APTA has put out another report that misleadingly claims that transit saves money and energy. While it is not surprising that APTA would try to mislead the public, the sad thing is that many planners and planning advocates will believe, or pretend to believe, the report.
According to APTA’s press release, the report found that a household that uses public transit can save $6,200 per year and that public transit overall saves the country 1.4 billion of gasoline per year. A careful reading of the report itself, however, reveals many flaws in their reasoning.
Ninety percent of the calculated household savings from using transit is based on the assumption that a transit household can own one fewer automobile than non-transit households. The cost of auto ownership, in turn, is based on AAA‘s calculations.
AAA’s calculations assume that everyone buys a car brand new, pays the maximum finance charges on the car, drives 10,000 miles per year, and then buys another brand-new car as soon as the first car is paid off. In fact, the average car lasts 16 years in America, long after the auto loans are paid off. People can save money by buying a used car, paying cash instead of finance charges, and/or driving more miles per year.
AAA estimates that auto ownership costs an average of 52.2 cents per mile. The Bureau of Economic Analysis says that actual expenditures are closer to 30 cents per mile. (Divide line 69 in table 2.5.5 by the number of miles driven in table VM1 of Highway Statistics for the same year.)
The other 10 percent of APTA’s $6,200 per year comes from the cost of fuel. But fuel costs are included in AAA’s numbers, so APTA is double counting them. Even if a transit household were willing to dispense with a car, then, the savings to that household would only average $3,000 per year, less than half of APTA’s claim.
The net savings is reduced by the transit fares, which APTA estimates would be $734. Transit fares average about 20 cents a mile, so this represents about 3,600 miles of transit riding. But how many people drive a car just 3,600 miles a year?
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Beyond that, it is disingenuous for APTA to talk about “savings” when it compares auto driving with transit. The average subsidy to auto drivers in the U.S. is under a half penny per passenger mile. The average subsidy to transit is more than 60 cents per passenger mile. That means that a household that shifts 10,000 miles per year from driving to transit imposes at least a $6,000 annual burden on other taxpayers — six times the (corrected) savings to the household.
APTA also claims that transit saves 1.4 billion gallons of gasoline per year. To calculate this, APTA compares the amount of petroleum used by various forms of transit with the amount used by cars. But this reasoning contains two serious flaws.
First, in most cities, most transit riders are “transit dependent” — they can’t drive due to age, disability, poverty, or some other factor. If the public stopped subsidizing transit, these people might suffer a loss in mobility or, more likely, turn to private forms of transit. But they would not suddenly start consuming more gasoline.
Second, most rail transit is electrically powered, and that electricity is mostly generated by burning coal. Since coal is not petroleum, APTA did not count this energy cost. Yet in reality, coal and petroleum are functional equivalents: if necessary, we can burn petroleum to generate electricity or convert coal to fuel burnable in automobiles.
According to table 2.11 of the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Transportation Energy Data Book, the average car uses 3,549 BTUs per passenger mile while the average transit buses uses 4,160 BTUs. Table 2.12 says the average commuter rail line uses 2,751 BTUs while other rail transit uses 3,229 BTUs per passenger mile. Thus, rail does save a little energy, but buses don’t.
APTA’s public transportation fact book says that 46 percent of transit passenger miles are by bus, 21 percent by commuter rail, and 33 percent by other rail (I am leaving out demand response, ferries, and “other”). Apportioning it out, the average transit rider uses 3,543 BTUs per passenger mile — just 6 BTUs less than the average car. That is hardly enough to crow about.
In sum, APTA’s report dramatically overestimates the benefits and underestimates the costs of public transportation. The next time you hear planners claim that transit is superior to autos, you will know they are ignoring the real energy costs and costs to taxpayers.
AntiPlanner: the average subsidy to auto drivers in the U.S. is under a half penny per passenger mile. The average subsidy to transit is more than 60 cents per passenger mile.
JK: Can you post link for this info so that I can steal it for debunkingPorltand.com?
AntiPlanner: in reality, coal and petroleum are functional equivalents: if necessary, we can burn petroleum to generate electricity or convert coal to fuel burnable in automobiles.
JK: Actually, they are not equivalents. Coal is all carbon while petroleum is a hydrocarbon (as in hydrogen + carbon) that means, for the same energy, coal produces much more CO2 as all of its energy comes from C+O2=CO2, while for hydrocarbons some of the energy comes from H+O=H2O. That is why Enron supported CO2 limits – it would damage their competition since they sold natural gas, a hydrocarbon.
Coal has an added feature: it contains trace amounts of mercury, uranium and thorium – all of which end up in the atmosphere. http://www.ornl.gov/ORNLReview/rev26-34/text/colmain.html
Thanks
JK
Hello Randal,
I’ll run through this in a little more detail later, but had some quick questions:
I couldn’t find where in the APTA document they state that the used data gathered by AAA. Can you point me to this?
“drives 10,000 miles per year…auto ownership costs an average of 52.2 cents per mile”
It looks like you have a little error there, according to the document:
10,000 miles/year = 62 cents
15,000 miles/year = 52.2 cents
20,000 miles/year = 47.7 cents
Your “Highway Statistics” link wouldn’t open for me.
Randal,
o I note that the table 2.11 shows that SUVs are less efficient per passenger mile than buses. Automobiles only comprise 57.5% of hwy miles, according to table table 3.4. IF you have some, say, ITE data that show that hwy miles are not good composites of overall trip data, share.
o When you talk about BTU/passenger mile, you should break out data in table 2.11, as SOV commute trips are 76.3% of trips; carpool trips skew column 1.
o In your auto subsidies, can you show the data: I’d like to check whether you include free parking or employer-paid parking in your calcs, in addition to oil company subsidies, and did you % out the fact that many local road capital improvement projects are transfers from the General Fund (which some portion of is funded by property tax, which is a subsidy).
º I note that you include lots of links in this post, but none when you write The average subsidy to auto drivers in the U.S. is under a half penny per passenger mile. The average subsidy to transit is more than 60 cents per passenger mile. , hence my question above. Can you provide citations, please?
DS
For transit subsidies per passenger mile, download the APTA Transit Factbook and add capital and operating costs, subtract transit fares, and divide by passenger miles. In 2003 the average subsidy was 65 cents per passenger mile.
For highway subsidies per passenger mile, download tables HF10 and VM1 from Highway Statistics. (If this link doesn’t work, it is because the Federal Highway Administration site is down, not because there is something wrong with the link.) Table HF10 is in the Finance section and VM1 is in the Roadway Extent and Performance section.
Table HF10 is tricky to interpret. Since our goal is to figure out how much highway cost is NOT paid by highway users, I use cell O32 (total of other taxes and fees spent on highways) and subtract cells O16 and O17 (highway user fees diverted to non-highway purposes). In 2005, the net subsidy to highways was $17.9 billion. Table VM1 says we drove nearly 3 trillion vehicle miles in 2005, which at 1.6 people average occupancy is about 4.8 trillion passenger miles. Dividing into $17.9 billion is a subsidy of less than 0.4 cents per passenger mile.
No, I don’t count subsidies to oil companies. What subsidies do you mean? Some kind of tax write-off? Most of the transit industry doesn’t pay taxes. Should I add that into the transit subsidy?
Nor do I count free parking as a subsidy. Should my desk at work be considered a subsidy? Should shopping carts be considered a subsidy to shoppers? Back in the streetcar era, most retailers offered free delivery because they knew their patrons would not want to carry heavy bags or boxes on the streetcar. Would you count such services as a subsidy to the streetcar industry? Of course, customers knew that “free” delivery was really counted in the cost of their purchases, just like shoppers today know the same about “free” parking.
APTA’s report refers to the AAA data on page 19. Unfortunately, APTA’s reference to a web link for the report does not work, so the report that I found may not be exactly the same as the one APTA used (i.e., it may be for a different year.)
Yes, Dan, I know that SUVs get worse gas mileage than cars. I figured that if a household had a choice between two autos or one auto and taking transit, the second car would probably be a car and not an SUV. You can argue with that, but it doesn’t justify APTA’s ignoring the energy costs of rail transit simply because the raill lines are powered by coal and not oil. Also, APTA assumed that one member of the household would use transit for all purposes, not just commuting, so I am not worried about the SOV problem.
I hope this answers everyone’s questions. I appreciate the civility of this discussion.
Joel Schwartz writes:
You might also add that transit trips take, on average, about 75% longer than automobile trips (at least for journey-to-work travel; the transit/car time ratio is probably larger for off-peak and non-work). Assuming the average person spends 45 minutes/day as a driver or passenger in a car (anyone have an actual estimate of this?), switching to transit would add about 34 minutes per day (205 hours per year) to the amount of time people spend getting there rather than being there. If we want to place a value on that time–$10/hour is probably in the right ballpark–then transit adds a time cost of more than $2,000/year.
And these rough calculations ignore that fact that transit doesn’t go to a lot of the place people want to go. Furthermore, there are many places that are in principle accessible by transit (meaning there are a set of transit links between two points A and B), but that are inaccessible as a practical matter because the trip would take too long. Thus, if someone gave up her car and really made all the same trips on transit that she used to make by car (which is essentially the assumption that APTA makes by assuming that total person-miles of travel doesn’t change), her total time spent travelling would increase by much more than the current time-ratio of transit to car, because she would now be taking a lot of “impractical” transit trips–trips that would never be worth taking given the amount of time necessary to get from A to B by transit.
What this means in reality is that someone who decided to get rid of her car and switch completely to transit would simply travel less or take shorter trips, or both, and would thereby lose the benefits of the travel she now has to give up due to the lower quality of transit travel relative to car travel. This is another cost not factored in by APTA.ÂÂ
“transit doesn’t go to a lot of the place people want to go.”
Very true. This has always been an interesting topic for me. Unfortunately this is a result of the influence the auto has on growth patterns, and what light rail specifically aims to address. To expect light rail to rework our growth patterns overnight (even 20 years) is a little bit shortsighted. Autos have had since the 1940’s(?) to impose their growth patterns.
Light rail has always seemed somewhat of a chicken/egg problem to me. It aims to create density along it’s route, but to work effectively in needs some density to be there in the first place (especially to those that are critical of the system). Perhaps this is why someone would subsidize development along a route?
That is ½ the cost of Portland’s tranist system:
Trimet passenger-miles = 406,289,280
Trimet system operating expense=$271,135,288
cost per passenger-mile: $0.67
Data from Trimet’s busmaxstat.pdf found on trimet’s web site:
click about Trimet
click Ridership Statistics (40KB PDF)
Thanks
JK
Light rail has always seemed somewhat of a chicken/egg problem to me. It aims to create density along it’s route, but to work effectively in needs some density to be there in the first place (especially to those that are critical of the system). Perhaps this is why someone would subsidize development along a route?
So, what is the point? It doesn’t work yet per your admission above. It is MUCH more expensive than a car.
What problem is it trying to solve (other than the problem of people’s freedom)?
Thanks
JK
It doesn’t work yet per your admission above
Actually I never stated in the post that I don’t think light rail works, I stated that for it to work effectively and to it’s capabilities, there needs to be density along the route (which takes time to develop). In many European cities and several in the US I would say that it is working very effectively. In Portland, I believe it is more effective than others (such as Salt Lake, Minneapolis), mainly because it has had a little more time to develop and become a piece of the city. Can it get better? Sure and over time as a city grows along the transit routes it will become even more effective. Light rail won’t be at full capabilities when first placed in a city, but if allowed, it will reach them in the long term.
What problem is it trying to solve?
Whether or not you agree that light rail does solve these, several of the aims of light rail include:
limit the extent of urban sprawl
-increase the amount of farmland, wild areas, open space
-preserve the character of rural areas
aim to get people out of their autos
-reduce air pollutants
-slow obesity rates and therefore diabetes, heart disease, etc…
-give people more time with their families and less in traffic
-limit the infrastructure costs of sprawl (ever increasing freeways, sewer lines, etc…)
-preserve communities that would otherwise be overtaken by freeway
-reduce auto congestion
increase density
-create a greater sense of community
-encourage nodal neighborhoods where all activities can be accomodated without the use of a car
pdxf said: Whether or not you agree that light rail does solve these, several of the aims of light rail include:
limit the extent of urban sprawl
JK: Why would we want to do that? Sprawl provides living space for people.
pdxf said: -increase the amount of farmland,
JK: Why would we want to increase the amount of farmland we have so much oversupply that the government pays farmers to NOT grow things.
pdxf said: [-increase the amount of] wild areas, open space
JK: Wild areas and open spaces already take up 95% of Oregon, there is NO WAY you can increase that by more than 5%, an insignificant amount. What is your real goal? (Or did you miss that little reality.)
pdxf said: -preserve the character of rural areas
JK: Yeah, preserve the “rural character†for the rich and keep the masses locked up in the cities.
pdxf said: aim to get people out of their autos
JK: Why would you want to do that? Autos cost less, pollute less and consume less energy than mass transit. And unlike toy trains, they do not emit mercury, uranium and thorium.
pdxf said: -slow obesity rates and therefore diabetes, heart disease, etc…
JK: Prove this.
pdxf said: -give people more time with their families and less in traffic
JK: High density almost always involve longer commute TIMES.
pdxf said: -limit the infrastructure costs of sprawl (ever increasing freeways, sewer lines, etc…)
JK: Oh, really. Then why is Portland spending about $100,000 per dwelling unit to put in the services for our newest condo farm, the SoWhat district?
pdxf said: -reduce auto congestion
JK: Increasing density increases auto congestion. See http://www.debunkingportland.com/Smart/DensityCongestion.htm
pdxf said: increase density
JK: Who wants besides the planning class? Is this a case of you having such a good idea that you have to FORCE people to use it?
pdxf said: -create a greater sense of community
JK: What the hell is a sense of community?
Thanks
JK
“What is your real goal? (Or did you miss that little reality.)”
It seems as though you have a hard time separating the message from the messenger. You asked for what the goals of light rail are, which I provided. The arguments provided are separate from the poster. I may agree or disagree with them, but that is irrelevant. Why are you so quick to jump in on this message board with ad hominem attacks (as shown in a previous post) or snide and simplistic remarks, neither of which provide your opinion (or your side for that matter) any merit?
pdxf: It seems as though you have a hard time separating the message from the messenger.
Sorry, sometimes I get a little carried away when I see people defending the restructuring of society for no apparent reason.
I’m sure that you will agree that encouraging high density housing while people prefer low density and encouraging people to revert back 100 years in their transportation options to waste time and money on toy trains, and increasing the amount of wild areas, open space and farmland by forcing people out of the country side into high density urban areas IS attempting to restructure society.
Who are you to tell others how and where to live? Why do you think you have the ability to know what is best for other people? Past attempts at restructuring society by government have ended very badly: Great Leap Forward, Pop Pot, Mao, Stalin, Hitler, Romania. Why do you think that this attempt will be any better? Oregon already is among the worst states for unemployment, income and housing affordability. Can you really say we are on the right path?
BTW, please answer some of the questions I raised last time:
1) Prove that high density (except in NYC Chinatown) slows obesity rates and therefore diabetes, heart disease, etc…
2)Why would you want to increase density?
3)Why would we want to limit sprawl? (Sprawl provides living space for people.)
4) Why would we want to increase the amount of farmland?
5) Since Oregon is already 95% open/farmland why do you propose increasing it? How can this happen since if you eliminated man, you would only add 5% to that 95% (yes I know the real number if 5 1/4%)
6) Why aim to get people out of their autos? They are less expensive, loss polluting, less energy intensive and more useful than mass transit.
And finally: What the hell is a sense of community?
Thanks
JK
Again, I just listed the reasons generally given, but I’ll do my best to answer your questions:
“restructuring of society for no apparent reason.”
no, you just don’t agree with the reasons.
“forcing people out of the country side into high density.”
Suburbia is not country (it actually turns country into city). No one has been forced out of their suburban home to move into the city. No one who has lived in rural areas has been forced to move into a city.
Urban growth boundaries aim to preserve the countryside. This doesn’t mean that people can’t live there, it doesn’t mean that they have to farm, it just means that we want less density there than suburbia to preserve the open space for uses now and in the future.
“Who are you to tell others how and where to live?”
Same could be asked about you. I want the ability to walk to a store for fresh produce, ride the max to work, breathe clean air, etc…Even your stance is somewhat shaky and hypocritical…by saying that people should live however they want, you are stating that you know what is best for other people.
Oregon already is among the worst states for unemployment, income and housing affordability. Can you really say we are on the right path?
To attribute this soley to land use and transit planning while ignoring other factors is a bit forced. It’s interesting why people continued to move to Portland even while it had the worst unemployment in the country (which would make the unemployment situation even worse).
BTW, please answer some of the questions I raised last time:
Sure but please answer some of mine that haven’t been answered. (does democracy exist for a theoretically uninformed society, whether adding lanes to a freeway is a long term solution, etc…there’s quite a few, I’ll let you file through the posts and dig them up)
1) Prove that high density (except in NYC Chinatown) slows obesity rates and therefore diabetes, heart disease, etc…
Why except NYC?
Can I prove it? No. Can I provide a massive amount of evidence to support the claim? Most likely…It’s up to you to decide whether or not it’s proof enough ( you can lead a horse to water…).
2)Why would you want to increase density?
To preserve the willamette valley which is absolutely beautiful, as well as being the source of some great wine! (one reason among many).
3)Why would we want to limit sprawl? (Sprawl provides living space for people.)
Cities also provide living space for people…I believe the first part of the question has been answered.
4) Why would we want to increase the amount of farmland?
To preserve land for farming as our population continues to skyrocket, aesthetics, etc…
5) Since Oregon is already 95% open/farmland why do you propose increasing it?
I’m not proposing to increase it. I’m proposing that we slow the rate at which that 95% (or whatever it is) is reduced. I don’t think too many urban planners want to go through and bulldoze portions of cities despite the strawmen proposed on this site.
6) Why aim to get people out of their autos? They are less expensive, loss polluting, less energy intensive and more useful than mass transit.
Any of your claims could be potentially disputed, I’ll leave it at that, since that discussion could go on…
And finally: What the hell is a sense of community?
What percentage of people come into contact with their neighbors on a daily basis? How many of them know their names? Does their community have a unique identity (ask a resident to name one memorable thing about their community)? Yes, these probably cannot be quantified with money (a weakness of capitalism).
JK previously said: 6) Why aim to get people out of their autos? They are less expensive, loss polluting, less energy intensive and more useful than mass transit.
pdxf responded: Any of your claims could be potentially disputed, I’ll leave it at that, since that discussion could go on…
JK: NO, you don’t get away with side stepping one of the KEY FOUNDATIONS of the smart growth religion.
1) Autos cost less per passenger mile than mass transit.
2) Autos use less energy than buses and small autos energy use is close to light rail.
3) Autos pollute less than mass transit due to better efficiency and by using gasolene instead of diesel and coal.
4) Auto trips are usually faster.
You will find proof of most of these at http://www.debunkingPortland.com, although the cost page is not up yet.
If your goal really is to save the earth, the best course is to encourage people to get smaller cars, instead of give up their prosperity and switch to toy trains and buses.
Disprove any of those statements.
Thanks
JK
Oh,I forgot that autos have less than 1/2 the death rate of light rail in Portland.
Thanks
JK
“JK: NO, you don’t get away with side stepping one of the KEY FOUNDATIONS of the smart growth religion.â€Â
Sure, I side-stepped it. You’re right, these are very important subjects, but I’m sure we’ll continue to debate them into the future. I’ll take it that you agree with all of my other points.
Again, I think it would benefit you’re argument if you didn’t use the derogatory language (“the smart growth religionâ€Â). It makes you come across as though you’re too tied up with your own opinions to carefully consider positions other than your own, which I’m assuming you’re not.
“You will find proof”
“Disprove any of those statements.”
proof – n. evidence sufficient to establish a thing as true, or to produce belief in its truth.
We can only provide evidence for one another, not proof. Proof is a subjective value based upon the individual interpreting the evidence.
pdxf said: I’ll take it that you agree with all of my other points.
JK: NO.
Now go back and answer my debunking of one of the foundations of smart growth.
I call it a religion because it is faith based, not fact based. You just demonstrated that by side stepping a fact based evaluation of one of the religion’s key beliefs.
Thanks
JK
I stated that they could be disupted, not whether or not they are true or false, so here is some dispute:
1) Autos cost less per passenger mile than mass transit.
Possibly true, but there isn’t enough information with the statement to make a judgement.
Where? Europe, NY, Portland, throughout the world?
Define cost – strictly financial, long term, short term, how wide of an impact, cost to a user, cost to society?
2) Autos use less energy than buses and small autos energy use is close to light rail.
Could be true, definitely hope it’s true that light rail is more efficient that autos as you claim.
Again, could use some clarification
Is this energy user per passenger? I’m assuming so, but as stated, it’s fairly obvious that a bus uses more energy than an auto.
I’m a fan of light rail over autos and buses. It sounds like you are even stating that light rail is more energy efficient than a small auto, so I don’t think I really need to dispute that.
3)Autos pollute less than mass transit due to better efficiency and by using gasolene instead of diesel and coal.
Possibly true, more info needed
Again, an auto would pollute less than a bus, but perhaps not if it’s per passenger. What does better efficiency mean? How does gasoline make it more efficient? What about light rail, which could potentially use a wide range of environmentally friendly energy sources?
Auto trips are usually faster.
Where? Everywhere? San Francisco? Berlin?
Is an auto faster in NY, or the subway? For most of the us, autos are probably faster due to growth patterns since the invention of the auto. I live on the max line, so when I worked downtown, my commute was generally faster and more hassle free by taking MAX over driving.
“I call it a religion because it is faith based, not fact based. You just demonstrated that by side stepping a fact based evaluation of one of the religion’s key beliefs.”
Do your opinions not require faith in your interpretations of information?
Also, your second statement doesn’t follow your first. I’d be careful about using logical fallacies when accusing the other side of being a religion.
pdxf said: Do your opinions not require faith in your interpretations of information?
JK: Not if I presented them correctly – they are FACTS, traceable to a credible source, not opinions.
Thanks
JK
pdxf said:I stated that they could be disupted, not whether or not they are true or false, so here is some dispute:
JK: And I asked fro proof that any were wrong. You merely beat around the bushes.
Can you prove any of the foundations of your smart growth religion?
Thanks
JK
Again, I stated that all of them were open to dispute. I provided what you asked for. As stated, your statements don’t provide enough information to provide evidence against them, since they are fairly meaningless statements.
“Not if I presented them correctly”
Do your “facts” do not require interpretation? Are you faithful that you have all of the information needed to make a decision? Do you think you are capable of being wrong?
“Can you prove any of the foundations of your smart growth religion?”
Can I prove anything to you? probably not, since it is up to you.
as I stated in post 17:
proof – n. evidence sufficient to establish a thing as true, or to produce belief in its truth.
We can only provide evidence for one another, not proof. Proof is a subjective value based upon the individual interpreting the evidence. I can’t prove anything to you, I can only provide evidence
pdxf said:
“Can you prove any of the foundations of your smart growth religion?â€Â
Can I prove anything to you? probably not, since it is up to you.
JK: You can’t prove any of the basic foundations of smart growth to anybody, because they are all (almost all?) false.
I notice that you don’t even try, only change the subject.
Thanks
JK
JimKarlock said:
pdxf said: I’ll take it that you agree with all of my other points.
JK: NO.
Now go back and answer my debunking of one of the foundations of smart growth.
I call it a religion because it is faith based, not fact based. You just demonstrated that by side stepping a fact based evaluation of one of the religion’s key beliefs.
THWM: Mr.Karlock the agenda you are promoting is pretty much a religion.