| Guest | Re: Cheap Gas=Unnatural Capitalism
> So what would you say if a right-wing organization did the same
> for the true costs of riding bicycles? Trains get the same fuel
> economy as cars (and take it with the CBO if you disagree), and
> on a btu-per-passenger-mile basis, cars are better than transit
> buses. Only long-distance buses quite well.
>
> As for bicycles, you should pay for your own private roads
> with a $500 per year bicycle fee.
Unless you are a *misanthropist*, cars don't make sense (most of the
time)...
"The best option is to have options"
"The bottom line is this: investment in public transportation makes
dollars, and it makes sense. The benefits to motorists, to businesses,
to transit riders, and to American society as a whole far outweigh the
costs."
Something to Think About
The Economics of Public Transportation: Three Major Findings :
While transit is clearly a boon to the people who use it, even larger
benefits accrue to motorists, businesses, and society in general.
Given flexibility in how they develop their transportation investment
strategies, more and more areas — central cities, suburbs, and smaller
towns and villages — are choosing to make public transit an essential
component of their strategic transportation investment portfolio.
In those areas where such strategic investments in transit have been
made, ridership has grown, and the economic benefits to those
communities have risen accordingly. The market for transit is there,
but the Nation's transportation strategies must be geared to tap into
that market.
If you feel like you've been spending more time in traffic jams,
you've got lots of company. All across America, in big cities, in
suburbs, and in smaller towns, traffic is up, and congestion is up a
lot more. And it's going to get worse, since relatively small
increases in traffic can cause really huge increases in congestion.
According to the U.S. Department of Transportation, in 50 metropolitan
areas the number of hours per capita that people spend delayed by
traffic congestion increased 95% from 1982 to 1993, 1 even though the
number of trips that people made increased by only 16.9%. 2 (see "How
Congestion Works" )
In Los Angeles, that amounted to an annual cost (again, per capita) of
$710. One might say, "Come on, that's Los Angeles, what did you
expect?" Well, it's also Houston ($680), Seattle ($720), Atlanta
($590), Boston ($520) and Miami ($560). If you live in Nashville, you
spent 2.2 times as many hours stuck in congestion in 1993 than you did
in 1982. In Kansas City and Sacramento, 2.85 times as many. In
Columbus, 2.34. And in Salt Lake City, the time you spent on the road
thinking unkind thoughts about your fellow motorist increased 320%.
Now, hold that thought for a moment, and focus on this: for every
dollar the American taxpayer spends on supporting the Nation's public
transportationa systems, the economic return on that investment is at
least four or five to one, and probably substantially more. And here's
the kicker : the people who benefit the most are motorists and society
in general! This perhaps surprising result is developed in Section 3
of this Report, and is summarized in Table 3 .
"Wait a minute," you say, "I drive, what's public transit got to do
with me?" Glad you asked. Try to imagine....
Another 5 million cars and 27,000 new lane miles of roads jammed into
America's cities;
Almost 200,000 more fatalities, injuries and accidents every year on
the Nation's roads, at a cost in the billions of dollars;
Another four lanes (or maybe a second deck) on your local freeway, at
untold fiscal, environmental and aesthetic cost. Table 1 shows, for 90
urbanized areas, just how many cars and new miles of freeway would be
needed to replace public transit;
Americans spending another 367 million hours each year sitting in
traffic jams, at a cost to them and to the economy of more than $19
billion.
Not very pleasant to contemplate. Today, the situation on our Nation's
freeways and roads can be pretty bad. But it would be a whole lot
worse without public transportation. Table 1 ("Transit Relieves
Traffic Congestion") shows what would happen to America's metropolitan
networks of freeways, highway and roads if they had to accommodate the
millions of people who ride on public transportation. The same Table
provides dramatic evidence of how many America's metropolitan areas —
69 out of 90 shown — are choosing rail transit as an essential part of
their multi-modal transportation investment strategies.
"Anything that encourages people not to drive their cars into urban
areas is good for the environment and good for the health of cities. A
dense mass-transit network should be one of southern New England's
selling points. And in particular, anything that links the Providence
and Fall River/New Bedford areas with Boston and its high-technology
nexus bodes well for economic development in southeastern New
England."
Editorial
The Providence Journal-Bulletin
July 25, 1995
And yet, in statehouses and city halls across the land, and even in
Congress, we can still hear the "transit vs. highways" debate that has
raged for more than 40 years. This report argues that we need to set
emotions aside and look at the numbers. When we do, the economic case
for public transportation, the "dollars and sense" of the issue, is
undeniable.
Why We All Care So Much
Ever notice how emotional a lot of discussions about transportation
can get? Ever wonder why? After all, the transportation system is just
another part of daily life, just like the electric utility, water,
phone and postal systems. But electricity, water, phone calls and mail
generally just "show up" at our homes and businesses. Transportation,
on the other hand, is something that we all spend an awful lot of our
time doing, and the experience is all too often time consuming,
expensive, and irritating — if not downright painful.
Like it or not, we spend hundreds of hours per year just getting to
work and around town. That's more time than we spend on vacation and a
lot of other things that make life worth living. An occasional power
failure we can live with, but a transportation system that's
overloaded is a continuing irritant: it's negative effects are up
close and personal, and they won't go away!
And here's another thing: few of us claim to be experts about public
utilities or the postal system, but we're all "transportation" experts
by virtue of the fact that we spend so much time at it. So when
transportation "solutions" are discussed, we've all got a big personal
stake in the subject, plus our "expert" egos are on the line. Small
wonder that much of the public debate on transportation issues rarely
differs from arguments about the subject down at the local tavern.
People are right to care so much about transportation, for it
profoundly impacts the life of every single American. But as Congress
debates the reauthorization of the Intermodal Surface Transportation
Efficiency Act (the "ISTEA"), b it might be helpful to tone down the
rhetoric and take a look at the facts.
Beyond Rhetoric
A sometimes heated "transit vs. highways" debate has raged ever since
the interstate system was a twinkle in President Eisenhower's eye.
Ever since the passage of the Urban Mass Transportation Act in 1964,
critics of public transportation in America have tended to dismiss
transit's significance compared to the nation's systems of
Interstates, freeways, and roads. Not infrequently, public transit has
been dismissed as little more than a highly subsidized social welfare
program designed primarily to serve the poor, the elderly, and the
physically disabled. Dismissing transit as being marginal to the "real
business" of transportation, the allegation is that highways are about
economic development and jobs, transit is about welfare.
On the other side of the debate, transit's supporters have tended to
demonize the highway system — and sometimes highway engineers and
builders — contending that they have destroyed the very fabric of
America's metropolitan areas, caused suburban and ex-urban sprawl,
polluted the atmosphere, made the country dangerously dependent on
foreign oil, and generally reduced the quality of life for many, if
not most, Americans. In this view, cars and highways are THE ENEMY of
both people and communities, and transit is THE ANSWER to a better
life for all Americans.
Whatever the merits on each side of this ideological chasm, the
resulting rhetorical excesses have often generated more heat than
light, doing little to enhance the subtance or conduct of the public
discourse — whether in Congress or in the Nation's statehouses and
city halls — about what mix of transportation investments can best
meet Americans' mobility needs in the 21st century.
"The efficient movement of goods and people is a crucial factor in
ensuring our domestic and international competitiveness:
transportation now accounts for 17% of gross domestic product. Having
a variety of transportation methods available increases access to both
new labor markets and cost-effective goods shipment. Transportation
efficiency can be achieved through a national transportation plan that
includes all modes of transport."
Business for Efficient Transportation
Washington, D.C.
One issue that seems especially muddled relates to the economic return
on the American taxpayer's investment in the transportation arena. For
better or worse, cars and trucks are just about everywhere, and most
people intuitively understand that America's economy depends on the
efficient and safe transport of people and goods on the country's
nearly 4 million miles of Interstate highways, urban freeways, and
local streets and roads. But what most people don't know is that the
Nation's public transit systems play an essential part in making the
overall transportation system work.
This report tries to get beyond the rhetoric to look at the facts. The
results may be surprising to some:
In metropolitan cities and suburbs, and in rural towns and villages,
the Nation's subways, light rail lines, commuter rail systems, AMTRAK,
and bus and paratransit systems are giving the taxpayers more than
their money's worth. While transit is clearly a boon to the people who
use it, even larger benefits accrue to motorists, businesses, and
society in general. Transit makes the road system work better; and
transit plays a key role in helping America to be more competitive in
the global marketplace, in making more Americans more productive, in
creating jobs, and in making our cities, suburbs and towns better
places to work and do business.
In the past few years, state and local decision-makers have had
unprecedented flexibility to develop transportation investment
strategies, and public-private partnerships have sprung up in hundreds
of places to bring a more businesslike, no-nonsense approach to
finding transportation solutions. The outcome is that more and more
areas — central cities, suburbs, and smaller towns and villages — are
choosing to make public transit an essential component of their
strategic transportation investment portfolio.
Businesses that make strategic investments needed to offer quality
products and services to the marketplace will tend to prosper; those
that don't will lose market share and fail. Public transit is no
different: in those areas where such investments have been made,
ridership has grown, and the economic benefits to those communities
have risen accordingly. In other areas, where systems and services
have been allowed to deteriorate, transit use has declined. The market
for transit is there, but the Nation's transportation strategies must
be geared to tap into that market.
It's In the Mix
"We have come to the stark realization that a balanced working
transportation solution must be multi-modal. In short, we need to
dramatically expand our local and express bus operations and build a
modern light rail system to complete our transportation network."
Honorable Peggy Bilsten
Vice Mayor
Phoenix, Arizona
The above referenced "mix" of transportation investments is key: it
reflects a new way of thinking about transportation strategies that
has started to take root since, and to no small degree because of, the
passage of the Intermodal Transportation Systems Efficiency Act of
1991, commonly known as the ISTEA. The ISTEA emphasizes a "systems
approach" to transportation policy and investment (more about that in
a minute), with increased emphasis on the functionality and outcomes
of different transportation strategies. This approach recognizes that
the transportation system has a lot to do in getting people to work
and goods to market, and in providing access to shopping, social,
cultural and recreational opportunities for every American. And it
knows that the various "modes" of transportation (e.g. highways and
roads, rail and bus transit, freight railroads, etc.) all have a part
to play, and that they are all part of the bigger system.
"System" is one of those words that engineers (and sometimes marketing
types) use to impress us ordinary folk, but what does it mean in a
transportation setting? It may help to think of an electronic circuit
which has a bunch of different components: transistors, resistors,
capacitors, inductors, and other widgets that make up the circuit. No
one would argue that one type of component is somehow more important
than the others. Take out any one of them and the circuit won't work
as well, and may not work at all.
"The city of Phoenix and the surrounding communities continue to
experience phenomenal growth in population and economic development
opportunities. We believe that mass transit, as a major component of a
balanced transportation system, is essential to meet these
challenges."
Valerie Manning, President and CEO
Phoenix Chamber of Commerce
It's the same with transportation. Whether we realize it or not, it
all works together like an electronic circuit, and the "components" of
the circuit are the modes: you can't change one part without changing
it all.
Without its transit "component," the overall transportation system
starts to break down. As we'll see, transit is essential in the
transportation mix for America. As we'll also see, it pays a handsome
return on investment to the taxpayer, to the business community, to
the transit user, and even to the motorist who never uses transit.
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