01-30-2018, 11:30 AM
OK, here’s my original statement:
Let’s review the facts. Public transit: cost recovery some percentage, in most places well under 100%, but usually a significant fraction of operating costs. Riders fund GRT to I want to say around 40% or so. I can opt out of contributing to the 40% and only pay my share of the 60% by not using GRT. Local roads: cost recovery approximately 0; no significant fraction of operating costs is recovered from usage fees. Drivers fund our local roads to around 0% or so. I cannot opt out of contributing to our local roads by not using them.
My observation was about people who are in effect complaining about the public funding for public transit, implicitly saying the 40% (probably higher in Manhattan where the discussion was) should be 100%, without even noticing that the equivalent number for the road network is 0%.
Now, OK, maybe you want to use some weird definition of user-pay which includes funding from the general tax base. Fine. Then both the roads and public transit are fully funded by their users. Also, it now makes no difference to the debate what is recovered at the farebox/toll plaza/whatever collection method, because every way of funding the service counts as user-pay (with the possible exception of contributions from the provincial and federal governments).
Quote:No disagreement here. Just earlier today I saw some comment (on a different board) about how if we charged full cost recovery on public transit we’d find out that users of it don’t value it as much as the cost of running it. True enough, but even more true for roads, where the usual cost recovery ratio is 0% or a close approximation thereof.
Let’s review the facts. Public transit: cost recovery some percentage, in most places well under 100%, but usually a significant fraction of operating costs. Riders fund GRT to I want to say around 40% or so. I can opt out of contributing to the 40% and only pay my share of the 60% by not using GRT. Local roads: cost recovery approximately 0; no significant fraction of operating costs is recovered from usage fees. Drivers fund our local roads to around 0% or so. I cannot opt out of contributing to our local roads by not using them.
My observation was about people who are in effect complaining about the public funding for public transit, implicitly saying the 40% (probably higher in Manhattan where the discussion was) should be 100%, without even noticing that the equivalent number for the road network is 0%.
Now, OK, maybe you want to use some weird definition of user-pay which includes funding from the general tax base. Fine. Then both the roads and public transit are fully funded by their users. Also, it now makes no difference to the debate what is recovered at the farebox/toll plaza/whatever collection method, because every way of funding the service counts as user-pay (with the possible exception of contributions from the provincial and federal governments).