Living Car Free - MTA Cuts Service for the Poor and Students!

We were just talking about this topic on another thread on how high fuel prices were going to have an effect on public transportation. If you read that thread, I predicted service cuts would happen but didn't expect to it to occur for several years. I was dead wrong!

Public transportation in Nashville is being cut and high fuel prices are the culprit! This is just the beginning and I suspect many other towns will follow down the same road by eliminating bus routes. I hope people get ready and start asking for higher fares or face losing their service. There are alot of lines going into the burbs that don't carry many passengers and these are the ones in danger to be cut to save money. The days of inexpensive public transportation may very well come to an end. Very sad.

It used to be that access to good paying jobs, quality schools and neighborhoods were paramount when looking for a town to live. Not anymore. Those who want to remain car free will have to search which towns have extensive public transportation. Quite frankly, those in Nashville who just lost their service are better off moving with all the associated costs involved because losing public transportation is like receiving an additional 3-6K tax bill!

http://www.tennessean.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080521/NEWS0202/805210400

I hope you're wrong, in the other direction. I noticed that the local paper here is talking about how bus and train ridership is up and the WMATA is worried that it won't be able to handle the extra load. I didn't read the articles but one blurb was that the outlying suburbs are going to add capacity. If the number of riders is up then revenue should increase until they have to buy more vehicles.

Denver is facing the same issue due to increased ridership and fuel costs. I wrote that now of all times should NOT be the time to be cutting transit (http://www.futuregringo.com/index.php/2008/05/22/more-rtd-riders-reduced-service/)- especially when people have shown they want and are using it...

Living in the Los Angeles area has taught many things. For one, no matter what type of transportation system or option you use, don't be too dependent on any one type of means of getting around. On my personal list of options available are:


bikes (especially folding ones) and my personal favorite
public transportation-buses, trains, & cabs
renting cars
walking

So you can see, my list is very inexpensive compared to just car ownership only. I switch and use whatever I need or prefer at that time. I recommend that everyone else develop a unique list for your use and reflects your own needs and lifestyle far better than mine would.

I wonder if electrified rail suffers from the same vulnerability to high petroleum prices.

Denver is facing the same issue due to increased ridership and fuel costs. I wrote that now of all times should NOT be the time to be cutting transit (http://www.futuregringo.com/index.php/2008/05/22/more-rtd-riders-reduced-service/)- especially when people have shown they want and are using it...

This quote, in particular, pisses me off:


Routes with low ridership such as the “G” light rail line, and the “AT” airport-Littleton bus line will potentially be eliminated, truncated, or reduced in frequency. Kevin Flynn from the Rocky Mountain News writes:

The G-line is pretty routinely the MOST crowded line... they run only 1 car even during rush hour, and it's ALWAYS packed at that time. It's also the line that I now live on. :mad: ... I've shown up and there will be lines of people lined up at all the entrances, and 4 bikes waiting ahead of me.... What pisses me off even more is that I have to buy my ticket before heading up to the platform and finding that there's absolutely no way that I'll be able to get onto a train.

I wonder if electrified rail suffers from the same vulnerability to high petroleum prices.

Yes and no...they typically have a contract with various utilities to provide power at a set rate, however when contracts come up for renewal or there is a brownout/blackout....

Aaron:)

I wonder if electrified rail suffers from the same vulnerability to high petroleum prices.

This is the exact reason why I moved next to a lightrail line. It's very rare to see a city abandon a lightrail line once it's built especially if it was developed in the past five years. Lightrail attracts far more passengers than bus service over the same number of miles.

With the price of gas going through the roof, the fare box does not cover even the price of the fuel let alone the driver's salary, maintenance, repairs, bus depot and administrative costs. Small towns will only subsidize these bus lines so much before they are let go. I suspect the transit line in Nashville were asking for more money from the town was willing to spend resulting in the line being cut.

I wonder if electrified rail suffers from the same vulnerability to high petroleum prices.
A few months ago the coal industry had adverts on the subway cars bragging that they were powering the trains. One local power plant has a rail line where the coal trains pull right into the plant to dump the coal. The coal trains are diesel electric so there must be some effect.

...Public transportation in Nashville is being cut and high fuel prices are the culprit! This is just the beginning and I suspect many other towns will follow down the same road by eliminating bus routes. I hope people get ready and start asking for higher fares or face losing their service.
Ehhhh, , , , don't hold your breath on that one.

...There are alot of lines going into the burbs that don't carry many passengers and these are the ones in danger to be cut to save money. The days of inexpensive public transportation may very well come to an end. Very sad....
Was public transportation ever cheaper than private? Could it be that it never was?


...Quite frankly, those in Nashville who just lost their service are better off moving with all the associated costs involved because losing public transportation is like receiving an additional 3-6K tax bill! ...
3K per rider per year is a stunning amount of money to pay someone for not having their own transportation.

If someone rides the bus for a total of an hour a day (weekdays), and assuming an average bus speed of around 30 MPH, that means their $3K of bus money is only getting them about 7,800 miles.

For $800 you can buy a 50-cc Chinese scooter, and with the $2200 left over you can buy enough gasoline (at $4/gal, and at ~70 MPG) to ride that scooter 38,500 miles. Or, if you want to look at it the other way, that scooter would need only about $450 of gas (at $4/gal) to go 7800 miles.... So for less than half what they're spending to cart people around in a bus, the Nashville city govt could buy all the bus riders a new scooter and a gas card good for ~112 gallons every year.

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I heavily suspect that a lot of government pensions are going to start collapsing in about 15 years at most--and the occupation of "city bus driver" (along with a lot of other non-critical services) is going to go the way of the dodo. If you want to live car-free, then the prudent choice might be to move somewhere that you will not be dependent upon public transportation at all.
~

~snip~
Was public transportation ever cheaper than private? Could it be that it never was?


~snip~

Depends on how you calculate the various subsidies, tax breaks/incentives, etc. IMHO it is cheaper to have to add a couple of buses than to add a lane to the urban interstate to accommodate an additional 120 single occupant automobiles. (I do realize that it takes a lot more than 120 vehicles to require an additional lane) They are building a 2,000 home subdivision near where I live (yes 2000) the state has already informed the developers that they will be responsible for the need to add 2 lanes (one in each direction) to the main road that leads to the military base where the bulk of the people that will live there are expected to be working. I suspect for the price of adding those 2 lanes they could probably pay for a dedicated bus service to haul those people back and forth for a while. The big question being...would those people utilize that service?

Aaron:)

Depends on how you calculate the various subsidies, tax breaks/incentives, etc. IMHO it is cheaper to have to add a couple of buses than to add a lane to the urban interstate to accommodate an additional 120 single occupant automobiles. (I do realize that it takes a lot more than 120 vehicles to require an additional lane) ...
Well I was all set to argue and you just shot down your point all by yourself.

A road lane can carry a lot more single-occupant cars than can be transported on "a couple more buses". Figure three seconds between passing cars, that's 20 people per minute (driving their own cars). And I presume you believe that a bus can carry 120 people, assuming it's filled to capacity.

So for a bus line to carry as many people as another lane would carry cars, you'd need to run a full bus with 120 riders roughly every three minutes. And since most metro buses (that I've seen) are on 15-minute or (sometimes in big urban areas during rush hour) 10-minute rotations, then you'd need either three times as many, or possibly five times as many buses running.
And so then, the cost of running "enough" buses becomes not $3K per rider per year, but $10K-$15K per rider/per year....

This is the reason I suspect that public transportation is not a wise use of public money. When you take any public bus system in place now and begin figuring the costs of expanding it enough to allow the capacity for everyone to use it when they need it, the cost goes astronomical pretty quickly--there is no "scale of savings" present. The costs only stay low when the system, and the ridership, stays low--but I can't see any point where costs would reverse--so I would bet that it's not really economical at all, on any scale. It's basically government wasting taxpayer funds on a job that most people can do cheaper themselves.

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The only people that really need buses might be blind people, as driving a vehicle is not an option for them.
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You should either cite the sources for your costs, or quit using them.

If Europe can maintain their pubtran at their extortionate petrol prices, why can't the US?

You should either cite the sources for your costs, or quit using them.
Which cost?
It was in the OP that he said "... Quite frankly, those in Nashville who just lost their service are better off moving with all the associated costs involved because losing public transportation is like receiving an additional 3-6K tax bill! ..."

Here's a 50cc Chinese scooter for $700:
http://www.scooterdepot.us/Scooters-50cc-Gas-Motor-Mopeds-p-320.html
~

In better news my city (Flagstaff) just passed 4 new resolutions for tax increases benefiting our bus system. They are adding more frequent service on the most crowded lines (15-20 minute intervals), they are replacing the old buses with new hybrid buses (40% less gas, and 50% more quiet), and they are adding a few more routes to better cover our city! Woohoo, I voted yes on all 4 and 64-74% did too. I really wish we had a light rail though.

I've heard of school districts talking about charging for bus service for students or cancelling it. Good thing school is about to be out!

Actually, the Mass transit corporations and systems are subsidized under the Mass Transit Act of the Federal Government. The local cities, only generally subsidize by forgoing property tax for their assets as they are a Utility, in effect.


This is the exact reason why I moved next to a lightrail line. It's very rare to see a city abandon a lightrail line once it's built especially if it was developed in the past five years. Lightrail attracts far more passengers than bus service over the same number of miles.

With the price of gas going through the roof, the fare box does not cover even the price of the fuel let alone the driver's salary, maintenance, repairs, bus depot and administrative costs. Small towns will only subsidize these bus lines so much before they are let go. I suspect the transit line in Nashville were asking for more money from the town was willing to spend resulting in the line being cut.

I am not going to attempt to run the numbers tonight...BUT you have to consider parking on both ends, it costs money to build parking for those 120 single occupant cars. I said "a couple of buses" that would be 60 people per bus. A 60 passenger bus would only occupy as much road space as maybe 3-4 cars. In most cities parking is the elephant in the room, everybody wants to park near their place of employment. That is one of the reasons so many businesses are in the boonies, because land is cheap to provide for parking for the single occupant vehicles. As someone that works in NYC, Boston or any other large city how much they have to pay for parking. That is a subsidy.

Aaron:)

For $800 you can buy a 50-cc Chinese scooter, and with the $2200 left over you can buy enough gasoline (at $4/gal, and at ~70 MPG) to ride that scooter 38,500 miles. Or, if you want to look at it the other way, that scooter would need only about $450 of gas (at $4/gal) to go 7800 miles.... So for less than half what they're spending to cart people around in a bus, the Nashville city govt could buy all the bus riders a new scooter and a gas card good for ~112 gallons every year.


The problem with the scooter idea is more or less the same with the bicycle. It's basically a fair weather vehicle that are considered more or less, a motorcycle. We all know how people feel about them!

Having said that, I heard on the radio that scooter and motorcycle sales are way up. We are seeing a change in transportation choices but you'll never get most of the bus transport users on scooters. I suppose as a last resort, the carefree will have to buy scooters in case public transportation is discontinued. But bear in mind that motorcycle/scooter/bicycle transport is basically a male vehicle. What are the women and children going to ride?

In better news my city (Flagstaff) just passed 4 new resolutions for tax increases benefiting our bus system. They are adding more frequent service on the most crowded lines (15-20 minute intervals), they are replacing the old buses with new hybrid buses (40% less gas, and 50% more quiet), and they are adding a few more routes to better cover our city! Woohoo, I voted yes on all 4 and 64-74% did too. I really wish we had a light rail though.
I have a wonderful idea:
if one (or more) of you would go to the trouble of finding out what a city bus costs your town, what the drivers get paid (total pay + benefits per year) and the rate of fares, it would be possible to find out exactly what the cost-per-mile of a city bus is... and then it could be compared to other means of transportation.
~

I've learned that my regional bus system (King County Metro in the Seattle area) estimates the cost of bus service per passenger mile at $0.65/mile. This compares to AAA's estimate of $0.50/mile for driving a car. However, in real life, the numbers are much different. A monthly bus pass in Seattle costs $54.00. I can't even begin to imagine that you could drive your own car for less per month. It's easy to see that public transit is heavily subsidized here. But so is driving. In fact, driving is much more heavily subsidized than public transportation; way more public money goes to road expansion than to buses, trains, etc. And that $0.50/mile car cost figure doesn't include public subsidies. I'm fairly certain that, in real terms, having people drive personal cars all over creation is way more expensive than public transport. Bottom line: buying more buses and incurring the associated costs is actually much less expensive in the long run than expecting everyone to drive everywhere.

I have a wonderful idea:
if one (or more) of you would go to the trouble of finding out what a city bus costs your town, what the drivers get paid (total pay + benefits per year) and the rate of fares, it would be possible to find out exactly what the cost-per-mile of a city bus is... and then it could be compared to other means of transportation.
~

The only problem with your metric is that it only addresses costs, and not benefits:

Reduced congestion (hence reduced road maintenance costs/accidents/road rage)
Reduced asthma rates
Reduced carbon emissions

That's the real problem with the automobile vs. public transit debates.
The true costs of an auto-centric system is never fully factored into the equation.

I have a wonderful idea:
if one (or more) of you would go to the trouble of finding out what a city bus costs your town, what the drivers get paid (total pay + benefits per year) and the rate of fares, it would be possible to find out exactly what the cost-per-mile of a city bus is... and then it could be compared to other means of transportation.
~

I don't really care what the cost is Doug. I don't ride it but I am still more than happy to pay the tax. The less cars on the road the better, plus our residents have means of getting around town on the cheap.

...That's the real problem with the automobile vs. public transit debates.
The true costs of an auto-centric system is never fully factored into the equation.
And that's pretty difficult to do when you want to include benefits that cannot be denominated in dollars.
~

I don't really care what the cost is Doug. I don't ride it but I am still more than happy to pay the tax. The less cars on the road the better, plus our residents have means of getting around town on the cheap.
Cheap for them, perhaps.
But the question of efficiency here is, "are buses the most-efficient way of moving such people"? If you can't figure a cost for operating a bus, then you could never know if it was comparatively cheaper than other means or not. I would guess that running a bus line is cheaper than buying all the bus riders a Chevy Corvette, but we'd real numbers to know for sure.
~

Cheap for them, perhaps.
But the question of efficiency here is, "are buses the most-efficient way of moving such people"? If you can't figure a cost for operating a bus, then you could never know if it was comparatively cheaper than other means or not. I would guess that running a bus line is cheaper than buying all the bus riders a Chevy Corvette, but we'd real numbers to know for sure.
~

Sure it is, and I am sure they ran a cost benefit analysis on buying buses over buying 16,000+ cheap Chinese scooters.

Sure it is, and I am sure they ran a cost benefit analysis on buying buses over buying 16,000+ cheap Chinese scooters.
If the guy who ran that analysis was "the guy in charge of running buses", what conclusion do you think he'd be predisposed to reaching? How much bus service funds do you think he'll want to spend on bike lanes, for example? Could it be that out of concern for his job, he's not real interested in other solutions?...
~

Look, there is really no part in arguing with you because you are dabbling heavily in tons of speculation. Is there a certain mode of transportation other than Chinese scooters that you feel is the most efficient way of moving citizens around?

In regards to two posts ago, I am sure there are other modes of transportation that could be more efficient, such as light rails, etc. But our city is pretty damn small and I doubt they could come up with the bonds to complete a project like that.

Also, 50% of the funding is coming from outside of our city. They are using a sales tax increase, and studies show that ~50% of our sales tax are paid by residents. So if your whole gig is that you hate government intervention and that poor people could do better by getting a huge ass tax rebate for Chinese scooters well there you go.

Look, there is really no part in arguing with you because you are dabbling heavily in tons of speculation. Is there a certain mode of transportation other than Chinese scooters that you feel is the most efficient way of moving citizens around?
The Chinese scooter example was just a demonstration that for less than what is being spent on public transportation (in the given example) it may be possible to support private vehicles.


...In regards to two posts ago, I am sure there are other modes of transportation that could be more efficient, such as light rails, etc. But our city is pretty damn small and I doubt they could come up with the bonds to complete a project like that.
-And so there you see! Trains are wonderfully efficient in terms of the electrical power required to move from point A to point B. The reason they lose efficiency is the installation costs and the non-adjustability to changing population centers.


Also, 50% of the funding is coming from outside of our city. They are using a sales tax increase, and studies show that ~50% of our sales tax are paid by residents. So if your whole gig is that you hate government intervention and that poor people could do better by getting a huge ass tax rebate for Chinese scooters well there you go.
No, my point is that whenever government tends to spend money, they do it more wastefully than a private person would spend that money had the person been allowed to keep it. Advocating efficiency by increasing the size and scope of government programs is not likely to have the effect you seek.

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I tend to like the idea of less car traffic but I also know it has to make sense for ordinary people to do it. Many of the desires expressed around here sound like the person smoked a months' worth of stupid and drank the bong water.

Allowing private people to operate their own share taxis (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Share_taxi) would be something I'd like to see in the US. I don't expect I'll ever see it, because in most US cities there is a HUGE amount of government and organized crime control over taxicab services, and these interests tend to block out any other competitive alternatives.

The best things that cities could do to advance efficient public transportation would be to eliminate bus service and deregulate taxis entirely. As long as the city has the monopoly on bus service and taxis have a de-facto monopoly on hired car service, nothing is going to change.
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But bear in mind that motorcycle/scooter/bicycle transport is basically a male vehicle.

I see lots of girls in their 20s and 30s riding scooters all over my area. But like you said it is "fair weather" right now.

I went to my state department of transportation's website, and got these figures:

The state had transportation revenues of 7.9 billion dollars in 2007. They spent 4.2 billion of that on road construction and maintenance, not including expenses related to the ferry system. They spent 403 million dollars (about 10% as much) on rail and bus combined, again, not including the ferry system. The rest of the money, apparently, got used up in administrative costs ($87 million for IT) and trying to figure out how to keep the ferries from rusting completely and sinking.

Even if you grant that almost a third of the state's total transportation budget comes from gasoline taxes, it still seems like a spending ratio of 10:1 in favor of auto infrastructure amounts to a subsidy of staggering proportions. ($1046.00 per registered driver per year, in fact.)

(I tried to find something on bicycle infrastructure spending, but didn't see anything.)

Even if you grant that almost a third of the state's total transportation budget comes from gasoline taxes, it still seems like a spending ratio of 10:1 in favor of auto infrastructure amounts to a subsidy of staggering proportions. ($1046.00 per registered driver per year, in fact.)

Motor vehicle subsidies are bad. I don't want to subsidize motor-vehicle use, I can tell you that. Whether it's subsidies in the form of giving them clean air to pollute, or giving them roads to wear out, I'm all in favor of fuel taxes covering the costs.

Here is a news article about significantly rising bus ridership, but no possibility to increase services due to cost (of fuel, new buses, labor):

http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/2008/06/09/20080609bus0609.html

Al