A southern California elected official is challenging the notion that the region can solve its congestion problems by putting more money into transit. Richard Bailey, the mayor of Coronado, has written an op ed titled “It’s time to put roads over transit.” Bailey argues that it is wasteful to put more than 50 percent of the San Diego region’s transportation dollars into transit when transit carries just 3.5 percent of the region’s commuters. He hopes to influence the urban area’s next regional transportation plan.
Bailey’s article caught the attention of a local news station that also interviewed transit advocate Colin Parent (starting at 1:05). Parent noted that there are 64,000 households in San Diego County that don’t have a car and cutting transit would hurt those people who use it as “their primary means of transportation.”
Wrong argument. What Parent failed to mention was that half of the county’s carless households also don’t have a commuter in the household. Of the 33,400 workers in the county that live in a household without a car, less than 27 percent take transit to work while 47 percent get to work in an automobile. So transit is hardly the primary means of transportation for people whose households lack access to automobiles.
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This willy-nilly spending on rail transit has done nothing but add to the region’s congestion. The 1980 census had found that 3.54 percent of San Diego County commuters took transit to work. In 2017, the share of county commuters who took transit to work was all the way up to 3.35 percent. Total transit ridership in the San Diego urban area has declined 12 percent in the last four years.
With numbers like these, Bailey can reasonably argue that all of the money spent on those rail projects was wasted. Halting the construction of new transit infrastructure would save the region billions without having any impact on the transit service to those 64,000 households without cars, or anyone else.
So, Colin Parent, what is your real priority: spending money on transit or providing mobility for people? Because if mobility is your real priority, then spending less money, not more, would be the best solution.
Is cancelling projects that have not even been started (and which in many cases are not funded anyway) really “cutting transit”? It would be another thing if San Diego were actually considering reducing service levels, but that doesn’t really seem to be on the table. Parent sounds like he’s flailing at a straw man.
Let’s do some quick math here, 3 Billion / 64000 = $46,875 per car-less commuter. Just buy them a car!
64,000 in a metro of 3.3 million? You don’t need trains to help so few people get around.
More road tolling would reduce traffic congestion
the highwayman: More road tolling would reduce traffic congestion
Yes, which is what libertarians advocate for: user fees paid for by those who use the roads.
50 percent of the San Diego region’s transportation dollars goes into transit when transit carries just 3.5 percent of the region’s commuters.
transit agencies will never understand the law of proportional economics. UC professor Charles Lave insisted on observing the “Law of Large Proportions.” Investing $1 Billion on the option used by 87.9% of the people (Drive Alone and Carpool) will produce far more benefits than investing the same $1 Billion on the option used by less than 2.0% of the people (Rail).
Still roads are not subjected to existing on a profit or loss basis, that’s the difference :$
“Still roads are not subjected to existing on a profit or loss basis”
They should be.
Change your name to the strawman.
And leave the discussion to the grown ups.
Frank, you might as well be telling me that you deny gravity :$