Everytime, I read in the paper that public transit is the way to go.

They all say that it helps the enviroment, gives you a better quality of life, saves you money, is more cost effective than the huge amount of money that it would cost to build new roads, and that once you get into the habit of rideing you will preferr it over your automobil.

Something does not make sense with this though. I noticed that all the estimates they are doing depend on the assumption that most people will start using transit and would stick with it(perferr it).

I have read recently on the internet about the great public transit system in Europe from a Europeon Magazine(always read in paper the people over there love their system and would rather ride trains and stuff instead of their cars(transit folks say this is because they have made the proper investment) they were having no car days in France and Belgium for the express purpose of forceing people on to the public transit system. They were calling in sick in droves!!! The article was about how on these days the city suffers shutdowns, stores can't open and the like.

They don't like their transit system even after all these years!!

So, this being true above then all the other ideas that come with this has a gaping hole in the logic.

Now, consider that the other things(based upon the assumption that they are wrong and you will never love your bus) that I hear all the time are unrealistic. What about the cost?

It still costs less to build transit the roads, right?

I am not sure anymore myself. I did notice the studies do not seem realistic to me because they assume transit will catch on.

They did not include the cost of grid lock for instance, they assume that this will solve the problem so it is not included.

They do not show transit losing as much money as it always does.

I know the number for building roads is a high one, but I am begining to think the truth is being buried in these idealistic estimates.

The only thing we do know that works is to build more roads by looking to our past.

RTA said they would not ask for state money based upon this study, since then they have asked several times.

-- Dan Campbell (dila813@hotmail.com), December 24, 1999

Answers

To Dan: Neither the roads nor transit are privatized, hence you have a recipe for endless congestion. If you had to pay a pretty steep toll to use a road, you'd be mightily motivated to rideshare and spread the cost of the toll across as many people as possible.

I'm not sure what buses or rail cost, but for approximately 50 million (in 1999 dollars) a year, government (i.e., the taxpayer) could purchase approximately 10000 (ten thousand) vanpool vans. This could potentially reduce the number of cars during rush hour in the Puget Sound region by up to 100,000. Also, the benefit would be rather immediate compared to building roads.

Likewise, you could develop a network of non-stop express buses, again much faster than yo can build roads.

-- Matthew M. Warren (mattinsky@msn.com), December 24, 1999.

Matthew,

A pretty steep toll? Gee, won't that hurt the poor and low income? Oh, I forgot, they could be forced to use mass transit or try to carpool, even though they have an on call position.....and must report to work at the earliest possibly time. (Like many who work for Labor ready type agencies.) But, being low income, I guess they should not try to commute, and should stay home.

Did it ever occur to Matthew that it is not possible for everyone to carpool or ride transit to save money?

A network of non stop express busses? Oh, that will help congestion alot. Please don't read ANY of Craig's references, you might learn facts that would conflict with your own ideas, which do not seem to be based on facts, since you have posted no sites containing reference material.

All of your opinions are based on Matthews needs or desires. The Transportation Improvement Initiative may hurt Matthew personally, by keeping him from crossing the Tacoma Narrows Bridge sooner than most commuters, but it does NOT prevent Matthew from saving money by carpooling.

I support the use of tolls, but not if they are "pretty steep" and we would still pay a "pretty steep" gas tax.

If tolls are too high, you would force the gridlock elsewhere. Of course, that would certainly seem to benefit Matthew.

-- Marsha (acorn_nut@hotmail.com), December 24, 1999.

What always gets left out of the transit equation is the TOTAL cost of transit. In most of my postings, I've mainly talked about the capital cost disparity. In King County, for example, the six year capital investment plan gives far more money for transit than for roads. But both capital money spent on transit and operating money spent on transit should be considered in the equation. When capital money is spent on roads you get... well, a new or improved road. It gives you more capacity as long as it exists, subject to routine maintenance expenses. When you spend it on transit, you generally get new buses, buses that despite good maintenance have a finite life-span. You also get bus shelters, perhaps park n rides, and a few other things that have to a greater or lesser extent a more enduring legacy. But an awful lot justs goes to buy new buses. But for every dollar of capital investment you have two dollars of operating expense, at least in the case of Metro. This really buys you no long term legacy. Over half of it goes to personnel costs, the rest to expendables, liability coverage, etc. Metro is the largest single line item in the King County budget, roughly a third of a billion dollars, and at the end of the year most of this money is just gone. It does not represent an investment, more like running in place. Those few who benefit directly from the system get something, the 5% that use transit for commuting, the government workers and certainly the transit unions. But since costs have been rising well in excess of inflation, and the transit share has remained constant or declined, what's actually been happening is that we have paid more and more for process, for the overhead, since production really hasn't kept pace.

There is a tremendous opportunity cost to transit. We havegotten used to dumping a third of a billion a year into Metro without a second thought, certainly no thought as to what other things we could have built if we'd put that money into infrastructure. And the excuses are getting thinner and thinner as the overhead cost

-- (craigcar@crosswinds.net), December 24, 1999.

goes up.

-- (craigcar@crosswinds.net), December 24, 1999.

Yes Criag, that is what I am talking about.

Everyone know the quickest way to get from one point to another is to drive there yourself.

It takes me 1-1/2 at most to 15 minutes at best to get to work. If I took the bus it would take me 1-1/2 at best and 3-1/2 hours at worst (bus does not show, bad weather). The bus is a little more predictable so generally you the worst is 2 hours.

What does all this lost time do to the economy? What does it cost?

Things I have noticed is the following hidden costs: 1. People who ride buses can not stay late, they have a routine schedule to catch their bus and get home at a certain time. 2. People who carpool are at the mercy of the people they carpool with. If everyone is leaving then you have to leave too. This gives you the result of the lowest common denominator in that group.

And lets be realistic their is going to be a majority of people who in their mind can not give up their car.

-- Dan Campbell (dila813@hotmail.com), December 24, 1999.

What about the cost of owning an operating a motor vehicle? I notice you didn't included that in your equation, Craig.

-- Jim Cusick (jccusick@att.net), December 25, 1999.

"What about the cost of owning an operating a motor vehicle? I notice you didn't included that in your equation, Craig."

There are several ways to look at that issue Jim. One is to simply say that the cost of vehicle ownership, since it's borne by the individual rather than the public, doesn't really come in to a discussion of tax supported services and infrastructure. And there is a real case to be made for this argument.

Another is to look at the best case scenario for car ownership. A small used economy car, capable of doing the sort of basic transportation that transit does (and a whole lot more convenient when carrying packages or taking the kid to daycare), and the cost of this is surprisingly modest, even when you toss in insurance. Anything bigger/better/fancier is simply ego bolstering, a choice of conspicuous consumption.

Another is to look at the worst case scenario. How much we could save if we got rid of private vehicles altogether, and went 100% to public transportation.

Another is to look at whether or not the presence of transit can realistic lead to the avoidance of vehicle ownership. Except for people in very large cities, very few people will be able to avoid vehicle ownership based upon the presence of transit. And practically speaking, since 98% of the passenger miles are by non-transit motor vehicles, the actual cost avoidance possible to the public associated with transit use really isn't very high. This is one of the great fallacies in the cost accounting used in this laughable paper done by someone in WA-DOT to justify putting millions of your tax dollars into a scheme to increase passenger rail capacity between Oregon and BC. ( http://ntl.bts.gov/ntl/data/pacnwrail3.pdf) Once you get past the laughable extrapolations, you see that their entire business case analysis for avoiding the cost of vehicle ownership comes down to an assumption that 12,000 or so passenger miles on the train can be equated to a years driving therefore it avoids the cost of ownership for one vehicle. Now since this train would only stop at a half dozen towns in Washington, you could really only avoid owning a car if satisfying your need to go to these six places by rail would completely replace your need for a car. How likely is that?

I would actually maintain that what we are talking about here should only be what we are paying out in taxes. If you want to buy a car, a boat, or a plane, with YOUR money, I don't really think that I have much to say about it, nor should you have much to say about what I do with my money. If you ask me to buy your car, boat, or plane, that certainly does count. And that's what your asking me to do with transit. I believe in providing basic transportation services for the transit dependent as part of the basic social safety net. But if you are able to provide your own transportation services, I feel NO OBLIGATION to subsidize you so you can spend your money on other things.

So tell me what model you want, and we'll discuss it.

-- Craig Carson (craigcar@crosswinds.net), December 25, 1999.

To Marsha: I've presented "facts" in previous postings. FACT: The ridership of express buses (which utilize the HOV lanes in South King County) steadily increases - year after year. FACT: There are over 1000 vanpool vans in the Puget Sound region. Their numbers do not appear to be declining. I'm sorry for you and Craig that my "facts" do not fit Craig's mantra of "it's the demographics, stupid". Perhaps you can both adopt a new mantra of "It's the increasing ridership, ass".

Under my scenario, the tolled network of roads would parallel the existing network of "free" roads. It would be your choice as to which you wanted to use. The congestion on the "free" roads will reach a point where it "can't get any worse", as individuals simply choose to live or work elsewhere. The tolls are beyond my control, as the investors of the toll franchise would make their own decisions. I don't see how they would profit by setting the tolls to be excessively high.

As for low-income types and others, they would require some type of subsidy. Do you think the voters would go for that, especially the neo-nazis in Spokane? I would vote for higher taxesin order to help the poor. Would you?

-- Matthew M. Warren (mattinsky@msn.com), December 25, 1999.

"FACT: The ridership of express buses (which utilize the HOV lanes in South King County) steadily increases - year after year."

Some questions:

What total numbers of passenger miles are you talking. What percentage is that of the total passenger miles in the region?

Are they gaining market share, or merely gaining ridership with area growth?

What is the subsidy for each rider, including cost of the park n rides?

"FACT: There are over 1000 vanpool vans in the Puget Sound region. Their numbers do not appear to be declining"

What total numbers of passenger miles are you talking. What percentage is that of the total passenger miles in the region?

Are they gaining market share, or merely gaining ridership with area growth?

What is the subsidy for each rider, including cost of the park n rides?

I've seen a lot of assertions which may or may not be facts. Not every opinion is a fact. I have cited a variety of official government websites and studies in my postings. Could you provide some independent verification for your "facts" please?

You seem pre-occupied by Eastern Washingtonian phobia. Would you recommend cutting off Washington at the Cascades, and giving the rest to Idaho?

-- Craig Carson (craigcar@crosswinds.net), December 25, 1999.

To Craig: My "facts" are based on information I've gleaned from reading brochures published by Pierce Transit. I'm sorry the "facts" so surprise you that I must go to great detail to prove them to you.

As for subsidies via Park'N'Rides, they are minimal, since the owners of the cars in the Park'N'Rides paid license tab fees over the years, just like everybody else. You see, just like roads, Park'n'Rides and transit are supported by user fees.

It may be that the market share of transit has declined in the past few years. But, I'm optimistic that Sound Transit should at least exceed your lowly expectations. We'll see. As I recall, didn't predict that Sound Transit would be unaffected by I-695, whereas you pronounced it DOA. Who was right, then?

-- Matthew M. Warren (mattinsky@msn.com), December 26, 1999.

[To Craig: My "facts" are based on information I've gleaned from reading brochures published by Pierce Transit.] Ah, Pierce Transit, the outfit that covers 13% of its costs with farebox revenueL: http://www.ptbus.pierce.wa.us/99budget/bsum.htm)

[I'm sorry the "facts" so surprise you that I must go to great detail to prove them to you.] Actually, I read their (incredibly extensive) website a lot. Not everything on it constitutes facts, however. But cite the source (I read a brochure once, lack the authoritative ring that most appeals to authority have), and we
fll try to track it down and see if it is fact, or just public relations.

[As for subsidies via Park'N'Rides, they are minimal, since the owners of the cars in the Park'N'Rides paid license tab fees over the years, just like everybody else. You see, just like roads, Park'n'Rides and transit are supported by user fees.] Actually, they are significant. Subsidies are up to $29,000 per stall currently. Explain to me how a user has paid for a $29,000 stall? The answer is that of course they haven
ft. Transit and all the infrastructure connected to it are disproportionately subsidized by the 98% of people who DON
fT use transit and less subsidized by the 2% who do, since to the extent it is subsidized by user fees, these fees fall disproportionately on those who DON
fT use it. [It may be that the market share of transit has declined in the past few years. But, I'm optimistic that Sound Transit should at least exceed your lowly expectations. We'll see. As I recall, didn't predict that Sound Transit would be unaffected by I-695, whereas you pronounced it DOA. Who was right, then?] You apparently left out a word or two in the above. If you are asking if I predicted that I-695 would kill Sound Transit, I indicated that I believed that it might, and rather hoped that it would. Since Sounder is behind schedule, over budget, and their spokesperson has publicly said that the program is unexecutable without $60 million in state money for track improvements that disappeared with I-695, I
fd say the jury is still out on whether or not it will survive. They also depend upon sharing costs with AMTRAK,which is facing a 2002 deadline to become self sustaining (or go into bankruptcy), which neither the GAO nor anyone else believes they are going to be able to do. LINK has a lawsuit pending against it in Tukwila, another one in Rainier Valley, the downtown merchants are not going to support it unless it goes to Northgate because they will otherwise die economically when all the buses are forced out of the bus tunnel (which the King County Council may request $37 million for that LINK wasn
ft expecting to have to pay), it has to compete for federal money against areas that haven
ft recently had a major voter hit to their funding mechanisms (and the feds are looking more and more at dedicated busways as a much more cost effective vehicle than rail, so they
fre thinking about diverting dollars there), it
fs behind schedule and over budget, BUT EXCEPT FOR THESE TRIVIAL THINGS, YOU
fRE RIGHTNO PROBLEM!

Now some parts of Sound Transit may indeed be viable. Express buses, where there is enough of a demand to cover costs (and that
fs much easier to do if you privatize them) certainly make sense. That is not a huge niche, however, and even if filled, won
ft do too much for the areas congestion problem.

But since Sounder should have started operations by now, and hasn
ft, and LINK isn
ft scheduled to start until 2006, and currently doesn
ft have the money to do so, I
fd still be willing to place my money on Sound Transit folding, or at least surviving in much reduced form. If you don
ft believe that I-695 had a negative impact on Sound Transit and placed it in jeapordy, you
fre a small minority. I guarantee you everyone on the Sound Transit Board believes that it did, and they are the ones tryi

-- (craigcar@crosswinds.net), December 26, 1999.

Please talk about my question, we are talking about subsidies and stuff.

Q: Which costs more in hard and soft dollars, the total equation.

Also, lets forget what government pays for it, lets deal with how much it would cost us to do it.

That is only fair, we expect government to farm out this stuff for the least cost.

The pavement from home to work is an avg? 5mi? Locals pay with property taxes the local streets. State highways, County, Federal.

How many people are traveling over this pavement to and from work to share the cost?. how often to they break the routine, and how much milage is this?

Do you see where I am going, I think that if you add up all the transportation related revenue(taxes) you might be able to pave the road with gold foil and still be able to pay for the maintenance on the rest of the system.

Compare the cost of building a road in Washington to lets say PA. Not even close, we spend more than they do per sq foot. (yes I know about the pot holes, this is the climate, not the contractors).

This is the kind of studies that I want you guyes to tell me about. This is the kind of discussion I was trying to get.

And I realize that money losing transit can't be privatized unless someone feels they can turn it in to a break even situation.

Thanks!!

-- Dan Campbell (dila813@hotmail.com), January 06, 2000.

"Q: Which costs more in hard and soft dollars, the total equation. " It isn't that easy, Dan. What "costs" are we talking about here? Costs in public dollars? Clearly, roads pay their way to a far greater extent than transit (which also uses roads). Total dollar costs? If you could substitute transit IN LIEU of owning a vehicle, it's potentially extremely cost effective. Very few people can, but for those few, it's a windfall. So you're going to have to define your terms. If we are talking public dollars here, clearly roads are cheaper. If you get into non-monetary public costs (costs of congestion, costs of air pollution, costs of traffic accidents, etc.) there is no consensus because different "authorities" costt these out differently. I can give you a review reference for these non- monetary costs if you are interested. It's http://www.bts.gov/programs/jts/murphy.pdf

So define YOUR terms better, and maybe we can answer your question more effectively.

-- (craigcar@crosswinds.net), January 06, 2000.

"Compare the cost of building a road in Washington to lets say PA. Not even close, we spend more than they do per sq foot. (yes I know about the pot holes, this is the climate, not the contractors)."

Anybody that thinks the weather here is worse on roads than the weather in Pennsylvania has NEVER lived in Pennsylvania.

-- Mark Stilson (mark842@hotmail.com), January 06, 2000.

Why is it assumed that transit is supposed to make money? Why not look at it as a government provided service like public schools? Do we expect public schools to make money?

-- Questioning (g_ma2000@hotmail.com), January 06, 2000.

"Why is it assumed that transit is supposed to make money? Why not look at it as a government provided service like public schools? Do we expect public schools to make money? " No, but it can be argued (and legally has been) that schools are an essential state function. No one has made that argument for transit. If it were made, than you would have to argue for AT LEAST an equal distribution of subsidies per capita to all areas of the state (which certainly doesn't happen) and possibly an equal level of service to everyone throughout the state which would result in either a severe cut to people in urban areas or an enormous increase in per capita expenditures to people in less populated areas. We also expect all public expenditures to provide common benefits commensurate with their costs, and once you push transit out of the niche in which it is cost effective, it fails this test as well. (And public schools are getting pretty marginal here, IMHO)

-- (craigcar@crosswinds.net), January 06, 2000.

Why would an equal distribution of subsidies per capita be required? Like road construction or any other project, funds are distributed where needed, which never results in an equal distribution per capita.

I agree that we should expect public expenditures to provide common benefits commensurate with their costs. But cost effectiveness should not be how transit benefits are measured. The convenience that it provides to those who need it and to those who choose to use it, is difficult to measure. Examples showing transit cost effectiveness relative to roads, relative to person, commute time, etc. lose their meaning if costs are no longer the criteria for measuring effectiveness.

Maybe comparing transit to public libraries rather than to public schools would have provided a better analogy. People can choose to use the services it provides or could use their own resources. There are no measurable cost benefits, so we do not look at the cost effectiveness of providing the service.

-- Questioning (g_ma2000@hotmail.com), January 07, 2000.

Why would an equal distribution of subsidies per capita be required? Like road construction or any other project, funds are distributed where needed, which never results in an equal distribution per capita. Youll have to talk to the people who set up the rules about state support to the schools for that. I believe the intention is to provide a baseline requirement to everyone, to eliminate poorer districts being underfunded relative to richer districts. That may still happen with levies for nice-to-haves, but in theory everyone gets the basic needs equally.

I agree that we should expect public expenditures to provide common benefits commensurate with their costs. But cost effectiveness should not be how transit benefits are measured. And why should transit be an exception if you accept this rule in general?

The convenience that it provides to those who need it and to those who choose to use it, is difficult to measure. Examples showing transit cost effectiveness relative to roads, relative to person, commute time, etc. lose their meaning if costs are no longer the criteria for measuring effectiveness.  Actually, they do not. If you look at convenience, people vote with their feet (or in this case their steel belted radials) and the vote is overwhelmingly against transit. Even for transit dependent people (unable to drive), transit is NOT the mode of choice. Bumming a ride in the cars of friends and family is. This has been shown over and over again in (extremely expensive) National Personal Transportation Surveys that the federal DOT does about every 5 years. The NPTS has also demonstrated that the average trip time by transit (40 minutes) is significantly longer than the average HOV commute (20 minutes), and that the number of people who are transit dependent continues its long decline. While you may be able to convince me to fork over my tax dollars for not terribly cost-effective services for the transit dependent, youre going to have a real hard time convincing me that I ought to be willing to subsidize non cost-effective transit services for those who choose to use it for their convenience. It would be REAL convenient for me if you would provide me with a fully fueled and serviced F-16 for my next trip to California (preferably a D model, since I want to take my wife along, too), but that is an UNREALISTIC EXPECTATION. Just because itd get me to Sacramento faster and more conveniently than Southwest, doesnt justify a societal need to dedicate a non cost-effective transportation mode to my benefit.

Maybe comparing transit to public libraries rather than to public schools would have provided a better analogy. People can choose to use the services it provides or could use their own resources. There are no measurable cost benefits, so we do not look at the cost effectiveness of providing the service. Thats RIDICULOUS. We constantly decide about levels of service for libraries. Some are little branch libraries, some are legal libraries. No library in this country has either a blank check or a budget unencumbered by issues of cost-benefit. You dont get out much, do you?

-- Craig Carson (craigcar@crosswinds.net), January 07, 2000.

Questioning,

Try comparing transit to transit then. Transit in Washington gets a much higher rate of subsidy than most other regions. AND IT HASN'T DONE A BIT OF GOOD! Even cheap fares haven't encouraged the use of transit here. Time to stop wasting our money. It was a nice social experiment, but it flopped. Build the roads.

-- Marsha (acorn_nut@hotmail.com), January 07, 2000.

Think about this, we pay all that money for road construction but this money is reabsorbed through taxes on road construction and its workers.

Shouldn't a part of the general tax revenue be returned to transportation. Eviromental impact fees, waste disposal charges, gas taxes, sales tax, income tax.

All of these taxes artifially increase the amount that studies use to calculate the cost of road building. With taxes being so high if this was removed from the equation wouldn't road building suddenly come down by 20% or more?

-- Dan Campbell (dila813@hotmail.com), January 08, 2000.

Think about this, we pay all that money for road construction but this money is reabsorbed through taxes on road construction and its workers. Shouldn't a part of the general tax revenue be returned to transportation. Eviromental impact fees, waste disposal charges, gas taxes, sales tax, income tax.

All of these taxes artifially increase the amount that studies use to calculate the cost of road building. With taxes being so high if this was removed from the equation wouldn't road building suddenly come down by 20% or more?

-- Dan Campbell (dila813@hotmail.com), January 14, 2000.

Just back from vacation and am surprised at how active this site has been. I see that some people are still out to reduce/eliminate transit services.

What if a transit system were subsidized just to support those who were truly transit dependant, would that be satisfactory? Would those who were not truly transit dependant be able to use this transit service? If so, how should the fee for these users be calculated?

-- Questioning (g_ma2000@hotmail.com), January 20, 2000.

"What if a transit system were subsidized just to support those who were truly transit dependant, would that be satisfactory?" It would for me. I think we ought to give people a reasonable opportunity to participate in society, earn a living, get to the store, see friends. It won't work well everywhere (not enough population density) but it will in most urban areas.

"Would those who were not truly transit dependant be able to use this transit service?" Sure. Hopefully it would give some economies of scale that would decrease the unit cost of providing transit service to the transit dependent. Everyone might benefit.

"If so, how should the fee for these users be calculated?" Marginal cost. If adding a thousand riders costs $2000 dollars a day, charge em $2 each. That way things that aren't cost-effective stop themselves.

-- craigster (craigcar@crosswinds.net), January 20, 2000.

If it costs 2000 dollars a day you have to charge more than 2 dollars each. Not all of them will ride it each day. You can make the monthly pass for this much but you have to charge the daily crowd about 2.45 dollars a day to make it.

-- Dan Campbell (dila813@hotmail.com), January 23, 2000.

After making a comparison of those "wonderful" Vanpool statistics for the last two years available, It is very apparent that the number of vanpools at Pierce Transit, (Matthew's area), is indeed increasing. So are the costs of operating them. But the increase ridership did not keep pace proportionally.

Operating Expense, for 1997 was $856,232. Operating Expense for 1998 were $1,304,900.

In 1997, the number for Unlinked passenger trips/vehicle revenue hour was 10.94 passengers. In 1998 it was 9.82 passengers. They lost unlinked passenger trips per vehicle revenue hour equivilant to more than one whole body.

In fact, the numbers look pretty bad between those 2 years. See for yourself. http://www.ntdprogram.com/NTD/Profiles.nsf/1997+Exceeding+200000/0003/ $File/P0003.PDF

http://www.ntdprogram.com/NTD/Profiles.nsf/1998+All/0003/ $File/P0003.PDF

A little bird told me the Liability/Insurance costs of Vanpools is far higher than that of fixed bus route service as well. Seems that Professionally trained Drivers have fewer accidents in traffic.

-- Marsha (acorn_nut@hotmail.com), January 23, 2000.

Marsha-

The other issue with vanpools (and most of transit, for that matter) is that people tend to start them (DUH!) where they are most cost-effective. While that's a totally REASONABLE thing to do, it's also kind of skimming the cream. The initial programs establish a cost-effectiveness that the program just cannot maintain as it expands outside of the original highly favorable niche. Oftentimes things that make perfectly good pilot programs, fail miserably when expanded, and much of transit (and vanpools) has the same sort of makes sense only in a niche economics.

-- (craigcar@crosswinds.net), January 23, 2000.