In my recent spate of transit related yammering, I’ve been talking a lot about some of what I consider “basic” elements in the operation of a transit system, things like: Revenue Per Customer (and measuring customers as customers), deferring new facilities in lieu of operations funding, and of course over time it’s been more efficient routing and more frequent service.
The bottom line is transit systems cost money. The funding source for transit operations in a lot of places is drying up as so many places are dependent on sales tax revenue to fund the necessary public subsidy for transit.
Despite everything I’ve said about transit fares covering more of the costs of a system’s operation, I have not argued nor will I for the elimination of subsidies for the ongoing operation of a public transit system. Far from being money down the drain, when public money goes into operating a decent public transit service, the tertiary benefits make it worthwhile.
I’ve been not using my car lately. I live 10 blocks from an express bus that takes me straight from the middle of the city to suburbs 12 miles away in 35 minutes. This bus runs from early in the morning until late at night, every 30 minutes except for one run, except on weekend days where several evening departures run hourly as well.
This bus is reliable, clean, comfortable, and quiet except when the accordion section hasn’t been oiled, and has wi-fi. Thanks to the network of local feeder buses, which don’t have terrible schedules, it is possible to go to and from work virtually any time of day or night on any day.
If you think about the potential lack of productivity which might be suffered by the economy as a whole when people’s cars don’t work, to me that sort of outweighs how annoying it is to be stuck in traffic trying to just do basic necessities of life. A regularly scheduled vehicle that moves along it would seem to me to be a basic component of any arterial route.
The new administration in Washington seems to get this to a certain point: there is money in the recently passed stimulus legislation for public transit service improvements. Sadly, according to Derek Morse, interim director of the Washoe County RTC, none of the money can be used to fund operations. In a recent Reno-Gazette Journal article, he said “"The biggest misfortune in my mind is the lack of flexibility to use those funds for operations.“ [Only a few state transportation priorities to get stimulus money, ANJEANETTE DAMON 2/18/2009]
I’ve argued here before: Spend the $37 million that would be spent on the wrong location, wrong facility new transit center on service improvements and a smaller-scale transit hub located on the couple of blocks of covered train trench in downtown Reno.
One thing stands in the middle of that plan, however, which is a similar thing to what the RTC chairman alluded to in the RGJ: the transit center project I don’t like is 80/20 FTA Grant/local money. $30mil of the funding isn’t local, it’s from a federal transit grant and that grant is probably all about facilities and not at all about vehicle service operation.
So, while it’s admirable that the administration’s plan includes funding for new transit service facilities, it’s unfortunate indeed that it does not offer a band-aid for local transit operations budgets which are suffering as a result of down economic trends.
To that I would add that it is also the unfortunate that the voters in this instance decided not to raise the sales tax a fraction of a percent to offset the loss in funding.
It is true that public transit costs money. What you don't hear often is that the private auto system is a profit-making system that is subsidized. There are so many hidden costs to the auto system that if we made public transit free we would actually save money!
We are compiling a list of the hidden costs of the auto ...
http://www.freepublictransit.org/index.php?pr=Externalities
Posted by: fpteditors | March 24, 2009 at 05:44 PM