Is is possible that some transit advocates are figuring out that financial sustainability is a prerequisite for sustainable (meaning non-automobile) transportation? You would think so from a recent article about the San Francisco Bay Area’s transportation problems.
The Metropolitan Transportation Commission‘s annual report projects that the region needs to find $1 billion a year to support transit. Since 1997, the Bay Area’s transit funding has increased by more than 50 percent (net of inflation), yet transit service has grown by only 16 percent and ridership by just 7 percent. “That is a terrible return on our region’s transit investment,” the annual report points out, “and it should cause us to think long and hard before committing future funds to such a low-yield strategy.” As a result, the report concludes, “the current transit system is not sustainable.”
Based on the MTC’s 2035 plan (53 MB), the region’s low-yield strategy has two major components: First, try to get people out of their cars by “focusing growth,” i.e., increasing population densities; and second, increase highway tolls so that more revenues can be transferred from auto users to transit agencies (see page 83, physical page 97). The plan called for spending more than four times as much money on transit expansion as road expansions, and almost as much on new bike and pedestrian facilities as on new roads (page 37, physical page 47).
The authors have found the overall prevalence of ED in men older than 50 years and causes erectile dysfunction. generic levitra from india This condition sometimes lowest price tadalafil becomes the sole reason of problems in someone’s professional and personal life. This problem can be cured by consulting sexologist in Delhi or any other cialis viagra for women metro city where you find a qualified sexology consultant. There are very few side effects of news cialis on line the tadalafil which include aching back and muscles and upset stomach.
The problem, of course, is that neither transit nor bike paths pay for themselves, and while transit advocates are fond of complaining about highway subsidies, they have no hesitation about stealing money from highway user fees to spend on transit. MTC’s annual report reveals that $235 million in road tolls were spent on transit in 2009 (pp. 22-23, physical page 13). The MTC is very enthusiastic about the newly created Bay Area Toll Authority, which it sees as a potential cash cow to fund its transit utopia.
Of course, you have to wonder: if the goal is to get people out of their cars, and MTC finances this goal by charging auto drivers, how will it finance transit once everyone stops driving? Of course, that is never going to happen, nor will driving ever decline enough to make a big difference in MTC’s revenue stream. But this raises the question of how legitimate the original goal is in the first place. Maybe “getting people out of their cars” is simply a cover for “padding the budgets of transit bureaucracies, unions, and rail contractors.”
It turns out that the answer to my original question — are transit advocates beginning to question the financial sustainability of their programs — is “no.” Instead of thinking that transit is wasting too much money on expensive capital projects, MTC sees the problem as one of too many transit agencies — there are 28 in the Bay Area. Somehow, MTC seems to think, consolidating these into fewer money-losing agencies is going to save enough money to make up for the huge financial gaps in future funding.
Not likely. As the Antiplanner has said before, the problem transit is that it has too much money. This leads transit agencies and metropolitan planners to embark on expensive rail projects that cannot be sustained. By canceling BART-to-San Jose and other insane BART projects, the Central Subway, and the foolish CalTrains electrification program, the MTC could free up billions of dollars that could be used to operate and actually improve bus service in the Bay Area.
Briefly, without yet reading into Randal’s informative links, I have to agree that the MTC’s priorities are out of line with the way people want to move/transport.
In fact, that’s what my thesis will probably be on.
In general, the SF Bay Area is really whacked on priorities, that’s why housing costs are so high & flora & fauna are given preeminence. (I’m here kind by accident & want to leave, maybe the country, depending on 2010 outcomes & how much BO destruction there is).
The Bay Area is almost doomed without building more lanes.
Despite the efforts of ABAG & its compact development push, congestion & living condition will worsen.
More people need more more roads., & space. Duh!
For San Jose, go south–Coyote Valley.
It’s a shame that enviro-wackos are anti-human.
The Bay Area has lost citizens–more positive domestic outflow. The pop. is growing due to births & immigration.
I guess coming up with ~$500B or whatever the figure is this year for surface vehicle transportation is sustainable though. The SOV fairy will come soon and spread her dust across our land to solve our problems. As long as we aren’t implying either-or, we’re fine with the entire context of human activity and sustainability.
DS
Not content to have a monopoly on transit, government agencies are responding to the failure of “build it and they will come” with anticompetitive measures they hope will add to their own market by stealing from another.
But this is all gov is good at anyway: it doesn’t know how to create anything new; only how to take what already exists and enrich itself or transfer the money to someone else.
Like Randal points out, what happens if/when they succeed in purging the last EEEVIL, non-collectivist car from the road and everybody’s riding transit? Who subsidizes their statist transportation fantasies then?
Chip,
This is all gov is good at?!?!?!
When you drive in your “National Highway Traffic Safety Administration approved” car, “and set out to work on the roads built by the local, state, and federal departments of transportation, possibly stopping to purchase additional fuel of a quality level determined by the Environmental Protection Agency, using legal tender issued by the Federal Reserve bank,” try and remember what government has done right.
Antiplanners, don’t fool yourselves into thinking that auto travel is some kind of private sector miracle. Our government is just as responsible for the joy’s of highway travel as they are for the evils of rail transit.
How many time have I been told to go to Cuba? If you hate government so much, go to Somalia.
o transfer the money
o collectivist
o statist
Prediction: any candidate using these low-wattage dog whistle talking points for the small-minority set will be defeated handily. Won’t get 5% of the votes.
DS
Drop the indignation: didn’t ask for NHTSA approval, didn’t ask for EPA fuel standardization, and currency has no intrinsic value when issued by government–it is only when it is traded against private production that it has any value. Sorry if I’m not grateful for costly meddling I never solicited.
While government has its place–you name roads and the Fed–you also name a number of consumer protection agencies I never asked for and would like to do without. There’s a great episode of PBS’ “Free to Choose” in 1980 (“Who Protects the Consumer?”) in which Milton Friedman debates private- and public-sector consumer protection advocates about the merits of many of the aforementioned gov agencies. I think that in some cases they produce more good than harm–though I would oppose them on principle–but that in most cases they produce more harm than good. I believe your view, that we couldn’t live without them, is a collectivist superstition demonstrating a characteristic lack of faith in the individual.
Also, you complain that you’ve been told to go to Cuba (I never told you that) because it’s an extreme, and then you go on to suggest going to Somalia, another extreme. If you’re going to complain about hyperbole, drop it on your end first.
Dan, I would dispute what you said, but there was no substance.
BTW, are you posting during work hours at your government job?
The substance was low-wattage dog-whistle phrases don’t resonate with 95% of the human population on this planet. Thus people offering solution sets containing low-quality phrases such as what I bulleted will get nowhere.
DS
Dan–you have again confused “hand-waving” with “substance.”
I still want to know: are you posting during work hours at your government job?
The state will provide.
If you disagree, then you are for anarchy.
Cloud the dialogue with energy being of less & minor sounds.
Chip,
I never complained about hyperbole, I just turned the tables to prove a point. You are correct however, that both Cuba and Somalia represent an extreme, that’s what I was getting to. The claim that “this is all gov is good at anyway,” represents an extreme too. You obviously agree with this since you countered you own claim in your following post with “While government has its place–you name roads and the Fed…” but I’m admittedly nitpicking.
I still stand by my overriding point, that auto travel in today’s America is not some grassroots, individualistic, privately produced phenomenon. It was planned, top down. We choose it because the system (in a public/private partnership) has created only one viable choice.
As for my anti-Rand stances, I’m not sure which is more dangerous, lack of faith in the individual or blind faith in nothing but the individual. Both have their pitfalls as far as I’m concerned. I consider myself a centrist in this debate as I reject the false dichotomy of all or nothing collectivism or individualism. The complexities of existence can be a bitch when digging deep into our philosophically utopian teachers (Smith, Marx, Rand etc).
chipdouglas said: “didn’t ask for EPA fuel standardization”
See, to me fuel standardization represents the perfect place for government intervention. When was the market going to take lead out of gas? The market failed to protect us and “big brother” intervened. This works for me.
Scott said:
“The state will provide.
If you disagree, then you are for anarchy.”
The market will solve it.
If you disagree, your a collectivist freeloader.
Cuba.
Somalia.
I’m good at this game.
Chipper @ 10:
[/missing the old HNIC]
DS
The gov is about 40% of the GDP.
If you want that less, does that mean zero?
There is a huge spectrum.
bennett, I’m not a Randian. I’ve read her and I think she had great ideas but was otherwise a megalomaniac and a blowhard, and I think it’s a creepy poker tell when she claimed selfishness was a virtue. I think self-interest is morally neutral, and that charity can only be morally positive when one makes his own sacrifice of his own volition without attempting to forcibly saddle others with the rest of the tab. This precludes all government giving, and much else of what passes for charity today. I use the terms “collectivist” and “individualist” to describe a tendency rather than an extreme. Read near the bottom for more on this “game.”
Regarding fuel standards and the EPA, this very agency is touched on in the Free to Choose episode I mentioned.
I like to think the private Charity Navigator organization is a service the government “needs” to provide, but which was beat to the punch by the private sector.
As I said, it is not impossible for me to benefit from government meddling, but I would still oppose it on principle, and I believe the net effect of all this meddling is negative, even if select areas can be pointed to where superior outcomes were realized. As one side steadfastly refuses to acknowledge, life is a series of tradeoffs–not solutions–and I believe a strictly minimalist state offers higher pros and lower cons than a more paternalistic state. You got indignant that I would fail to appreciate all the government services I never asked for, so I wanted to point all this out.
I don’t see why your game of hyperbole is so clever. If there is a spectrum ranging from collectivism (-100) to indifference (0) to individualism (+100), anything left of 0 is “collectivist” and anything right of 0 is “individualist.” I would venture that you, and a lot of other “planners,” are to the left of that 0, which would put you into the “collectivist” camp. But when we say collectivist, you allege hyperbole, even if we mean for that to be just 1 point to the left. This game of pointing out “hyperbole” is meaningless for that reason.
Dan: now you’re resorting to cryptic references to preempt a substantive discussion. And every time you post, I’m going to come back and ask you if you’re posting during work hours from your government job until you finally answer.
Chip, Dan cannot answer now with his non-substance; he’s “working” at his gov job, taking taxpayers $ for nothing.
The bottom line in all of this, is why should general taxes pay for 4% of the people.???
Alternatively, about 90% drive & a ~$0.40/gallon tax would be fully user funded.
Also, look at the future.
How is this road shortage going to be when many affordable cars are electric?
now you’re resorting to cryptic references to preempt a substantive discussion.
Using fear-phrase fringe talking points and wild guesses akin to weak wristers nowhere near the net is substantive discussion? Right-o.
DS
“If you hate government so much, go to Somalia.”
I would have posted earlier, but my salary is paid by the government, so generally I don’t frequent the site during work hours (plus, I simply am too busy to find the time–given my massive workload–save for maybe five minutes every few days during my illegally abbreviated 20-minute lunch), but I must respond to this golden nugget.
Even the most cursory of glances at sources like Wikipedia destroy the myth of Somali hell that statists (oops–I used a perfectly credible word to describe an ideological point of view; now Dan is gonna call me widdle namey names) love to use in talking points. Take for instance:
“Despite civil unrest, Somalia has maintained a healthy informal economy…According to a 2003 World Bank study, the private sector grew impressively, particularly in the areas of trade, commerce, transport, remittance and infrastructure services, in addition to the primary sectors, notably livestock, agriculture and fisheries. In 2007, the United Nations reported that the country’s service industry is also thriving.”
And in an enlightening Mises article one learns that there can be rule of law without the state and that Somalis are actually better off with no government than their previous government.
Some comments provided interesting substance today.
One of the things that makes it hard to analyze transit is that automobile drivers reveal a lot of how they feel about their benefits of driving, but transit users reveal little about their perceived benefits.
Auto users reveal what they pay to have an automobile — usually several thousand dollars or more in capital investment, gas, insurance, repairs, etc. In addition, many show willingness to pay more for fancier cars, tolls, parking, etc.
Transit users don’t or can’t reveal much about how they value the service. The maximum public transit cost is limited because of monthly passes and large discounts for students, seniors, disabled, etc. The highest possible transit costs would be very low when compared with most automobiles.
“The highest possible transit costs would be very low when compared with most automobiles.”
Most is not all. There are always bargains.
Cost of a Tri-Met annual pass: $946
My annual cost of car ownership: About the same divided by two (thanks to my wife).
$500 a year gets me to work, the grocery store, the Gorge, Mt. Hood, the beach. Can’t say that about TriMet. Of course, I’m not driving a fancy car… But for my bargain, I can go where I want, when I want, and I don’t have to listen to others’ cell phone conversations or smell their stench.
Pretty good bargain if you ask me.
That is the thing about automobiles, Frank. They give you a wide variety of prices, costs, convenience and mobility. Hundreds of millions of people out there look at their own situation and often can find huge bargains. That is why analysis about averages can be worthless — it can assume no work to find bargains by hundreds of millions of incentified individuals.
Transit provides opportunities too. However, there is far less flexibility, though the average price may be lower. I hope good professional analysis can tease out the values to compare.
After all, the whole point of an economic system is not to increase the GDP, but rather to increase the spread between what people are willing to pay as compared to what they have to pay. The difference is what improves life economically.
Frank, thanks for the link to the Mises article. Very interesting.
Ron H. said: Frank, thanks for the link to the Mises article. Very interesting.
THWM: That’s pretty much tribal governance. The people on India’s North Sentinel Island govern them selves like this too, although when it comes to dealing with things like piracy & international maritime law the lack of a formal government with Somalia is a problem.
Borealis: Agreed.
Ron H.: No problem. Glad you liked it.
the highwayman: You betray your lack of understanding of Africa by using “tribal” to describe Africans. Additionally, piracy has long been a problem nearby, government or no. Ask the Somali people if their lives are better without their corrupt government. Anything else is a straw man.
The von Mieses apologia/spin/embarrassment was cherry-picking and doing much of the things Randal harrumphed about in his post today.
Come everyone, hold off and let us not express our outrage at this article for doing the very same thing we disparage when turning our discerning gaze on things counter to our narrow ideology.
DS
Dan: still waiting on an answer…
I told you, using a metaphor that included ‘limp-wristed’.
If you are unable to figger it out, one returns to the ‘substantive’ and chuckles at the irony. And comedy.
DS
Well Frank, many people in Israel are members of tribes & just as many people in the UK are members of clans.
>“The von Mieses apologia/spin/embarrassment was cherry-picking and doing much of the things…”
>“Come everyone, hold off and let us not express our outrage at this article for doing the very…”
Jeez, Dan, you amaze me. Here I thought all this time that you were a one trick pony, and now I find out you are an expert on Somalia.
Apparently your vast knowledge of the subjects presented in the MacCallum paper allowed you to find many problems with it that I missed entirely. If I wanted to get the correct information, what resources would you recommend?
Are any of the references MacCallum used worth reading?
I can understand that the idea of a country like Somalia actually being able to function without central planning must be a thorn in your side, but was the article really that bad?
I don’t expect your response immediately, as I realize you must wait until you get off work to comment at this blog.
Now that I’m off the government dime, I can respond.
Dan, please enlighten me by providing other statistics that don’t show more economic growth in Somalia now versus when Somalia had a despotic government.
Please consider Somalia: economy without state by Peter D. Little, an anthropologist who writes:
“The ultimate paradox, it will be shown in this book, is that some sectors of Somali economy and society are doing quite fine — as well, if not better than during the pre-war (pre-1991) years.”
Little acknowledges that the pictures of chaos disseminated by Western media are not accurate while asserting that everything is not rosy in Somalia.
If one makes the argument that things are generally better economically speaking in Somalia now than pre-1991, then I don’t see listing evidence of improved economic conditions as cherry picking at all.
But the bottom line remains the same: Statists love to portray Somalia as an example of non-governmental chaotic hell–a ideological view unsupported by reality–and then demand that libertarians move to Somalia if they don’t like government.
I’m surprised you haven’t jumped on this and haven’t called those who make such statements puerile.
Perhaps it’s because, when it comes right down to it, you’re an ideologue. Just like everyone else.
But even worse, you’re an ideologue wasting government money with your obsessive-compulsive postings to this blog.
Ron, oh I bet the “references” in the McCallum “paper” are impressive to some. That is how some people get over, after all – piling on the references. And the briefest review of the statistics the “paper” relates should indeed make one relieved that a failed government is gone.
But this is Africa. It may be in post-colonialism that tribal rule is best in that place. It worked for thousands of years in many places in Africa before whites came. Surely there is no anarchy or capitalist nirvana in that place now. The tribes are picking up after yet another a-hole killed and stole everything. Who is to say tribalism is not best, there, in that place?
But maybe some are wishy-wishing this “anarchy” and state collapse is a model for other places – this blip on tens of thousands of years can be a model for places having nothing in common with Somalia.
I say: have the courage of your wish. If, golly, they’re doin’ just ducky now!!! is good with you, then we await your Visa approval and let us know how things are going there, if you can find someone to deliver a letter to, say, Kenya for you so it can get mailed.
DS
Dan, you too with the pejorative Western colonial “tribe”? Not once, not twice, but three times an ignorant ass with the usage.
I may not know as much as some about the ins and outs of planning, but I have taken several African history classes under a Fulbright African historian, and for fuck’s sake, understand:
“The Western media’s analysis of events in Africa reveals the word [tribe] as the main obstacle in the way of a meaningful illumination of dynamics in modern Africa. Tribe—with its clearly pejorative connotation of the primitive and the premodern—is contrasted with nation, which connotes a more positive sense of arrival at the modern. Every African community is a tribe, and every African a tribesman. We can see the absurdity of the current usages, where thirty million Yorubas are referred to as a tribe, but four million Danes as a nation. A group of 250,000 Icelanders constitutes a nation, while 10 million Ibos make up a tribe. And yet, what’s commonly described as a tribe, when looked at through objective lenses, fulfills all the criteria of shared history, geography, economic life, language, and culture that are used to define a nation. These critical attributes are clearly social and historical, not biological.”
Finally, you yet again refuse to produce data when pressed. You dance around the issue with linguistic levity, but I press again: please enlighten me by providing other statistics that don’t show more economic growth in Somalia now versus when Somalia had a despotic government.
Put up or shut the fuck up.
More obfuscation. And lack of understanding–no statements were made that it’s ideal in Africa or wanting to move there or about centuries ago. Dan you try to simplify it with items that were not brought up.
The point is that authoritarian regimes can be worse than weak governments.
>“Finally, you yet again refuse to produce data when pressed. You dance around the issue with linguistic levity, but I press again: please enlighten me by providing other statistics that don’t show more economic growth in Somalia now versus when Somalia had a despotic government.”
Frank, You are asking too much if you expect Dan to produce data, or respond in some meaningful way. As you can see by his response at 10:04 to my comment, he has nothing to say. I honestly couldn’t find any meaning in it.
As usual he hasn’t answered my questions, or given me links to information as I requested.
Ron, perhaps you are unable to understand content. My content was a thesis that the past rule was a disaster, so tribalism returned. Also, if it’s so great, why aren’t people flocking to the no-gummint nirvana?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?
I’m not sure this subject can be done in monosyllaby, so that’s out. So.
It’s great that the few statistics given in the anarcho-Libertarian’s “paper” are great and purty and resonate amongst a tiny handful of white males, but do they paint the whole picture?
What indices were left out of the glowing review of a place without th’ gummint?
That is, Ron, the western-type state arising post-colonialism doesn’t seem to work in much of Africa. It allows dictators, brutal leaders, vampires, corruption, etc to arise. After years of rapes, theft, brutality and war – in addition to drought, famine, the bar is really, really, really, really, really, really, really, reeeee-heeeee-lly low.
Any uptick is great, but the place was one of the top-3 places of he– on earth. It hasn’t improved much. Pretending otherwise isn’t the best indicator for sanity.
Trumpeting gains as if manna were falling from heaven is strange when the trumpeters aren’t packing up their families and moving there. To distribute food to the starving. To invest in basic water access. To invest in cattle. To open clinics. To open schools to teach the remaining kids about how great third-rate novels are.
DS
Thank you, Dan, that’s much better. After starting with a snarky condescending tone, you finally settled down into a sensible discussion.
So, here we go:
>“It’s great that the few statistics given in the anarcho-Libertarian’s “paper†are great and purty…”
Dan, those numbers are atrocious. The point I took from the MacCallum paper was that they have become LESS atrocious since Somalis have had some amount of self determination, without central government.
>“…and resonate amongst a tiny handful of white males, but do they paint the whole picture?”
Dan, you couldn’t possibly know ANY of those things, so using such tripe in your comment causes readers to take you less seriously, as you no doubt already know.
>“Also, if it’s so great, why aren’t people flocking to the no-gummint nirvana?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?”
I don’t think anyone actually believes that, so there’s your answer. But you already knew that.
We often hear Somalia referred to “no-gummint”, as you have done, and I, for one, have not questioned that assertion, and have had a picture of total chaos. The McCallum paper changed my thinking on that. Somalia DOES have government, just not the big central one-size-fits-all thing Westerners usually think of as government.
>“What indices were left out of the glowing review of a place without th’ gummint?”
All these indicators are terrible also. I haven’t seen assertions to the contrary.
Both the links you provided, thank you by the way, are for outside agencies concerning themselves with Somalia. Ask yourself this: how many people in these groups are Somalis? Here are outside “planners” deciding what Somalis need. Are Somalis providing any input? I don’t know the answer, do you?
Much of the strife in Somalia may be a result of outside interference in support of a central government imposed by others, that Somalis neither want nor need.
>“That is, Ron, the western-type state arising post-colonialism doesn’t seem to work in much of Africa. It allows dictators, brutal leaders, vampires, corruption, etc to arise.”
Well, damn! There is is! We agree 100%.
So, what was your objection to the von Mises article? It only pointed out that Somalis HAVE government, just not a central one, and that their condition has improved from terrible to awful, without central planning.
Perhaps your bias against libertarian ideas is causing you to misread.
OT:
>“That is, Ron, the western-type state arising post-colonialism doesn’t seem to work in
much of AfricaWestern Asia. It allows dictators, brutal leaders, vampires, corruption, etc to arise.”In my opinion, a similar condition exists in Afghanistan. A central government may not work for this region where national boundaries have been drawn by outsiders.
In my previous comment, as you read “OT:”, please mentally substitute “MORE OT”.
The “paper” has a general tone and insinuation that things are going well. Right up front we have:
and so on.
All to paint the picture that golly gee whiz, look at what happens when you throw out gummint and the UN!
This is not to say that humans have figured out a good, lasting, sustainable way to govern themselves, but the “paper” fails to mention that widespread rape, child trafficking, continued large numbers of civilian deaths, nearly half of the population this year is at risk of starvation, severe restriction on freedoms occur today, are still happening today, etc. All the things that anyone who reads newspapers not printed by conservative corporations and originating outside the US knows. That the “paper” fails to contextualize. As a persuasive essay about failures of organized government, it falls flat with anyone knowing anything about Africa, esp with anyone knowing the play hasn’t ended. There is no outcome to point to and say “a-ha!”.
Afghanistan is even a better example of an isolated area handling its affairs via tribalism. Certainly democracy at the point of a gun won’t happen there. But it doesn’t pertain to here either. Nor to Yurp. Nor to most of the rest of Asia or the First World. Just not pertaining.
DS
Dan your are avoiding about all substance, as usual.
Your use of vocabulary does not cloud that fact that you have no content.
Imagine a prof going over your comments. _ ???? Fail!
In fact, you just repeated items that I refuted.
For example, nobody is claiming that Somalia is great & wants to move there.
I typed more more in my comment that you made errors in again, but there is so much that you ignore, don’t understand, avoid, whatever.
In general, though, you should know, it is a huge false comparison, to use Somalia as an example for anything close, in the US or any developed country.
There are so many differences.
Damn, you are fucking nuts & absurd to think otherwise!
It’s a relative comparison. The LDCs have so far to go.
See, what people do sometimes is take one similarity (ie liberty or favorite color) & run with it, & generalize & crap.
The most recent newsworthy thing is people being able to prove citizenship, upon being stopped/questioned for an offense (having a drivers license has been normal) & expanding that to “papers” & Nazism.
“Proof” is needed for so many things. That has nothing to do with wartime & being Jewish.