New York City has the greatest transit system in America. It carries a third of all transit rides, and well over half of all rail transit rides in the U.S. Fares cover close to two-thirds of its operating costs, more than any other transit system. New York’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) is what every other transit system aspires to be.
Broke.
So broke that the MTA is planning “service cuts that would affect nearly every bus, subway and commuter rail rider in New York.” These include the complete elimination of two subway lines and many bus routes, along with reductions in frequencies on many other routes and cuts in services to disabled riders. These cuts are deemed necessary to close a $383 million gap in the agency’s 2010 budget — more money than the entire annual budgets of most transit agencies.
It helps to circulate blood in the muscles of the penis also lower the libido and performance in bed. purchase sildenafil online But if cialis discount pharmacy you are feeling shy or embarrassing in discussing about this problem with anyone. The best male enhancement pills viagra uk purchase can be utilized to give any second thoughts before buying this particular product. So, the people who are trying to know how order viagra https://www.unica-web.com/ENGLISH/2014/unica2014-jury-krieken.html to build muscles should read this article. The most controversial part of the plan is a proposal to start charging children, who have historically been given free bus and subway rides to school. This alone is supposed to make up for almost half the gap in the budget — but anytime you start charging for something that has previously been free you are asking for trouble.
Some think the MTA is pulling a Washington Monument strategy, trying to find the most visible and painful cuts so taxpayers and appropriators will fall all over themselves to find more funds for the agency. Maybe.
But the real question is how we expect to pay for transit systems that we run at such huge losses every year. In cities where transit carries only 1 or 2 percent of travel and 2 to 10 percent of commuters, the answer is to tax all non-transit riders a little bit each. But when half of all commuters use transit, as in New York City, it is harder to find non-users you can tax to make up for the losses, and they tend to resist paying for it.
Transit’s friends like to claim that it is sustainable transportation. Actually, it is the least sustainable form of transportation in the United States.
The MTA would have a bit more money had it not been falling all over itself to give the Atlantic Yards rail yard to Nets owner Ratner, even accepting a much lower bid than others offered.
Wags in New York tell me that “MTA” stands for Money Thrown Away” because of their habit of gold-plating capital projects. See, for example, “East Side Excess” which is building a whole new track level at Grand Central despite the fact that there is plenty of track capacity on the existing lower level.
They’re learning the lesson of the Michael Scott Paper Company: When you’re taking on red ink, trying to “make it up in volume” is not an optimal strategy!
Mike wrote:
> They’re learning the lesson of the Michael Scott Paper Company: When you’re taking on red ink, trying
> to “make it up in volume†is not an optimal strategy!
Stated differently, the N.Y. MTA loses money on every transit customer and does not make it up in volume.
Stated even differently, the N.Y. MTA is utterly and totally auto-dependent, for without the tolls paid every day by MTA Bridge and Tunnel patrons, the buses and subway trains and commuter railroad trains would come to a halt.
There’s also an interesting debate piece in the N.Y. Times opinion section of its online site with several points of view:
Why Is the M.T.A. Always in Trouble?
Where are the resident lefties to accuse the AP of lying? Ill? I shall pray for them.
O’Toole’s autos only planning bias/agenda doesn’t help him.
Though constructive criticism is always welcomed.
For example, CPZ has brought up subcontracting and that’s a start.
Hugh Jardonn said: Wags in New York tell me that “MTA†stands for Money Thrown Away†because of their habit of gold-plating capital projects. See, for example, “East Side Excess†which is building a whole new track level at Grand Central despite the fact that there is plenty of track capacity on the existing lower level.
THWM: As far as I know the electrical systems for MN & LIRR are not compatible, also there might be clearence issues between types of rolling stock(even with the subway there are differences between lines with numbers & letters).
One project that transit activists are very critical of in the NYC area is the new tunnel that NJT wants to build to Manhattan, in that it doesn’t link into the existing Penn Station so it couldn’t be used by Amtrak or LIRR. After all we do want to get the most bang for our buck.
C. P. Zilliacus said:
Mike wrote:
> They’re learning the lesson of the Michael Scott Paper Company: When you’re taking on red ink, trying
> to “make it up in volume†is not an optimal strategy!
Stated differently, the N.Y. MTA loses money on every transit customer and does not make it up in volume.
Stated even differently, the N.Y. MTA is utterly and totally auto-dependent, for without the tolls paid every day by MTA Bridge and Tunnel patrons, the buses and subway trains and commuter railroad trains would come to a halt.
THWM: Not every bridge on or off of Manhattan has tolls on it.
I realize that students who currently ride free having to pay a fare is politically unpopular. But it MTA really doing it to drum up more money from the city and state? After all, those entities either cut their budget for the program and kept it level. And there hasn’t seemed to be any talk of what fares for students would be. One would assume they’d still be less than full. And another $15million here or there in revenues would help.
In Toronto transit fares are $2.75 ($2.58 USD) one-way and the monthly is $109. There is another fare hike in January that will send one-way fares to $3.00. While everybody bitches the fares pay for 73 percent of operating costs, much higher than other big city transit agencies. For a comparison, the New York MTA farebox recovery is 36%. Despite the high fare its subway system does ~25,000 boardings per route mile per day.
The high fare means less subsidy. It also means that service cuts will be less severe when the shit hits the fan. Here in Los Angeles the fare is $1.25 and the monthly pass is around $62 and people still complain, still demand unreasonable service levels and expect more subsidy. Anytime there is a fare hike the hearing is a circus of all kinds of advocates and bullshitters looking to keep fares artificially low.
So I’d like to see fares, at least where I live, be increased. You could charge $150 a month for a monthly pass and it’s still a good deal compared to owning a car. The high fares might fund the kind of goddamn service people will actually ride. The truly needy can get assistance to buy their pass (they already do even at such low fares!), as it’s a less inefficient way of doing things. But for God’s sake, let’s raise those farebox recovery ratios!
Spokker said: Anytime there is a fare hike the hearing is a circus of all kinds of advocates and bullshitters looking to keep fares artificially low.
THWM: Oh you mean those like the Bus Riders Union, though a lot of people jokingly call them the “Bus Drivers Union”.
http://www.thestrategycenter.org/project/bus-riders-union
Yeah, that’s them. Their Lord and savior Eric Mann drives a Benz, last I heard. I think he’s all about using poor people of color as pawns in order to satisfy union interests. Their management is the lowest of the low.
Spokker:
But for God’s sake, let’s raise those farebox recovery ratios!
You would achieve an effective 100% farebox recovery ratio by privatizing all transit. (In practice, it would likely exceed 100%, but the profit would go to the owning/operating entity.)
I doubt it. There is still some basic level of transit service you have to provide whether it makes a profit or not. You can’t always go after the money routes.
Spokker:
There is still some basic level of transit service you have to provide whether it makes a profit or not.
What is your premise for this conclusion?
The only thing a government “has” to do is protect individual life, liberty, and property. It is for that reason governments are established by people and ceded the exclusive franchise on the initiation of retaliatory force.
Mike said:
Spokker: There is still some basic level of transit service you have to provide whether it makes a profit or not.
What is your premise for this conclusion?
The only thing a government “has†to do is protect individual life, liberty, and property. It is for that reason governments are established by people and ceded the exclusive franchise on the initiation of retaliatory force.
THWM: Spokker has a good point and that point is liberty.
How is it liberty if the government expropriates money from me at the point of a gun?
Mike said: How is it liberty if the government expropriates money from me at the point of a gun?
THWM: If you don’t like being part of society here, you can move to Somalia.
“What is your premise for this conclusion? ”
My premise is that I can’t tell an old lady that her bus is never going to come again.
Yes, governments are established by the people and the people have decided that basic transportation services for the elderly and the disabled are just uses of public funds. Even when people cheer on bus service cuts because they think buses are socialist or wasteful, most still support some basic mobility for the elderly and the disabled. These services are not profitable and there is no way to make them profitable. Dial-A-Ride costs even more to operate than regular bus service per rider. Even if a private company was able to make transit profitable, the basic mobility services would have to be subsidized by those profits. Either way, basic mobility services are a drain, but they will never go away. They shouldn’t.
Spokker,
My premise is that I can’t tell an old lady that her bus is never going to come again.
Why not?
The people deciding to loot some citizens and transfer that wealth to other citizens at the point of a gun may be fact, but that does not make it moral, nor does it make it right.
What MORAL reason is there that the old lady can’t take care of her own transportation?
Highwayman,
Somalia is in anarchy. Objectivism rejects anarchy. We’ve been over this before, but thanks for demonstrating that you’re not here to discuss, but just to vomit strange rants all over this blog regardless of how often they are refuted.
Mike you have an objective, you are not objective.
For that old lady that transit service is a life line to get around her community.
You just want selective government functions that only interest you, though there is more to the USA than just you.
I’m not against paying for the street in front of my house, even though I hardly drive on it.
“What MORAL reason is there that the old lady can’t take care of her own transportation?”
I don’t know, man. I’m just not that hardcore.
I don’t think you need a gun to convince taxpayers to pay for some crippled bastard’s bus ride to and from the hospital where he gets his check ups.
Spokker,
I think you DO need a gun. Because otherwise, why doesn’t everybody just donate every spare dollar they have to help someone who needs it? After all, under your rationale, need is a legitimate claim on wealth.
Not a gun, but you might need a little shame. A person who is so anti-tax that they don’t approve of paying for basic mobility services for the elderly and the disabled is going to have a hard time making and keeping friends. The vast majority of people don’t get shaken up by it.
It’s like people who take such a hard stance on illegal immigration. I tell them, okay, you have your opinion and everything, but calm down a little bit. “No, we’ve gotta build a wall! We gotta deport these fuckers. Argh!!!” They just aren’t pleasant to be around.
Most of the time, when I talk to people who are angry about taxes, I ask them what they actually support their tax dollars going to. And believe it or not, they end up supporting a lot of fucking taxes 🙂
Spokker said: Most of the time, when I talk to people who are angry about taxes, I ask them what they actually support their tax dollars going to. And believe it or not, they end up supporting a lot of fucking taxes.
THWM: Well said Spokker. They know the price of every & the value of nothing.
Spokker,
When a tax is a use fee, the only problem is that the government usually provides the service less efficiently than the private sector could, and usually because the government is providing a service that the private sector should provide instead. When the tax is redistribution of wealth, it’s morally wrong and indefensible no matter how well it’s working (and that’s being charitable, pun intended, given how well most government programs work). There IS a difference.
I have no problem keeping friends. Your argument avoids the central moral issue and just brings up irrelevancies. Why do you maintain that need is a legitimate claim on life? Do you comprehend that if need is a legitimate claim on life that we are, all of us, slaves to any thug who presents an outstretched hand?
You make a lot of assumptions instead of backing up your argument. I would venture to guess I donate a lot more money than you do every year. I just do it voluntarily, not at the point of a gun, and to causes I choose, not to provide free transportation for your grandmother.
“I just do it voluntarily, not at the point of a gun, and to causes I choose, not to provide free transportation for your grandmother.”
My grandmother is dead and she never took the bus. I’m talking about the poor old women who have nobody, their husbands long dead, living off of Social Security. Without the bus they could not get to their doctor, the store, etc. They would end up as a rotting corpse only to be found by the neighbors three weeks later when they sniff something foul. In fact, that’s going to happen anyway, but in the meantime, the majority of taxpayers don’t care if she’s riding the bus at far below cost.
We chose, as a collective society, to do that. We chose through our votes. Go to any county that has passed a 1/2 cent sales tax measure to fund transportation improvements. Part of that sales tax is going to go to basic mobility. Citizens could easily vote no on the tax, but even in conservative Orange County, CA, our Measure M has widespread support.