mere dollar terms, the long-term benefits of transit — and, in turn, the long-term costs of road travel — are ignored.

- The cost of free parking, for instance, was estimated at $127 billion a year as of 2002, according to Donald Shoup, professor of urban planning at the University of California, in his book The High Cost of Free Parking., that adds at least an additional 10 percent to the public cost of road travel. If other “externalities” related to road travel, such as the cost of land use, air pollution and car accidents, were further quantified, the cost analysis would only rise. As for transit’s dependence on government funding, it is not entirely the result of failure. Transit inherently comes with high initial costs and low profits. Washington D.C.‘s relatively new Capital Bikeshare has already experienced this. According to U.S. News, its initial costs were mostly covered by government funding, and it is already having trouble covering its operating costs.

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[TysonsEngineer]

I think one of the problems that transit authorities run into is, when fares are raised they are almost always correlated with a raise in pay and benefits or increase in hiring. No transit authority is appropriately setting aside the raised funds for future use on expansions. Instead they are more and more relying on subsidization from jurisdictions for these improvements.

Now I agree that jurisdictions that receive benefit from the transit system should help fund it with the revenue that is generated, but when you see any fare raise it shouldnt be a green light for spending, it should go half and half for improvements needed/inflationary increase but also towards the future. As long as we continue to "increase" the cost of operation for transit, the more it struggles to come to parody in cost versus SOV.

In the case of WMATA for instance, I believe most riders would be ALL for a fare increase if it didnt mean it would simply help continue funding employee benefits of 35% of salary which are just out of control. Police officers and teachers dont get such nice benefits packages why should transit workers?

http://thetysonscorner.com/wmata-bud...e-need-change/

http://thetysonscorner.com/time-to-t...-wmata-budget/