From: hrubin@pop.stat.purdue.edu (Herman Rubin)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.misc
Subject: Re: Public vs. private transportation
Date: 18 Aug 92 16:10:20 GMT
Distribution: na
Organization: Purdue University Statistics Department

In article <1992Aug17.214645.5769@s1.gov> lip@s1.gov (Loren I. Petrich) writes:
>In article <57056@mentor.cc.purdue.edu> hrubin@pop.stat.purdue.edu (Herman Rubin) writes:
>>In article <4245@wet.UUCP> editor@wet.UUCP (Eric Swanson) writes:
>>>Trains go to train stations; automobiles go to parking lots.
>>>The train I take to my job in downtown San Francisco takes
>>>me a lot closer to my office than I could afford to park a
>>>car.  The station near my home is maybe a block or two
>>>farther from home than I would probably park a car.

>	Urban-transit rail vehicles typically run much more often,
>usually once every 10 or 20 minutes off-peak, and shorter intervals on
>peak times.

>>Automobiles go to parking spaces, not parking lots.  Maybe the

>	But where are the parking spaces? Usually in parking lots, bud.

>>time for downtowns of any kind is over.  It is only government
>>support which keeps them going.

>	Like what?

You keep thinking of congested areas.  Purdue University has a free
parking lot.  Most faculty and staff would not think of using it, 
preferring to pay for a reasonable walk between parking and work.

If instead of our socialistic legislators taxing those areas which
support variability, and providing tax breaks to inner cities, we
let the downtowns compete, the downtowns will slowly lessen to the
point where they are not a traffic headache.

>	And it is pure myth that our roads are completely supported
>with user fees. They are actually 38% subsidized (source: Joseph
>Vranich, _Supertrains_). And that does not even count such things
>medical care for accident victims and smog sufferers and law
>enforcement.

Much of the roads would be needed even if travel between home and 
work did not exist.  Deliveries still have to be made.  People going
on plane trips need to be able to transport fairly large amounts of
luggage.  Shopping for a family is quite difficult without cars.  
It was the availability of relatively cheap refrigerators which made
weekly, instead of daily, shopping possible.

The socialists do not recognize that all other means of transportation
have massive costs.  Even at the minimum wage, waiting time is 7 cents
per minute.  In considering transportation, it is portal-to-portal time
which counts.  Traffic law enforcement pays for itself, and for quite a
bit of city and county budget.  Smog is a problem mainly in a few congested
areas.  Governmental policies should discourage the congestion, instead of
the converse.  One thing in this direction in some places is a requirement
of an adequate number of parking places.

>>>Never say never.  Trains take me where I want to go between
>>>two and ten times a day.

>>Even with the non-existence of any decent parking system at the
>>University of Chicago at this time, one can get as close by car
>>as by any public transportation.  Also, the car goes when you want
>>to go, and the cost of waiting for a vehicle to arrive does not
>>exist.  BTW, the University of Chicago has been at the same location,
>>although it has expanded in size, for a century.

>	But one _does_ have to wait for lights to change, and one
>cannot do very much else when driving. When I'm riding BART, I can
>read without any trouble, and I can even do that when I'm riding a
>bus.

If the riders of BART had to pay for all of the cost of building and
maintaining the track, etc., the cost would be much greater.  You 
still have to wait for the vehicle, and if you are going at an unusual
time, the wait may be very long.  But it is the legislative support of
the congestion which even makes this possible.

A single city bus often causes a major traffic jam, costing hundreds
of people 5-10 minutes.  They use the roads, and pay nothing for their
construction or maintenance.

You are riding one of the few transportation systems which use tracks
which are not at ground level.  

Subways are very expensive to build unless one has solid rock to work with.
Manhattan and San Francisco are rock.  Chicago and New Orleans are closer
to swamp.  The recent addition to the rapid transit system in Chicago uses
the median of certain expressways, and I doubt that any of the cost of this
right-of-way was borne by the transit system.

>>Now I have no objection to a transportation system which can pay
>>for itself, as various train and bus systems did quite well in the
>>first half of this century.  

>	I'm not complaining in principle, but if train and bus sytems
>are supposed to pay for themselves, then let roads pay for themselves,
>also, even if that means upping gas taxes by some factor of 2 or 3.

Roads are needed for other than commuting.  There is no conceivable way
that I would use other than car to go to another university within 
several hundred miles.  If we built 100+ mph highways, this would 
probably go up to 1000 miles.  The overhead time for a single plane
trip is about 2 hours.  For trains, even if reasonably located, about
1 hour.  Buses use the roads, and are not that fast.  

Public transportation should be required to pay for everything it uses.
Buses cause more damage to roads than cars; I suggest that buses be
required to pay at least the gas taxes and property taxes that cars
pay, and that the 50-75% subsidy be removed.  I suspect that most public
transportation systems would go bankrupt.  

There is one which could survive, but it is generally illegal now; jitneys.
Private enterprise only for mass transit.
-- 
Herman Rubin, Dept. of Statistics, Purdue Univ., West Lafayette IN47907-1399
Phone: (317)494-6054
hrubin@pop.stat.purdue.edu (Internet, bitnet)  
{purdue,pur-ee}!pop.stat!hrubin(UUCP)
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