Hacker News Reader

Why should public transit be paid for by automobiles? Let the users of each service pay for what they consume. Cars pay for roads, maintenance, highway patrol, etc. Public transit users pay for rail, buses, dedicated lanes, etc. Forcing automobile users to pay for public transit obscures the true societal cost of implementing public transit just as much as using tax revenues outside of gas/license taxes for roads obscures the true cost of driving private cars.

>Why should public transit be paid for by automobiles? Let the users of each service pay for what they consume.

Why should anyone pay for anything they don't use? I understand this is a fairly common position to take in general, but this situation is not unique to public transit.

Regardless, true cost of driving private cars is already obscured beyond just for road construction and maintenance. Free or subsidized municipal on-street parking, below market rates, is one big example.

I am in general in favor of nearly all services being based on user fees, except in cases of people who have handicaps that prevent them from otherwise functioning normally in society (physical disability, mental health issues, developmental issues, etc.) or have had a recent extraordinary event that temporarily impacted their ability to care for themselves (loss of a job, loss of a family member, birth of a child, severe illness, etc.). In cases where it is desired to subsidize services for less well off users, raise fees on more financially capable users. To achieve this, I prefer the airline model - offer a couple of classes of marginally better service at an order of magnitude higher cost. The people who truly have the means will pay it, and those who don't will not. For instance, someone with 150k income and $15k/year medical costs,$25k/year childcare costs, and $25k/year in student debt payments might not be as well off as their income suggests. The airline model allows people with means to self-select in a way that income-based taxation does not.

> Cars pay for roads, maintenance, highway patrol, etc.

That's not accurate.

https://www.citylab.com/transportation/2015/05/debunking-the...

I must apologize for my lack of clarity. The intent of my statement was to say that "Cars should pay for..." and "Public transit users should pay for", not to imply that the users of these services cover their costs now. Cars are obviously subsidized by general tax revenue, and public transit is also subsidized by general tax revenue. Ideally general taxes would be reduced by the amount spent on these services, and the costs for these services would be increased accordingly.

My bad. I read it as "since cars pay... transit should pay too".

> Every metro region in the country must be a unified under a single transportation agency. They should have enough power to force major changes. If transportation is designed at one level above a single city (esp in a metro area), there could be a lot of efficiencies that can be derived. E.g, coordination between bus and the subway system to pick up passengers within a few minutes of disembarking from the train. Expanded subway coverage for arterial routes at least. Mini buses instead of big ones for feeder routes - with increased frequency. This is not uncommon outside the US btw.

New Jersey has a single, statewide transportation agency (local jitneys notwithstanding). It's better than nothing, but it fucking sucks.[1]. Increasing the scope of an agency, at least in the US, isn't a panacea; it just replaces one set of serious problems with a different set of serious problems. The US needs more fundamental changes than just changing the power/scope of agencies. Unfortunately I don't know what that is.

[1] https://twitter.com/FuckNjTransit

> Market st is already a no-go for private cars for many blocks.

This seems like a 'nobody goes there it's too busy' sort of argument. If it's a no-go for private cars then it should be almost empty apart from a few taxis and a bus or two? Which would make it not a no-go for private cars...

You are literally describing a soviet style centrally planned economy.

Society should be organised bottom up and decentralised.

Communities and regions need more autonomy. Decision making power belongs at the edges, with those who have the most context.

Bazar significantly outcompetes cathedral at scale.

You're free to build your set of competing roads next to the public ones if you wish. Good luck.

I don't think the people down-voting you realize that if (US) society put more authority locally (city > state > federal) the car-free cities they want would be closer to reality. Cities would have more power to impose tolls and restrictions on cars. If cities relied less on the state for their transit budgets they could more easily do as they please, same goes at the state level (the federal .gov is known to hold transit budgets hostage over unrelated things). The overhead of always having to deal with the next level of government is a big hindrance when it comes to changing the status quo.

You sound republican downvote 100x (just kidding). And not only that, but it even makes sense because cities that dont want cars (have a population that vote locally to remove them in key areas) can do so, and cities that want them, can keep doing that.

Personally I've always felt that about our system. Income taxes should be city 20%, State 5%, country 1%. Think about how fucked up it currently is compared to that.