Comments on: Conservative Case for Public Transit

By: Jehu

Jehu — Wed, 27 Oct 2010 18:49:41 +0000

Isegoria, for that condition to persist, you need a lot higher trust society than we have, particularly in urban areas, specifically this is what you'd need:

The man contemplating intervention has to have the reasonable belief that the law will back him up (or at least not actively work against him).
The man has to have the reasonable belief that the others present would do the same if it was his loved ones in danger.
The man has to believe that enough others have his back to ensure tactical dominance in the encounter.

When any of these aren't true, you can't reasonably expect anyone to stick their neck out for you unless they're a friend or family, and often not even then. Presently in the US, particularly in big cities, these things are rarely true.

By: Isegoria

Isegoria — Sat, 23 Oct 2010 19:00:00 +0000

I can see why a city would want want to drop transit fares entirely — buses and trains have low variable costs, and the hassle of collecting tolls isn't small — but combining that with a guilty-liberal sense that everyone has a right to use the buses and trains creates the worst kind of anarchy, where no one can enforce good behavior. In "less developed" parts of the world — and in our own recent history — the bus-driver or train conductor would have a duty to keep out obvious trouble-makers — and every grown man on the bus or train would be expected to beat down a criminal caught in the act.

By: Isegoria

Isegoria — Sat, 23 Oct 2010 18:52:35 +0000

Agreed, mass transit in the US is far from green, but we've largely mandated that our cities not be like New York — or Tokyo — where subways can and do operate efficiently. With roads and highways paid for out of general tax revenue — not just gas taxes and tolls — and sprawling parking lots mandated by law, mass transit — with its own high fixed costs — doesn't have much of a place.

By: Kai Jones

Kai Jones — Fri, 22 Oct 2010 22:55:38 +0000

I think a better approach to easing white middle-class people’s fears about buses would be to enforce fares and have a lot of security randomly ride transit. By the way, in Portland it’s the light rail that is scary, because gangs can get on at a stop without paying, rob somebody or sell some drugs, and get off at the next stop without ever encountering a transit employee. Portland doesn’t have any fare enforcement to board or exit light rail, so homeless people and mentally ill people can ride all night and day in a warm dry rail car.

By: Borepatch

Borepatch — Fri, 22 Oct 2010 22:14:59 +0000

The problem is that mass transit is almost never more energy efficient. Maybe only New York City — everywhere else, it takes more energy to move a passenger mile by public transport than by car. For example, Boston's T is roughly as energy efficient as single passenger SUVs. The problem is that the load factor is never more than 50% (full trains at rush hour going one way, empty returning trains the other way). The Antiplanner writes extensively on this. And as to Portland's new 60% over planned cost system, it seems that only 600 people are using it a day. The amortized capital costs would pay for a new Prius for each of those riders, each year, for 30 years. It's SWPL, nothing more.

By: David Foster

David Foster — Fri, 22 Oct 2010 21:24:58 +0000

1) “Public transit systems are able to cover 50 percent and more of their expenses out of the fare box.” I’m wondering if this includes capital expenses for the track construction or just operating expenses.

2) I’ve actually seen it argued that the fixed nature of rail compared to the flexible nature of buses is actually an advantage for rail — because businesses along the route can invest with reasonable certainty that it won’t move.

By: Isegoria

Isegoria — Fri, 22 Oct 2010 20:53:05 +0000

I agree that buses are more flexible than trains, but middle-class folks don’t like buses, and they do like trains, he argues, so if you want middle-class folks to use public transportation, you need to cater to their tastes.

But I’m not sure middle-class folks like trains more than buses so much as they like the kind of people who sit next to them on the train more than the people who sit next to them on the bus, which presumably has more to do with where the train (versus the bus) goes and how much it costs, not whether it’s on tracks or asphalt.

By: Kai Jones

Kai Jones — Fri, 22 Oct 2010 17:25:11 +0000

Portland is not a great example. All that “billion-dollar development” is sitting empty and worth much less now that the real estate bubble has popped and small retail and other businesses are failing.

Buses make more sense because routes can change when the locations people need to get to (jobs and retail) move, and as neighborhoods change (working class areas become gentrified so people who work move further out or to less desirable areas).