Asymmetrical Information

I remember, back in the days I lived on the Island and commuted into the City, when I rode the Metro in DC. Fellow New Yorkers couldn't believe how clean the Metro was, and how nice the cars were. I'd tell them that that (which which?)was because the Metro used zones and that it wasn't cheap! Some still couldn't understand.

A zoned system in New York could theoretically work by adjusting the current Metrocard system to record on both turnstile entrances and exits (it only deducts on entering now and does nothing when passengers exit). The problem is adjusting the system to a Washington D.C. or San Francisco style system -- where fares are charged based on distance and increased during rush hours -- would benefit Manhattanites, who take most of their trips within their home borough, while riders in the Bronx, Brooklyn and Queens would see their fares increased at a much greater rate (and lord knows what they'd do with commuters from far southern Staten Island).

The current $1.50 cent fare comes closer to meeting the actual cost of a ride for people in Manhattan than it does in the other boroughs because of their shorter trips. Changing the system to a distance/time one that Long Island Railroad or Metro North passenger rail communters in the NYC area are familiar with would be more equitable, but since about 75 percent of New York City's population lives outside of Manhattan, it would also be political suicide for any politician that actually tried it.

When you're wrong you're really way off base ! This sounds like one of those Republican screeds that occasionally pops up with no connection whatsoever to reality.

"It's overused, because its price is artificially below market"

Are you serious ?
The system is USED. NOT "overused". And for a variety of reasons, such as :

1. Its impossible for many people to own and maintain a vehicle in Manhatten OR the outer Boroughs.
2. EVEN IF YOU DID own a car, only a minute fraction of the public can commute to work by driving, and even THAT causes endless traffic jams.
3.The city and state have deliberately touted and extolled the virtues of public commuting ; to the point where new yorkers take for granted the existence of their public transport system, which does a superb job of taking workers where they need to go.
4.THe cost of commuting is INDEED a major cost to most low income workers. Trust me on this. I've been there. From your remarks, you haven't.
5.That bit about "raising the wages" is a bit of a straw man, don't you think ? Or are you seriously going to propose to raise wages rather than keep commuting costs the same ?
6.New Yorkers pay HUGE taxes compared to many, if not ALL parts of the nation. Included in the services they pay for is CHEAP...repeat..CHEAP commutes.
Ergo, it should NOT cost $4.00 for a bus ride, if you're actually talking about human life and not a dry eco textbook on "efficiency".

>>I'd tell them that that (which which?)was because the Metro used zones and that it wasn't cheap!

The LIRR uses zones for payment as well, and they're not very cheap either. There are only three branches that go out towards the East End; I live in "Zone 14". The train station in-town only has 4 trains going to Penn during the week (6:08AM, 12:21PM, 3:16PM, 10:34PM) and 3 trains coming in (that arrive at 9:47AM, 2:27PM and 7:37PM). Being that I go to the city often, I'd have to get a monthly ticket; from my Zone 14 to Zone 1 (Penn) it would cost me $251. However, the fact that there are only 7 times the train stops in my town, it's not worth it.

If I drive 30 minutes westbound, I'm at the first major "hub" on my line. During off-peak times the trains run every hour on the 11s going to the city. That puts me in Zone 10, a $200 monthly ticket and the convenience of knowing that there will always be a train to catch. However, if you haven't taken the LIRR in a while, be glad. The new double-decker trains are nice and clean; however, not all lines have them. (And if they do, they only run inbetween certain zones.) Mostly, you get stuck with the old grungy cars that have definitely seen better days. (You really don't want to think about it that much or else you'd never sit down...Trust me, standing the entire way for about an hour and 45 mins. just isn't fun.)

Now, I'm not knowledgeable in these things, but shelling out $200 every month for a monthly ticket hurts to say the least, and I really don't see much of a difference. They're running the "Clean Train Campaign" but I only see a few of my fellow commuters (besides me) actually being conscientious about their garbage. (Is it really that difficult to just toss out your coffee cups, breakfast bags and newspapers? Didn't your momma teach you to clean up after yourselves?! But that's a rant that I will save for another day.) Unfortunately I'm not one of those business people to whom $200 is pocket-change. For me, that $200 could have bought two, maybe three of my textbooks. Buying that $30 MetroCard every month hurts too, but if the subway cars will be repaired, cleaned and a little less crowded every time I step onto them, I'll consider it worth it. However for the LIRR? I don't know. It's $19 round-trip to Penn during peak times and $13 round-trip during off-peak times; add in all of us who pay the $200 for our monthlies...I don't know. Again, I'm not knowledgable in these things but to me, that sounds like enough to at least get something done.

Ray C -- where do you think the money to pay for the trains comes from? The train fairy? It comes from those taxes you're complaining about. It's not economically efficient to provide a good like transportation below marginal cost with tax money -- it results in more usage and thus more spending, than would occur in a market solution. We pay high taxes in order to get something we value less -- cheaper transportation -- than the money we're giving up.

I have indeed been a low income worker in New York; I've lived here all my life. I'm currently an unemployed job seeker in New York. And I know that the cost of transportation has always paled besides the cost of the lunch I bought myself when I could have brought from home. I do not think that low income workers will starve if we raise the cost of their fares. If they are, then we should raise their public assistance, not lower the fare for everyone else.

As for use/overuse, more people use the subway at its current price than would probably use it at a break-even price. That goes double for busses. That means the busses and trains are more crowded, and we run more of them at rush hour than we otherwise would, driving up costs, pollution, and energy use. That's the standard economic definition of overuse: people use it more than they would at a market price.

On the other hand, the inflation-adjusted price of the 5-cent fare in today's money is only 95 cents. And why should "percentage of wage" be used to index what a reasonable fare would be today? Do we do that with food and housing? If we did it with everything since 1910 we wouldn't have been able to add anything new to our lives in 98 years.

Remember, the 5-cent (95 cent) fare was sufficient to cover financing the construction of the subways (under budget and ahead of schedule), keep them clean and even ornate, have them operate as a world-wide recognized popular wonder, *and* provide a profitable 20% return on capital to their private owners.

The subways started to decline when the city government price-controlled the fare at 5 cents during the WW1 inflation. Then the city, under its, um, "cityist" ideology of the 1930s, began constructing the city-owned IND not to supplement the privately owned subway lines but to take riders from them -- paralleling routes, etc. By 1940 the city had driven down the fare in real terms by 33%, which together with the Depression decimated the subway owners' profits. Knowing they'd never be allowed by the city to increase the fare, and facing competition from the IND, they sold out to the city in 1940.

The city-owned IND's operating costs were *three times higher* than the privately owned lines' costs -- and when the city took over the other lines the IND's management and cost structure were imposed on them (rather than the other way around, of course). The subways, which had remained modestly profitable with the 5 cent fare even through the Depression, immediately started running huge financial losses.

So, ironically, the first thing the city did after taking over the subways was to triple the fare. (So much for keeping the fare down to help the working classes! Not when *we politicians* have to pay for it!) Management thereafter got continually worse and costs went steadily up, much faster than inflation, until the system's near meltdown of the late 70s, early 80s. Top management has gotten better since then, but the gross cost inefficiencies that were politically built into the system during those 40 years still reamin.

In short, especially being that the capital construction costs of the NY subways have now long since been recovered, and those are the major cost of any subway line -- in NYC lines have been being closed down, rather than built, for a generation -- one can seriously argue that an efficiently run system would cost us riders less than the fare we pay, not more ... 95 cents would be nice!

Note that with other, newer rail systems the economics are different. The NYC subways were built, and their construction and other initial capital costs fully recovered, before the automobile. No newly-built urban rail system that has to compete with autos will ever be able to pay for itself. They will all need large subsidies and thus politically determined fares.

Would that this discussion be blasted from stadium-sized loudspeakers at the unaccountable Board of Directors of Seattle's (oh, "Puget Sound Regional's) Link light rail and other transportation boondoggles. Unaccountable because they're not elected specifically to their transportation duties, so in re-election campaigns their transpo misfeasances and failures are not examined or debated by a media which uncritically flogs subsidized transpo with barely a thought to costs.

For those who feel that others should be subjected to Consciousness Raising, how about prominently posting the true cost of a ride at every transit station and on every transit ad, with a note of thanks to the taxpayer who finances the boondoggle?

I'm currently an unemployed job seeker in New York.

Hey, what happened to the Foreign Service gig? Did I miss something?

Investment bankers in New York City normally take a cab.

I won't clear the background check and get posted for at least a year. Meanwhile, I still like to eat regularly.

Jim --

I agree with you that part of the reason the lines are so expensive is that the TA operates them. However, there are ongoing capital costs -- 100 year old infrastructure must be repaired, and we aren't driving the same subway cars we had in 1910. Also, the system is bursting at the seams; it needs to expand, and there's no money because the fares are so tightly controlled.

I would argue that New York's unique geography could make a private subway system break even, or possibly even turn a profit -- if we decontrolled prices. Probably the old line cities -- Boston, Chicago, etc. -- could run a rail system at a profit if it were politically possible to decontrol the fare, because the cities were built for a dense population. But of course, politically speaking it will never happen.

One thing that hasn't been mentioned... if transportation costs are so high, then perhaps it's not efficient for people to be commuting so far. A lot of people live in New York because they want to or because they don't want to leave for various reasons. It's going to be expensive to maintain that many people in that small of a place no matter what you do. If the poor can't afford to live in New York, then perhaps they should move somewhere else.

In general, if costs are higher than people are willing to pay, then it's time to stop doing it. There's no particular reason why 18 million people have to live in New York and so the government shouldn't be subsidising it.

Bolie IV

All governments everywhere since the Roman Republic have subsidized transporation. Aside from a short experiment in the 19th century where train companies made a huge profit on land development and off hours electricity there have been almost no human transporation systems in history that made a profit after costs of capital.

The enterprise that finally squelched the railroad profits after years of stagnation under price controls and right of way cancellations is our highway system. Today the United States depends on motorcars that get a subsidy from general tax revenue and unfunded local mandates of US$10 000 to US$25 000 per year per motorcar, varying by locale. The private price of a motorcar and its operation, which is akin to transit fares, is about US$6000 per year, dwarfed by the subsidies. Note that my subsidy estimate includes only local road building, state and federal highway building, maintenance, net costs of policing and emergency services, minimum parking mandates, and foregone property taxes under rights of way. And I have subtracted out gas taxes, even though they are not a direct user fee. I have also included no speculative costs of pollution, traffic externalities, oil importation, loss of life from crashes, &c liberal overreaching.

Air travel is even more subsidized.

So all modes of human transporation are heavily subsidized. We get lousy service and bad planning as a result. Roads get congested and no one ever tries congestion tolls that rise during rush hour. That would end 90% of congestion problems and hurt no one, but it's not politic. Instead we get US$10 billion decade long freeway projects or live with congestion. Transit goes unused because local officials and transit officials don't arrange to zone high density urban villages around stations with convenient services, commuter condos, and transit oriented development, even though "TOD" paid all of our old urban streetcar networks' capital costs. What transit we do get is often late and uncomfortable; what would it take to get private shuttles with coffee from my door to the transit hub? What it would take is the city transit agency licensing private competition to embarass it and that would threaten the subsidies and union contracts.

And I haven't even looked at the worst part yet.

The worst part is that with every kind of transit subsidized we travel far too much. If we had to pay free market cost we would tavel much, much less. Work and home and entertainment would move close together. Walking would be viable again in most neighborhoods. The old fashion of building quality urban neighborhoods instead of slums would revive. Nice urban parks with facilities and not just an expanse of empty grass would prosper. And all of our lives would be better.

But the pols aren't about to allow that to happen. It would make pork barrel vote buying harder, and that, after all, is the purpose of our nation.

Some thoughts for Brian,

It must be glorious to think oneself a member of the politburo, issuing decrees regulating the behavior of the lesser citizens. However, some of us think that choice should extend beyond who or what we make love with. We want choices regarding such items as where we want to live (country houses are better than politburo-planned urban apartments), what errands we want to run (just try to fetch home a week's groceries for the family on light rail), when we want to visit Grandma and what sort of personal transportation is best for us.

The credible point is congestion pricing, coming soon to a city near you.

The incredible point is the complaining of the costs of roads, without counterbalancing them with the vast personal and economic benefits they offer citizens who use them in making their own individual decisions of routing, scheduling and cargo. Roads offer liberty. Politburos do not.

Brian, I don't know where you got that figure, but that doesn't make any sense. There are more vehicles in the United States than people. Taking your conservative estimate, that would mean that we were spending about 30% of GDP on the highway system. For comparison, the tax take of the federal government is around 20% of GDP. The high end of your range would mean that we were spending more on the highway system than the combined tax take of the federal, local and state governments.

If you look at the budget, most local highway spending is paid for out of the transportation fund, which is fully funded by tolls in most areas -- in other words, paid for by the people who are using it. New construction is of course subsidized. . . but a lot of the federal stuff is boondoggle jobs projects, not the cost of maintaining highways the public uses. At any rate, it isn't anything near $10,000 a year per vehicle.

Since the mass transit is owned and run by a public authority - we should talk politics and not economics. The question is: which is easier politically - raise fares or raise taxes?
Jane, your assumption that raising fares could result in better service is baseless - that is - it is based on economics - and this is irrelevant.

Actually, if Brian's scenario could be effectively implemented (and I don't believe it can but it's interesting to think about), it would gradually change your lifestyle sufficiently that you wouldn't HAVE to go out for a week+ worth of groceries at a time: As opposed to, say, driving eight miles to a mega-grocer, you would take a five-minute light-rail ride to a smaller store located a mile away, and buy two days' worth.

This wouldn't exclude the possibility that the store you would visit could be owned by a large, efficient grocery chain operating in the economy. It WOULD mean a unique refocusing of the development approach.

It's essentially the difference between the US lifestyle, where vast space and efficient transportation permits the centralized mega-grocer and the home at the outer edges of the suburbs, and Europe, where space is at a premium and the definition of community is much smaller.

The US way isn't especially "better" because it permits more "choice." It's just different, and it may lead to a greater degree of social isolation (the "Bowling Alone" thought school -- a book which I haven't read yet but probably should). While I think the Europeans don't have the faintest bead on what makes for good government, in the social/cultural realm I think they may have a better perspective on what makes for good community.

Jacob, once you overcome the politics issue the economics are very relevant, and that was the topic of this post, was it not? A fare increase?

As far as infrastructure goes, there have been two false starts in the past 50 years by the city and the MTA at building a Second Aveune subway on the east side of Manhattan to ease overcrowding on the only current east side line, on Lexington Ave. (and until you've ridden the IRT Lex on a crowded summer rush hour afternoon, you don't know what the meaning of "sardine" is).

Right now, the city has been given $4.5 billion by the Bush Administration for transportation improvements in Lower Manhattan in the wake of the WTC distruction. Ideally, the city and MTA would be able to tie that project into the Second Ave. line and solve two problems at once (there is a very-underused line on Nassau Street, two blocks from the WTC that could be tied into the project, saving at least $1-2 billion in the downtown area). The problem is the city or state would have to pony up additional money to get the uptown section done, and given the overpricing/graft/waste/fraud connected with most NYC construction projects, $4.5 billion might not go very far (repair of the IRT subway tunnel destroyed by the WTC 2 collapse came in both well under budget and well ahead of schedule, but the further we get from 9/11 the less ugency/dedication any future projects will have).

There have been two bond issues floated to build the Second Ave. subway -- in 1950 and 1970 -- and the M-15 bus is still the only mass transit down the avenue today. Odds are the voters in New York wouldn't want to be suckered a third time on a bond issue that ends up being spent elsewhere and would reject it, leaving the only local source of funds a fare increase above the $2 level. As is the case with going to a zoned/timed fare system in NYC, that would take a lot of political courage, and it's unlikely anyone in office right now will want to raise fares any higher than needed just to maintain the current overcrowded level of service.

>> it would gradually change your lifestyle sufficiently that you wouldn't HAVE to go out for a week+ worth of groceries at a time: As opposed to, say, driving eight miles to a mega-grocer, you would take a five-minute light-rail ride to a smaller store located a mile away, and buy two days' worth.

Gee thanks. I really want to spend more time&money for groceries than I do now.

Interestingly enough, right now I have a choice - I can buy two days worth of groceries or I can buy a week's worth. It turns out that I use a mix - for some things, I buy a month's worth at a time from a mega-store, for others, I buy a half-week's worth from the local yuppie grocery store. I can't afford the yuppie store for everything.

>> I think they may have a better perspective on what makes for good community.

Why does "good community" always cost more than people will willingly pay?

"once you overcome the politics issue the economics are very relevant"
You NEVER overcome the politics issue as long as the transit systems are publicly owned. By definition.

Like Jim, I fail to see why "percentage of wage" is being used to calculate what average Joe ought to be spending.

And I also fail to see how $4 being less than the cost of lunch factors in -- anybody on a tight budget knows that buying your lunch is a worse waste of your money than lottery tickets. Poor people have a choice about lunch. They bring it, or don't eat at all. I know. I'm one of them. Comparing something to the price of a lunch I would never even consider buying does not occur to me. When it comes to transportation, and the only choice that saves you $160 a month is finding a closer job... oh, wait, considering the state of the economy... did I actually say "choice"?

I'll agree that 25 or 75 cents is a decent inflate. Well, a tolerable one. You'll get grumbles, but not screams. I'll even agree that it's a good thing. But mention that $4 and I can feel my face go white, as I reach compulsively for my car keys.

Color me a permanent resident of Atlanta. Nobody can charge me an hypothetical fiver for the daily use of my car. Yet. Growl, hiss.

I'd like to hear from regular light rail riders.

How many riders per car are carrying groceries, laundry, repaired TV, Nordstrom bags and other normal shopping items? And how many such trips would it take to do ALL your weekly shopping via light rail?

I've done all my shopping by foot or rail for almost all of my life. But it doesn't work in a city that's designed around a car -- you can't make angelenos use light rail, because the zoning and everything else is not designed for it. I have three or four supermarkets within five blocks of me. Even at school, where it was a mile walk, I had a frame pack. I was also nineteen and a mile hike with groceries was as nothing.

Other shopping is definitely done by rail here. Anything too big for you to carry, you have delivered.

>> All governments everywhere since the Roman Republic have subsidized transporation ... there have been almost no human transporation systems in history that made a profit after costs of capital.

NYC was covered with a multitude of profitable, privately-owned surface transport systems at the time the subways were conceived (and there was a profitable underground railroad too, now the PATH route) that served as their inspiration. The subways themselves were profitable and earning a 20% return on capital until the city government price-fixed the fare -- which was the reverse of a subsidy, of course.

>>> Transit goes unused because local officials and transit officials don't arrange to zone high density urban villages around stations with convenient services, commuter condos, and transit oriented development .... Work and home and entertainment would move close together. Walking would be viable again in most neighborhoods. The old fashion of building quality urban neighborhoods instead of slums would revive

This fantasy absurdly ignores reality. The entire reason that the city government drove the creation of the NYC subways -- it pushed the idea and financed capital construction with city bonds (because the private bond market couldn't do so) with the subway operators paying off the bonds -- was to *create* the suburbs and let the masses move out of overcrowded, expensive, unhealthy lower Manhattan into the inexpensive, healthy countrysides of upper Manhattan, Queens and even the remote Bronx.

That fantasy of an urban wonderland is so far from the noxious reality of urban over-congestion that only a public transit utopian could believe it. And it's very peculiar how urban transit utopians now think the purpose of transit is to keep people *in* cities, when public transit systems like the NYC subways were expressly created by city planners to let people *escape* living in cities while still working in them -- to *create* commuting.

Such rail transit systems were done in economically, very simply, by the car -- not by subsidies for driving. The car is just hugely more efficient at accomplishing the same thing. Draw a rail transit line on a map. You can go by train just between the station-stop points on it, only when a train is running, with only what you can carry by hand. In 1904 that was a huge improvement over being restricted to the distance you could *walk* from home.

But now draw a circle with the radius of the rail line. With a car you can go between *any* two points in that circle, at any time you want, with a car-and-trunk full of people and things. It's no contest right there. You don't have to live and/or work near a subway line any more. You don't even have to own a car, you can take a taxi. And you're not going to worry about missing a train, having the trains break down on you, getting mugged in the station, having to stand in an open station during a rain or snow storm, etc. Just no contest.

That's why even NYC subway ridership fell almost 50% after WWII. No other city will ever come close to developing a subway that competes economically with cars. Just ask Los Angeles. ;-)

>>>I agree with you that part of the reason the lines are so expensive is that the TA operates them.

Well, that's the main point -- and the cause of all I note below -- so we do agree in substance, but still...

>>> However, there are ongoing capital costs -- 100 year old infrastructure must be repaired, and we aren't driving the same subway cars we had in 1910. Also, the system is bursting at the seams; it needs to expand, and there's no money because the fares are so tightly controlled.

... it's not self-evident to me that the rest of this is true. Operating costs of every other form or transport -- car, truck, air, and rail -- have plunged during the century, yet operating costs of the subways today are a multiple of their original combined operating *and* construction costs -- and those tunneling costs were immense.

Yes, the MTA has to replace subway cars - but all the subway cars all had to be new at the beginning; and all other railroads, airlines, truckers, etc., must replace their equipment too. Depreciation and maintenance of such equipment are operating costs -- and everybody else's transport operating costs keep declining.

As to the system being overcrowded, well, ridership has been falling since 1947 when it topped at over 2 billion annually, down by almost half to just over 1 billion. With usage down that much it's hard for me to think the systems is running over capacity.

Some particular subway lines are overcrowded the way some particular NYC public schools are badly overcrowded -- but it's a mistake to look at those and conclude the whole system is like that in either case. There are far more one-third and half-empty public school buildings in NYC than overcrowded ones. But institutionally, the Board of Ed is unable to shift resources from where they aren't needed to where they are. Like the fire department can't close unneeded firehouses. And Amtrak must move money *from* the NE corridor that *could* be profitable, but isn't, to subsidize trains running between Boise and East St. Louis to the tune of $200 a passenger. The same type politics directs subway service. Politically, it's near impossible to reduce services that are now excessive to shift resources to where they are needed.

Interestingly, the only time the trend of declining ridership has seen a big reversal -- to the shock of the MTA's management -- was when fares were *lowered* a few years back with introduction of the Metrocard and related discounts. Ridership zoomed up to about 1.3 billion and the MTA got a healthy revenue increase, to it's own amazement. It never expected such a thing. Maybe it should consider the unorthodox again.

Well, this is all one subway rider's opinion, FWIW.

Glad to see that the corporate welfare lobby is responding to my libertarian attitude so predictibly. Sometimes I wonder why the right wingers ever think they're in favor of free markets. Some responses below.

Jane,

On the public cost of motorcar transit remember that we're not just talking about construction and maintenance of highways. Land has to be taken for public use and that land is out of the property tax base forever. Usually houses and other buildings must be purchased and razed. And city streets must be paved and maintained for heavy vehicles, which is much more expensive than all the highway construction together. Emergency services are a big cut of local and state budgets and are most of those costs are a result of motorcar transit. Also local utilities spend three to five times as much to serve scattered motorcar oriented development as they do to serve denser streetcar suburb development. Many states spend half their budgets and more on motorcar subsidies. And the federal government spends about US$20 to US$50 billion more, after subtracting gas and car taxes.

But that's not the biggest part of the cost. Direct subsidy amounts to a few thousand dollars per commuter motorcar per year. Then there are motorcar oriented zoning and parking mandate costs. Consider building a movieplex in an inner suburb of an American city on ten acres of property that cost you US$3 million and you have three acres of theater and three acres of landscape, the landscape required to meet setbacks from the collector street that zones your property as commercial. Minimum parking requirements will have you build on the remaining four acres a giant parking garage. You can expect to build about one space for every two seats with most parking codes; theater requirements are less than restaurant, office building, and residential requirements usually.
Your parking garage should dwarf your movieplex building, by the way. Now consider that each parking space will cost you about US$15 000 to build and the revenue from the parking will be zero since every establishment is required to provide excess parking throughout your suburb. For the theater you spent about US$4 to US$8 million on building and property and on the parking you will spend about US$5 to US$15 million.

Since the overwhelming majority of real estate in the USA is subject to suburban parking requirements (including most city property outside "downtown" areas), this situation applies to most US property. And the land value of areas subject to parking requirements falls in proportion, often being worth less than half what unrestricted property would sell for. And that doesn't address suburban zoning requirements which reinforce the parking requirements in addition to their legitimate purposes. And remember that there are five to ten spaces in a city per car, but also remember that you can spend much more on more land and build surface parking for only US$2 000 a space. All that doesn't include the hidden subsidy of on street parking.

So we can see that the cost of unfunded mandates to support motorcars eats up around half the value of real estate development in the United States. Though I don't own a car, I still have to pay for these facilities even though the payment is not thorugh taxes. If market rate parking were allowed there would be no free parking and I could not include any of these costs but cities require parking to be built so abundantly that the price is zero. In fact, almost no parking would exist in our cities in a free market compared to today.

Add half the real estate development in the US to direct subsides and you get up to over US$20 000 in soild externalized costs per motorcar (actively used). As usual the mandate costs of bad government are far more than the direct costs of government.

Insufficent,

The motorcar system sits on the three legged stool of socialized freeways, mandated parking, and banning private transit service. You are a shill for the politburo.

Cut all transit subsidies and parking mandates and pay the full cost of your choices and you won't see anything like the system you advocate. I will admit for you that the few highways that do exist will be far better run.

As for choice, you can have it if you will pay the cost. When the taxes on that car add up to US$20 000 a year, I won't complain anymore if you keep the pollution control in good shape.

I live in a low density streetcar suburb (with the streetcars torn out by the city to put in motorways). And I get my groceries by walking, four choices within ten minutes walk.

Jim

I made a specific exception for the Nineteenth Century when I suggested that transit has never been profitable net of subsidies. Early Twentieth Century should maybe be included, too. Road building and transit right of way expropriation in the 1920s ended that most places and the 1950s superfreeway pork killed it for good.

On density, we're really on the same page but you've missed the train. The density that we were glad to be rid of with streetcars and ferrys in downtown Manhattan rose up to over one person per ten square feet of living space. Streetcar (and ferry) suburbs let people live at a density of 15 homes per acre instead, with each person getting three hundred or more interior square feet and triple that outside. That was comfortable, as is double or half that density, if you prefer.

The noxious squalor of high density then does not resemble high density now. In fact, high density transit oriented development today is 15 homes per acre, often less. Maybe we should call it medium density instead. Now we build suburbs frequently limited by law to 2 homes per acre, even with our smaller families. My parents just built a house for four people such that you could easily park a 747 inside it on two acres in a subdivision filled with such houses.

The 15 h/a neighborhoods are much nicer places to live, but if you want to pay the true costs of sprawl development, please do so and live where you choose.

Also, that car you describe can go anywhere only if there is a freeway and a parking space near the destination. In medium density places San Francsico and New York City, the parking space is always the limiting factor.

I'm happy to see this discussion here because it really illustrates the difference between whining for free markets and really wanting them when your own ox is being gored.

Andy,

No point in me responding I guess -- you took my musings to mean that your only alternative is to shop at a "yuppie" grocer, and the remainder of your conclusions fell in line accordingly.

Considering the alternatives, a rate hike makes sense. I'm willing to pay an extra 50 cents. At $2 a ride, The subway is still the cheapest way to get around in NYC.

What was that about pricing in negative externalities? I'm confused here. I thought, when pricing in externalities (which ought always to be done, but often isn't, for political reasons), that both negative and positive externalities were meant to be included. Thus, when attributing negatives to busses (traffic, pollution, noise) one ought to credit busses with positive externalities, or more accurately, avoided negative externalities. Those are the traffic, noise and pollution due to private vehicle use that would occur if the bus were unavailable. That is enough cars, taxis and bikes (bikes are hardly an unalloyed "good" in New York City), on the street and parked somewhere when not in use, to accommodate anybody not taking to foot, as you recommend, who would be booted off the bus. Everybody, everybody, who thinks through the public transit problem understands that the positive externalities from public transit systems are enormous in major cities. So thank you for bringing up externalities. Now go calculate that price again.

Should the general tax base be used to promote public transit? To the extent that the public in general benefits from the externalities generated buy public transit, yes. To the extent that other forms of transit with a negative balance of externalities can be taxed and the funds shifted, that would also be a legitimate source of funds. I am aware of your distaste for targeted taxes (read your tax plan), but if you want to dabble in externalities (and we all should), then you have to accept that negative externalities need to be taxed, public goods need to be subsidized. The fact that systems of taxation and subsidization are abused doesn't change the fact that a second best approach still taxes negative externalities and subsidized public goods.

Busses create pretty much as much traffic as the equivalent number of cars, because they're slow, large, and unwieldy -- a bus changing lanes creates 5 times as much traffic as a car doing so; 10 times as much when it's turning. They also pollute more because they're diesel. Also, you're assuming that the alternative is a car, rather than walking, which in many cases is not true. We took the bus to 75th Street to do some shopping yesterday, but we wouldn't have driven if there were no bus; we'd have walked.

A public good is a very specific sort of good -- one that is both necessary and non-appropriable, so that it requires tax financing. Transportation is perfectly appropriable, and thus is not a classic "public good"; just something the politicians have decided to give the taxpayers, because the tax payers don't understand how much it's costing them.

Even accepting your estimates of 5X and 10X, the busses I ride in NYC can carry more than 10X the number of passengers as do most cars, even at 2 riders in each car, which is probably high. At rush hour (about 4 hours a day in NYC), busses actually carry their capacity, or a bit more.

You ignored the parking problem, which was wise if what you want to do is score points, but not if you want to find good public policy solutions. Diesels pollute more because we let them.

European cars are using diesel technology which lower emmisions far below the standard of commercial diesels in the US. There are non-diesel busses on the streets in NYC (I suspect you knew that, which makes your argument regarding pollution kinda like your avoiding the parking issue), and in time, there could easily be more. Neither you nor I know the balance of pollution per passenger mile between busses and cars, which is the relevant measure, rather than per vehicle. Even without arguing that we could lower pollution from public vehicles, you can hardly claim to have won that point, on the strength of your assertions alone. Then, let's not forget, subways are part of the public transit system and they ain't diesel.

You take the public good point. I misspoke. It is on externalities that your argument falls apart, not public goodness.

Here's an article about how NYC's transit authority (MTA) could save maybe a half-billion dollars annually by cutting bus expenses by from 30% to 50% (LA saved 40%, San Diego 33%, Denver 46%, London 51%, etc.) http://www.nypost.com/postopinion/opedcolumnists/62889.htm

I doubt that the MTA runs the subways less inefficiently than the buses. A corresponding savings would bring the fare down to, oh, maybe 95 cents. Like in olden times.

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