From: lip@s1.gov (Loren I. Petrich)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.misc,sci.environment
Subject: Re: Public vs. private transportation
Date: 19 Aug 92 01:40:10 GMT
Distribution: na
Organization: LLNL

In article <57138@mentor.cc.purdue.edu> hrubin@pop.stat.purdue.edu (Herman Rubin) writes:
>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:

>>>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....

	In other words,

	Ha, ha, I've got subsidized parking!!!

>>	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...

	But smaller and less traveled roads, I may add.

	And if one could get fully loaded shopping carts aboard buses,
life would be even easier.

>The socialists do not recognize that all other means of transportation
 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
 Pure demagoguery. And from a believer in socialized roads, I may add.

>have massive costs...

	Not more than roads do...

... Even at the minimum wage, waiting time is 7 cents
>per minute.  In considering transportation, it is portal-to-portal time
>which counts.

	Baloney. If one does not have to drive, one can be busy with
other things, such as reading. This is especially true on rail
systems. I've gotten a heck of a lot of reading done on BART, for
example.

	And one can also do sightseeing without distracton.

Traffic law enforcement pays for itself, and for quite a
>bit of city and county budget...

	Figures, please?

	And that is not even counting medical care for accident victims...

...Smog is a problem mainly in a few congested
>areas...

	And very populated ones, one might add. Just look at Los
Angeles or Houston or some other smoggy city. I have a relative who
had to move out of the LA area because of the smog there. One
counterargument I have seen is

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.

	That would only make things worse. What is necessary is to
discourage large-scale car use in crowded areas and to provide
alternatives. I've crossed the Bay Bridge (between San Francisco and
Oakland) a couple of times by bus, and I got slowed down in the middle
of the bridge, going to San Francisco. However, I've gone that route
by BART, and it was a heck of a lot quicker and more comfortable.
Furthermore, half of all commuters along that route go by BART instead
of by the Bay Bridge.

>>	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 

	I have news for you: BART's operating costs are only 50%
subsidized, and adding capital costs does not push the subsidy factor
up too much. (operating budget: $200 million/year, fare revenue: $100
million/year; it took a couple of billion dollars to build BART, so
that implies an additional $100 million/year).

	And when you are counting up the costs, have you counted in
all car costs:

	The price of the car
	The interest in your car payments
	The price of fuel
	Registration fees
	Maintenance
	Insurance
	etc.

	I've seen estimates of $6000/year for a typical car owner,
though that can be reduced by making a car last a _long_ time.

	If I lived near an East Bay BART station and had to commute by
BART to San Francisco, I would pay about $5/day, or about $1300/year.
With BART's full operating and capital costs added in, it would be
about $4000/year.

	An aside: BART's electric bill for powering its cars, its
"fuel" bill, is about $12 million/year, equivalent to about 25 cents
for an East Bay -- San Francisco trip. The equivalent trip by car
would cost $1, _if_ one had a high-mpg car and _if_ one could travel
at cruising speed most of the way.

>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.

	"Legislative support of congestion"? What???

	But what is the alternative? Eat up all the land? What will be
left to farm on?

	Is having people isolated from each other a good thing?

	Are long, boring drives your idea of fun? They sure aren't
_my_ idea of fun.

	In the long run, it is a heck of a lot more expensive to live
spread out than to live close in. That's because land costs $$$'s, and
all that driving and all the roads cost $$$'s also.

>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.

	That's because they are subsidized, just like roads are.

	And your belief that buses cause big traffic jams is just dead
wrong. They just don't, as I can testify from personal experience.

>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...

	At 60 mph,

	200 mi = 3 hours
	300 mi = 5 hours

	May be your idea of fun, but it sure isn't mine...

If we built 100+ mph highways, this would 
>probably go up to 1000 miles.  The overhead time for a single plane

	What will happen to car insurance premiums then? They will go
up, up, up.

>trip is about 2 hours.  For trains, even if reasonably located, about

	Trains? Why not? You can get a lot of work done along the way,
and not get worn out as a long drive would do.

>1 hour.  Buses use the roads, and are not that fast.  

	True, that's why I like trains :-)

>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.  

	Trucks are the worst offenders of all, actually. And there are
more of them than there are buses.

	Public transit will not go broke if gas taxes rise to about $2
or $3 a gallon, which is what would be necessary to pay for _all_
capital and operating costs of our roads.

>There is one which could survive, but it is generally illegal now; jitneys.
>Private enterprise only for mass transit.

	What's a jitney? And how does it differ from a taxi?
Newsgroups: talk.politics.misc