What If We Bought Cars for the Poor Instead of Light Rail Systems?

[archerships]

Having run the default numbers, some of which were provided by Castelazo and Garrett, we confirmed that instead of pouring money into low return light rail, the government could simply purchase cars for the light rail riders without them still have enough money left over to provide all the other riders with substantial credits to use for bus service or other subsidized mass transportation options.

via politicalcalculations.blogspot.com

They provide a tool where you can play with the numbers yourself.

Posted via email from crasch's posterous

Comments

[nasu-dengaku.livejournal.com]

This only appears to take into account the cost of the cars themselves, not the cost of all the additional road and parking capacity to support all these people. There are a lot of ill-conceived light rail projects that don't break even, but a lot of it has to do with the fact that light rail is often not good at serving diffuse low-density cities and office parks that were built for cars. (eg San Jose)

For light rail to be successful, it needs to be paired with high density commercial developments near the stations. This makes it easy for people to bus/bike/drive to the nearest station and then hop on the train to get to work. This is how cities that got big before ~1930 (eg New York, London, Tokyo etc) were designed.

[radiantsun.livejournal.com]

This is a terrible idea.

[drewkitty.livejournal.com]

What a stupid apples to oranges comparison.

For those of us who know the history, existing rail systems and right of way (including the invaluable 'Key System' across the Bay Bridge) were wholesale dismantled at taxpayer expense, in order to build freeway systems and design our cities and economy around the automobile.

The entire cost of the Iraq War should be charged off to the 'automobile' side, including care for disabled veterans etc. Our continued geostrategic dependence on light sweet crude for gasoline is outrageous and dangerous.

I don't mind having the argument between privately owned vehicle (POV) and mass transit. I'd prefer a third option, a packet-based or "pod" system where personal or community pods were shuttled around by largely automated systems, but that's just me.

Light rail can't pay for itself now. Neither can a baby. Making the necessary infrastructure improvements will someday pay for itself, and then some, especially if oil prices continue to rise.

Other major sunk costs which are not accounted for in this model include:

-- accident, injury and fatality costs from highway and freeway accidents
-- highway and freeway maintenance (portion not paid for by gas taxes)
-- additional pollution and resulting increased health care costs, as well as fatalities from lowered air quality
-- effects on truck-based commerce of additional trips on major truck routes

Consider that most of these costs are negative in nature. Many of the costs in building and running a light rail system are positive (construction, salaries) and multiply through the local economy.

Comparing capital to capital, the money spent on local concrete bridges, tunnels and rail is spent locally, where the money spent on buying cheap cars (especially if one uses a Toyota!) leaves the community and the region, as does most of the gasoline costs. What stays local is the refinery and thus much of the pollution, barring the occasional oil spill. Charge the BP disaster off on the automobile side too.

[lds.livejournal.com]

vyus already pointed out a link below that I was going to give you, but I will add that I far prefer your "packet-based or 'pod' system" to light rail, and think you should stick to that when you try to make persuasive arguments in the future. Light rail suffers from not being either a robust or reusable infrastructure, and therefore represents a huge quality-of-life step backwards. It is basically worse than roads in every way. Even the energy arguments you give above are countered by the facts that our electricity infrastructure is just as fragile as our oil-based energy infrastructure right now.

Now, about those "persuasive arguments in the future." You might not be aware that we receive almost no oil from Iraq. You might not be aware that oil is never mentioned in the documents by which the Iraq war was architected. However, people who disagree with you on light rail are almost sure to know these facts that you've missed, so they will immediately recognize your statement, "The entire cost of the Iraq War should be charged off to the 'automobile' side," as factually flawed and therefore useless for anything other than social status signaling. At that point, any persuasive argument you might have been able to use will probably lose its audience. May I suggest skipping that line in the future, so we can continue to respect your viewpoint and listen to what you have to say more attentively?

[girlvinyl.livejournal.com]

It would also be cheaper to put those without personal vehicles into a gas chamber and kill them, then burn the bodies. There are lots of ways for me to make things cheaper, I have a ton of ideas! I'm clearly a genius and should be a city planner.

[vyus.livejournal.com]

go crazy.
http://www.coyoteblog.com/coyote_blog/category/rail-and-mass-transit

light rail is dumb. it's an ornament. light rail as an advantage for a city is based on a other cities losing people, prestige. buses are always more economical.

in portland, or, people celebrated the dismantling of a nuclear power site, while advocating their great non-car transit options. idiots -- and there's no better word for it.

in the end, any mass transit is a way to try to aportion transit energy to people via the state. this may be a good idea, but it won't work until people understand what it is. until then, it will always cost more than simply buying everyone priuses.

[easwaran.livejournal.com]

This person seems to assume that the only government costs to providing people with cars and gas is the sticker price of cars and gas. But the government spends a lot more money subsidizing parking (in most cities, parking is either free, or at any rate can be had for far less than the rent on any residential or commercial use of the land), subsidizing gasoline, building roads, either cleaning the air or dealing with health problems, and so on.

[mercyorbemoaned.livejournal.com]

Anything to avoid travelling with two screaming babies in carseats. ANYTHING. STAGECOACH WOULD BE FINE.

[laffingkat.livejournal.com]

In my experience, few people using light rail or other high-capacity transit are poor (I think the proportions are a bit different on regular buses, but even then, peak-period buses carry a lot of middle-class commuters). In dense urban areas, taking light rail is quicker and more convenient than driving and struggling to find parking, and you can work or read or nap or whatever while you commute, which is rather difficult to do while driving.

The other nice thing about public transit is that it works for those of us who can't drive because of disabilities or medical problems. Having a car wouldn't do me any good unless you also provided me with a driver. Same for my friend who is blind. Both of us get around just fine on transit, and are able to work and lead independent lives.