At their start, many government programs actually do produce benefits greater than their costs. But the reason why government fails is that political pressures force the government to extend the programs to as many jurisdictions as possible.
The federal government first got involved in public transit because the railroads wanted to stop providing commuter train service to New York, Boston, Philadelphia, and Chicago. Many of these trains cross state lines, thus seemingly justifying a federal program. While the Antiplanner doesn’t see why other taxpayers should have to subsidize commuters in a few big cities, if the program had gone no further than to subsidize these lines, it wouldn’t have wasted too much money.
But senators and representatives from other states could not allow federal funding to go to these four metro areas alone. So the 1964 Urban Mass Transit Act was written to allow public transit agencies in any state to apply for federal capital grants, even if the agencies services did not cross state lines.
Initially, those agencies mainly served major metropolitan areas. But eventually, many served small towns and even rural areas. in 2005, Congress specifically set aside extra funds for rural transit. Today, more than 1,300 rural transit agencies serve more than 2,200 counties — nearly 3 out 4 counties in the country. As shown in the above map (click for a larger view), every county in such rural states as Wyoming and North Dakota has transit service.
Even Harney County, Oregon — which has 16 percent more land than New Jersey but whose 2008 population is less than 6,750 people, for an average density of two-thirds of a person per square mile — supposedly has rural transit service (although it is probably just a bus serving a senior center in the county’s largest town). Only Utah, for some reason, has resisted the temptation to get federal funds to provide transit service to thinly populated areas.
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Rural transit is expensive. According to a report commissioned by the Federal Transit Administration, the average cost per transit ride under a rural program called “Job Access Reverse Commute” (JARC) is more than $11. (The report doesn’t say whether this includes capital costs, but I presume it does not.) This compares with an average cost nationwide of just over $3 per ride, and under $3 in major metro areas such as New York, Boston, and Philadelphia.
Why are these transit services so expensive? Because hardly anyone uses them. Let’s take a look at the average number of riders on board buses in some of the nation’s smaller transit agencies in the National Transit Database. I used my summary file of the most important raw data in the 2007 database and sorted transit agencies by urbanized area number (column F), which is roughly ordered by population (1 is New York, 2 is Los Angeles, etc.). Transit vehicle occupancies are shown in column T, which divides passenger miles by vehicle revenue miles.
The average “motor bus” (MB) in Fond du Lac, WI — urbanized area 452 — has 1 passenger on board. Auburn, ME — urbanzed area 447 — has two passengers per bus. Danville, VA — UA 443 — has 0.9 passengers. Some do better, but mainly because they serve larger cities.
The report also claims that rural transit helps unemployed people reach jobs, and the income taxes generated by such jobs produce more government revenue than the cost of the transit. However, the report adds, “it is not likely that many users will stay in the transit system over the long haul.” In other words, people use transit to get a job, then use their income to buy a car, and then they stop using transit.
Why not cut out the intermediaries — the transit bureaucracies — and just give unemployed people an old car? The answer, of course, is that the purpose of rural transit isn’t to help people find jobs, but to spread federal pork dollars around to as many areas as possible.
As another FTA-funded review of rural transit programs concluded, one of the “benefits” of increased federal funding for rural transit is that it allowed transit agencies to “to increase salaries for drivers.” It is such a relief to know that, thanks to the diversion of gas taxes to rural transit agencies, drivers are now getting paid more to operate nearly empty buses.
The Antiplanner wrote:
> Why not cut out the intermediaries — the transit bureaucracies — and just give unemployed
> people an old car? The answer, of course, is that the purpose of rural transit isn’t to
> help people find jobs, but to spread federal pork dollars around to as many areas as
> possible.
I have no problem with rural transit – if people ride it (and apparently
they usually do not).
At least some people in some “far” or exurban suburbs of metropolitan areas take
commuter buses to the urban areas, and if those are operated by the private sector
under competitive contracts, then I consider them worthy (and even possibly worthy
of some taxpayer subsidy). These are probably not really rural transit in the
Antiplanner’s context.
Providing people with an older car that passes inspection (if required by law) is
a great option, and is done in some places, from what I understand.
For people that cannot drive and live in rural areas, it would seem that subsidized
taxicab service would make sense, even though each (relatively expensive) trip would
need to be subsidized, but a transit bureaucracy is not needed.
I wonder how many transit agencies could save money by shutting down and providing free taxi fare to the needy? (or the carless).
Definitely would save energy and reduce CO2, thereby playing into the Al Gore swindle.
Thanks
JK
JK said: “I wonder how many transit agencies could save money by shutting down and providing free taxi fare to the needy? (or the carless).”
Only problem with that is the high numbers of elderly population in rural counties that, once they are not able to drive anymore, they have to use transit to get around. Many in these areas use ACCESS (or some similar program), which if I remember accurately from my time spent in a rural county, has a higher cost per passenger than the mostly-empty buses. Besides, if you lose the buses, the elderly population that does use them will then be relaint on ACCESS, which will cost the gov’t even more money.
And taxi service in a rural county? Obviously you’ve never lived in a county in the middle of nowhere. Taxi services usually don’t exist way out in the country, and then you’re taking away from those who have no other options.
With the fact that transit is likely to continue to exist in these areas, the planning question becomes: do you try and encourage people, esp. the elderly, to live closer to small towns, where they can likely walk to services, and hopefully limit the extent of routes for rural transit long-term, or do you continue the status quo, which results in inefficient, costly services like rural transit?
When I asked the other day (#6 Save money by making others pay) “who here opposes subsidized transportation because it is ineffective, and who opposes it because it is a subsidy?” this is what I was thinking of.
AP writes, “Why not cut out the intermediaries — the transit bureaucracies — and just give unemployed people an old car?”
The reality is, AP and fundamental libertarians in general would also argue against giving unemployed people old cars.
Mike admitted he opposes subsidies because they are subsidies, so I put Mike in the category of People you can rationally talk policy with.
But the issue of subsidies and economics generally is that it is as political as it is an objective, empirical study. There seems little reason to believe that Antiplanner and his faithful allies have any interest in getting people to work.
AP, care to comment?
tg,
Why equate ideological rigidity with rationality?
While there are some issues with how CAT in Grand Forks or Summit Stage in Summit County CO operates, I wouldn’t call it “rural” transit. These are metro/micropolitan areas; they are cities.
As for bus service for the elderly, that gets even more tricky. Just living in town doesn’t necessarily fix things. For example, look at Walsh County North Dakota where my grandmother lives. She still lives on the farm but is quickly liking to drive less and less (she doesn’t like driving in Fargo and more recently Grand Forks). There are plenty of towns for her to move into in her area. There’s Park River, Oakwood, Drayton, Minto, Warsaw, Pisek, St. Thomas and Grafton. Argyle and Stephen on just the other side of the Red in Minnesota would work (she grew up in that area). But none of the do much to eliminate her need to drive with much in the way of housing, let alone senior housing, near the grocery store. Actually, many of those towns barely have something that would constitute a grocery store (more like a glorified convenience store). Between getting to/from church in the winter and the store for food she’s going to need to drive or have some sort of senior oriented transit (I phrase it that way since it doesn’t seem practical to have a 90 year old walking 1/4 mile to the bus stop and waiting in -25F below weather…. but, eh…).
Of course she could move into Grand Forks where she has 2 sibilings and there are more programs to help her out. Now I don’t foresee her making use of CAT’s scheduled services. It’s a new thing for her at a time when new things don’t work so well unless she has someone to help her with them. But at least there’s more going on and more service directed at her. But what happens to these other towns, even ones like Grafton, that have so many jobs based on serving seniors if they all start moving into the very biggest of towns in the region (just like their kids did)? Do we actually implement policies that would be the nail in the coffin for so many of these towns?
So what do we do? Cut the funding for the senior mobiles just because it’s getting funded from the same source that large urban transit gets funded from? But then wouldn’t that mean paratransit should have it’s cord cut? And all 3 really are transit, just in different forms.
Not that I can’t see how things could work without the subsidies. But what do you until then?
And what does rural transit have to do with planning?
How did rural people get around before there was public transit, i.e., in 1900 when 60% of U.S. residents lived in rural areas?
t g,
As described in this post, I oppose subsidies because, no matter how rational and well-intentioned they are to start, they always get turned into a big pork fest. I am not against helping unemployed people, I just think that government subsidies are the wrong way to do it.
Andy Stahl,
Rural people in 1900 didn’t get around much. As described in the book, “The Devil’s Wagon in God’s Country,” 20 million farmers lived more than 5 miles from the nearest town. Journeys into town or relatives were “an experience to be classed with the hardest work.” As a result, ruralites — especially women — led a lonely existence. The book’s thesis is that automobile rescued them from this loneliness.
Andy, when 60% of the population was rural, there was hardly a need to go more than a few miles to get what you needed. Rural was nearly synonymous with farmer and self-sustaining (1850, farmers comprised 58% labor force).
We are an Adam Smith wet dream now with hyper specialization. The lone rural resident, an island in a low density county, is no longer taught as a child how to mend a chair, his clothes and raise livestock, etc. He must drive to Wal Mart to get them.
tg: Mike admitted he opposes subsidies because they are subsidies, so I put Mike in the category of People you can rationally talk policy with.
MJ: Why equate ideological rigidity with rationality?
tg: My meaning of the word ‘rational’ is as ‘logical’.
There is rhetoric and there is logic. Rhetoric is no-holds-barred. It is the art of persuasion.
Logic is a system of reasoning. It has rules. One of which is the setting of premises. These premises do not have to be true to be valid. But if one is inconsistent in their premises, one cannot have a logical dialogue.
Thank you AP for answering that. I would like to point out then, that when you ask “Why not cut out the intermediaries — the transit bureaucracies — and just give unemployed people an old car?” it is merely a rhetorical device. It implies you support the helping of the unemployed.
You write that government subsidies are the wrong way to help them. The implicit free-market argument goes that the market would find a way to help them if the market were free. But if they could participate in the market, they wouldn’t need any help.
Your argument then seems to be, “I am not against helping unemployed people”…so long as they don’t need any help.
Referencing my point in comment #10: this is hardly a premise. You are being evasive for rhetorical reasons.
So I ask again, do you oppose inefficient subsidies or any subsidy?
I believe you would no more support giving unemployed people an old car (on tax dollars) than you would subsidizing the bus.
The Autuplanner said: As described in this post, I oppose subsidies because, no matter how rational and well-intentioned they are to start, they always get turned into a big pork fest. I am not against helping unemployed people, I just think that government subsidies are the wrong way to do it.
THWM: Though they exist in hidden forms like even property rights, regulations, tax codes, etc. You can’t reach absolute zero government subsidies, because it is impossible to decouple a political/ideological system fully from the rest of the universe.
t g: Thanks, that’s spot-on.
MJ: What you call “ideological rigidity”, I would suggest is more accurately described as consistency with principles.
At the same time, I can see why that might at first seem like a big problem. After all, there are ideologically rigid people who thump a fictional book and declare that all gays are going to an imaginary afterlife full of fire and brimstone, for example. Argue how you might about individual rights and consensual adult relations; you’ll never get them to waver a hair.
Accordingly, I think we can agree that the root of rationality through consistency with principles must be an adherence to reality. I forget who said it, but I believe the quote went “Nature: Who would command it, must first obey it.” In other words, if you’re going to argue rationally and remain consistent to principles, you have to adhere to an objective and abstract-based epistemology. Objectivism is one such, though its concepts, though simple, are widely misunderstood.
The prevalent mode of ideological rigidity today is based on subjective (faith-based) beliefs and adheres to a concrete-based epistemology. I can see no more obvious manner to build one’s house on shifting sands. Whatever policy concept, framework, or solution one proposes, one remains at the mercy of any sufficiently audacious or persistent outstretched hand of need, with no greater foundation than a claim that the ends du jour justify any means.
Dash said: Only problem with that is the high numbers of elderly population in rural counties that, once they are not able to drive anymore, they have to use transit to get around.
JK: Wrong. Actually most elderly find driving easier than transit, which almost always involves substantial walking:
In fact, driving is often the easiest physical task for older people.50 Long before they lose the ability to drive, older people may be unable to board or ride public transit, or to walk to a bus stop or train station. Even though many may still be able to use special transit services, the overwhelming majority of older people, regardless of their stage of disability, are able to ride in a car and choose to do so first. http://www.brookings.edu/reports/2003/07transportation_rosenbloom.aspx
Dash said: Many in these areas use ACCESS (or some similar program), which if I remember accurately from my time spent in a rural county, has a higher cost per passenger than the mostly-empty buses.
JK: Wouldn’t a taxi be cheaper than either?
Dash said: And taxi service in a rural county? Obviously you’ve never lived in a county in the middle of nowhere. Taxi services usually don’t exist way out in the country, and then you’re taking away from those who have no other options.
JK: Running a taxi is almost certainly cheaper than running an empty bus. How about my original question:
I wonder how many transit agencies could save money by shutting down and providing free taxi fare to the needy? (or the carless).
Thanks
JK
You wouldn’t be running a 40 foot bus in this situation, you’d be running a van.
Highwayman, that’s what is confusing me the most about this. When we’re talking about rural transit, we’re not just talking about entities like the Roaring Fork Transit Agency that are running scheduled bus routes. But a lot of rural transit doesn’t involve buses. It’s things like the Walsh County transportation program that run a van around. 4-5 days a week. They have some scheduled routes, something like picking people up in Hoople, Lankin, Adams, or Oakwood at a certain time and place on certain days to make a run into Park River or Grafton to hit the pharmacy and grocery store… but most all of it is door to door and involves that lil ol lady calling to get picked up at her house and dropped off at the doctor’s office.
That’s what confuses me…. what’s the beef with that? How does that involve planning?
“We are an Adam Smith wet dream now with hyper specialization. The lone rural resident, an island in a low density county, is no longer taught as a child how to mend a chair, his clothes and raise livestock, etc. He must drive to Wal Mart to get them.”
TG, chances are that person moved into a city a generation or three ago. And part of the reason why people like my grandma made clothes or had livestock is they were dirt poor (for example, they didn’t have indoor plumbing until the late 1950s). They had that knowledge not merely by choice; it was born of necessity as they didn’t have money to buy those things.
prk166 said: Highwayman, that’s what is confusing me the most about this. When we’re talking about rural transit, we’re not just talking about entities like the Roaring Fork Transit Agency that are running scheduled bus routes. But a lot of rural transit doesn’t involve buses. It’s things like the Walsh County transportation program that run a van around. 4-5 days a week. They have some scheduled routes, something like picking people up in Hoople, Lankin, Adams, or Oakwood at a certain time and place on certain days to make a run into Park River or Grafton to hit the pharmacy and grocery store… but most all of it is door to door and involves that lil ol lady calling to get picked up at her house and dropped off at the doctor’s office.
That’s what confuses me…. what’s the beef with that? How does that involve planning?
THWM: There’s a need to manage things, but you don’t need to micro manage every single detail.
We are an Adam Smith wet dream now with hyper specialization. The lone rural resident, an island in a low density county, is no longer taught as a child how to mend a chair, his clothes and raise livestock, etc. He must drive to Wal Mart to get them.
Autarky is not the best policy in this case. Consider the example you mentioned of mending a shirt. If the individual’s shirt gets ripped, he has two choices: 1) spend the time to learn how to mend a shirt, then spend more time actually mending the shirt, or 2) devote that time to (specialized) labor, which can then be converted into money and used to buy a new shirt, get the existing one repaired, or buy other goods and services. While he is at Wal-Mart, he can also pick up ground beef or steaks (since he doesn’t have to raise and slaughter livestock), or perhaps some non-local or out-of-season produce.
When someone’s income rises, he or she often invests in labor-saving devices (or services). Why? Because their time becomes more valuable. Specialization enables that.
In other words MJ not every one is a survivalist and most people would rather be dependent than independent.