The Antiplanner’s debate with American Public Transportation Association President Bill Millar focused on transit privatization. The Antiplanner argued that private operators would provide excellent, low-cost service where the demand for such service existed, such as in dense cities and low-income neighborhoods, while still providing adequate demand-responsive transit (like SuperShuttle) in low-density neighborhoods where demand was low. Millar expressed skepticism that this would happen.
But rather than debate this in detail, Millar spent much of his time claiming that I “cherry picked the data” to support my preconceived notions. He claimed that transit was not a business, but a “public service” and that everyone benefitted when taxpayers subsidized 80 percent of the cost of carrying a few riders. He pointed out that 26 percent of Americans rode transit at least once last year, which doesn’t exactly provide much justification for the other 74 percent to subsidize it.
Unfortunately, it appears that the debate is not available as a web cast. However, APTA sent an advance copy of my report on transit privatization to the Victoria Public Transportation Institute, which posted a critique that Millar relied on for part of his presentation.
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One of the interesting factual issues raised was a claim by Millar that transit is far safer than driving. The chart he used showed driving resulted in roughly 10 times the fatalities per 100 million passenger miles as transit. But I noted extremely tiny letters saying that the numbers were “passenger fatalities per 100 million passenger miles.”
In fact, when you count total fatalities–including non-passengers hit by transit vehicles but not suicides–light rail and commuter rail cause as many or more fatalities per passenger mile than urban driving. Buses and heavy rail are safer than driving on local streets but more dangerous than urban interstates. You can do the calculations yourself using transit fatalities by mode, passenger miles by mode, highway fatalities by type of highway, and vehicle miles by type of highway. Multiply vehicle miles by 1.6 to get passenger miles for urban roads.
Instead of nitpicking the data on issues that were not really relevant, I hope someday we can have a real discussion of whether private operators can provide decent transit services. That will have to wait for a future date.
Randal – you keep using this “per passenger-mile” metric, so I’d be curious to know what you think of my criticism of it when used to compare different modes of transit. I discussed per passenger-mile costs in particular, but it could apply equally to fatalities per passenger-mile.
Rationalitate,
The reason for using passenger miles is that the value of transportation is proportional to the passenger miles traveled. In fact, it could be argued that the value of proportional to the square of the passenger miles traveled. A one-mile trip can access roughly 3 square miles of land (pi-r-squared), while a 10-mile trip can access roughly 300 square miles of land. Longer trips therefore access more economic, social, and recreational opportunities.
You are right that transit trips tend to be shorter. That is because they tend to be slower. Since it appears that most people have a travel time budget of roughly an hour or two per day, slower trips mean shorter trips and fewer accessible opportunities.
By the way, denser development does not compensate for the lost opportunities from shorter trips. This is mainly because land and transportation are both more costly in denser areas, which reduces the economic and other opportunities available in those areas. If I lived near downtown DC, I could reach a Whole Foods on foot or bicycle within 10 minutes of home. If I live in a typical suburb, I can reach 3 or 4 competing supermarkets within 10 minutes by car. The increased competition and lower land costs gives me more opportunities and lower prices.
It is too bad the debate ended up being about the data and not about the larger issues. Debates about data are better left to writing where there is an opportunity to research the other person’s points.
I don’t understand why there is a theoretical debate about transit vs. automobile. There is a huge world of revealed preferences data out there, hundreds of millions of people who carefully way the costs and benefits of transit vs. automobile, for their financial situation, in their geographic area, in their living situation, etc.
There is a small population in every city that cannot use automobile for various reasons. It seems to me that the debates should be about how to meet their needs, not trying to out-think people’s preferences.
My son use to ride the bus to collage and it would take him about 2 hours to get there and 2 hours to get home. I could drive the same rout in my car in about 15 to 20 minutes. He did this for a year or so and I would tell him he could probably save a lot of time by getting a part time job and have extra spending money and buy a beater car. He never did it, but he was going through his rebellion years and if I suggested something he would never do anything suggested.
Lucky for him he had plenty of extra time in his life to sit on a bus for 4 hours a day.
“There is a small population in every city that cannot use automobile for various reasons. It seems to me that the debates should be about how to meet their needs, not trying to out-think people’s preferences.”
Bingo! And here lies the problem with privatization. Look at Mr. O’Toole’s own assertion,
“Those who worry about the poor,” (a.k.a not us libertarians) “might want to accompany privatization with transportation vouchers that low-income people can use for any form of public conveyance, from taxi cabs to airlines.”
And how are those vouchers to be paid for??? Subsidies! Now we’re back where we started, because a large portion of transit riders would likely qualify for such a voucher.
Look, I’m not going to argue that the current way transportation/transit funding is leveraged, and mobility operations are implemented is perfect and cannot be more efficient. What I will argue is that providing transportation for the “transit dependent” populations (disabled, poor, under 16 and elderly, often in multiple categories) is not profitable. The private sector will not do it. It requires subsidies, which inevitably require bureaucracies, which the Antiplanners of the world are against no matter what.
There are two possible things I take away from the Antiplanners statement about the poor. 1, he doesn’t actually think vouchers are needed and is just playing lip service or 2, he didn’t think through the fact that the voucher system would likely result in tax payers paying for a small portion of the population to use the “privatized” transit, and that that will become the bread and butter of the “private” transportation providers. I mean that’s how government intervention works right? They price out the private interest?
This gets to the heart of the continual failures of the Antiplanner mission. While the Antiplanners of this world would like to see almost everything privatized, because why should they have to pay for something few use, the rest of us like that granny, on her fixed income, can get Medicaid transportation, or the disabled vet can get to the VA, or the 14 year old low income kid can get to the rec center. That is why transit bonds win year after year and the Antiplanners lose. Most of us value and are willing to pay for things we don’t use. Antiplanners, however, are not. Is this because they’ve drank too much of Ms. Rand’s kool-aid and think selfishness is a virtue? Do they simply not care? I don’t know, but to me, it comes across as coldblooded.
Borealis wrote:
“There is a huge world of revealed preferences data out there, hundreds of millions of people who carefully way the costs and benefits of transit vs. automobile, for their financial situation, in their geographic area, in their living situation, etc.”
Very true. But care is required. A revealed preference is a snap-shot in time, nothing more. For every advantage that a car has over a bus, there is a way in which the bus is better than the car. Cars are expensive compared to a well-run bus service. Cars can be quicker for some journeys, but for others, bus priority can make buses faster. Cars take you directly where you want to go, and make trip-chaining easy. But the car driver can’t take their eyes off the road for a long period of time. Bus passengers can use their time on the road to do useful things, use Wifi, watch ‘in-flight’ movies etc.
In fact the biggest problem with the minority forms of transport – buses, bicycles, motorbikes, etc. – is that the government of the day can’t be bother to provide the infrastructure and generally form a nice product based around the technology. So people buy cars, including people who really don’t want a car, but who feel that they have no choice.
And then eventually the same government will announce that the only way to reduce congestion is to use road pricing. What I want to know is this – what would the outcome be if they ditched the silly road pricing, but actually did the job which they are paid to do in a mature and professional manner?
There is a huge world of revealed preferences data out there, hundreds of millions of people who carefully [weigh] the costs and benefits of transit vs. automobile, for their financial situation, in their geographic area, in their living situation, etc.
There is a small population in every city that cannot use automobile for various reasons. It seems to me that the debates should be about how to meet their needs, not trying to out-think people’s preferences.
Setting aside for a moment that agents are only sometimes rational, nevertheless, “revealed preferences” can simply mean “lack of choice” in this and related contexts.
Any decent stats class that analyzes any ‘revealed preferences’ data spends a good deal of time laying out the issues with such data and why care must be taken when analyzing these data. Conclusions based only on these data are facile on the best days.
————–
As far as the “cherry-picking” point, Randal, don’t feel bad – most folks who parse the typical right-wing policy paper comes to the same conclusion, so don’t feel as if you are being singled out. It is a given with CEI papers, f’r instance.
DS
Setting aside for a moment that agents are only sometimes rational, nevertheless, “revealed preferences†can simply mean “lack of choice†in this and related contexts.
Revealed preferences are used for 99.9999% of decisions in the world. The “agents” are never rational — they are people. I am surprised a planner doesn’t learn that.
Bennett – If there is a way to provide better (or at least as good) mobility to poor people with the same (or less) public money than we spend on transit, then isn’t it worth considering, regardless of whether O’Toole really deeply truthfully cares about poor people? His suggestion that “Those who worry about the poor might want to accompany privatization with transportation vouchers†would have the effect of moving the subsidy from the system-level to the individual-level. Antiplanners theorize that this would would lead to:
(1) decreased aggregate subsidies because (a) only transportation for low-income people would be subsidized and (b) private service providers would find a way to provide mobility to low-income customers more efficiently in order to turn a profit; and
(2) better service because the services provided would be driven by user demand instead of political/bureaucratic decisionmaking.
You may think that either or both of these predictions are flawed, but one doesn’t have to be “cold blooded” to think they would. If your argument is that privatized transportation with vouchers for the poor would not provide cheaper and/or better service than the status quo, tell us why.
Planners learn that in economics, agents are only sometimes rational. And agents with limited choice make tradeoffs that may negatively affect their wellbeing esp when emergent events arise, thus the issue with the facile ‘revealed preferences’…um…preference…of some ideological groups.
HTH.
DS
Thank you, Dan, for informing us how planners are trained. That explains a LOT.
So glad to know you approve of a curriculum that includes econ and stat!
*roll*
DS
The private sector will not do it. It requires subsidies, which inevitably require bureaucracies, which the Antiplanners of the world are against no matter what.
First of all, I don’t agree with your blanket statement about opposition to subsidies. Very few of the regular contributors on this blog have made such a statement.
And yes, administering subsidies will require some level of administration, but it will undoubtedly be much smaller than a bureaucracy that attempts to provide a good directly (e.g. a transit authority).
I mean that’s how government intervention works right? They price out the private interest?
I’m not sure what you mean by “price out the private interest”. However, there are plenty of examples of how direct subsidies to consumers can function in private markets. A good example is Section 8 housing subsidies. The subsidies don’t crowd the private sector out of the market, rather they allow the consumer a greater ability to participate in the market by supplementing their income.
Most of us value and are willing to pay for things we don’t use. Antiplanners, however, are not. Is this because they’ve drank too much of Ms. Rand’s kool-aid and think selfishness is a virtue? Do they simply not care? I don’t know, but to me, it comes across as coldblooded.
Another generalization. Followed by an ad hominem. In any case, the point here, as many times before, is that it makes little sense to pay much, much more than is necessary to provide a given service. There is nothing coldblooded about deploring waste and urging an end to it.
What I want to know is this – what would the outcome be if they ditched the silly road pricing, but actually did the job which they are paid to do in a mature and professional manner?
I’m not sure what you mean in the latter part of that statement.
Setting aside for a moment that agents are only sometimes rational, nevertheless, “revealed preferences†can simply mean “lack of choice†in this and related contexts.
Provide an example.
Any decent stats class that analyzes any ‘revealed preferences’ data spends a good deal of time laying out the issues with such data and why care must be taken when analyzing these data. Conclusions based only on these data are facile on the best days.
Actually, you would find no such discussion in a statistics class. Revealed preference is an economic concept. And conclusions based on them are not “facile” when data are available on people’s actual choices. I would be more skeptical of analysis that ignored stated preference data where it is available.
Planners learn that in economics, agents are only sometimes rational. And agents with limited choice make tradeoffs that may negatively affect their wellbeing esp when emergent events arise, thus the issue with the facile ‘revealed preferences’…um…preference…of some ideological groups.
Care to elaborate?
o Provide an example.
An entire field – Behavioral Econ – elaborates. And vast tracts of SFD zoning being the only choice limits people’s choices. I’ve (and others) have written about this numerous times here.
o Revealed preference data are analyzed in stats classes. I had them also in grad level UrbEcon and Ecology classes as well. The data are not the sole provenance of one discipline.
o Care to elaborate?
I’ve elaborated on this many times here, most often using Plantinga and Bernell’s ‘tradeoff’ paper on sprawl, in the BehavEcon mentioned above, and again with the false conclusion that ‘revealed preferences’ show Patriotic Americans love love llllLLLLoooooove! single-fam detached, despite the inconvenient facts that the HMID subsidizes them, banks prefer them, and Euclidean Zoning and politicians privilege them (not to mention it is a relict paradigm of Manifest Destiny).
HTH.
DS
Dan:
Can you please provide a peer-reviewed paper that shows today’s single-family home is a “paradigm of Manifest Destiny”? Thank you in advance.
I wrote:
“What I want to know is this – what would the outcome be if they ditched the silly road pricing, but actually did the job which they are paid to do in a mature and professional manner?”
MJ wrote:
“I’m not sure what you mean in the latter part of that statement.”
I pay taxes, and naturally I expect that my taxes will be spent on things that are important – like schools and hospitals. On the matter of transport, I expect that, like grown ups, politicians will prioritise ruthlessly, so that we get the most benefit for the least money.
We notice that most transit is buses, because it is a cost-effective way of moving people – but that it is a bit rough around the edges, with missing bus shelters, real-time information, electronic ticketing, at-site journey planning, and so on. Bicycles could use training, better designs, secure parking, etc. But all of the money has been spent, so sorry and all that, so no improvements are possible this year. Where has the money gone? – on pet projects of one kind or another, like Crossrail, a metro system in London, which has been the fantasy of various groups; and now we are going to have it, even though we haven’t needed it before, and despite the fact that a lot of transport is losing out to cars purely for lack of investment. For all this, the people responsible want even more of my money so that they can award themselves a generous salary. (MPs in the UK vote on their own pay package. Nice work if you can get it.)
So yes, I want to see mature and professional conduct when it comes to transport projects, and zero sentiment towards pet projects. It’s my taxes, and I want to see the money well spent.
Frank, there are shelves full of Soc books that explore the Merkan social evolution. The idea of unlimited space to spread out and exploit and the more recent dissemination of new postwar ideals and expectations are all well-studied.
Three books that go about contextualizing this wrt cities in three very different ways are Cronon’s Nature’s Metropolis, Beatley’s Native to Nowhere and Chudafoff and Smith’s The Evolution of American Urban Society esp the latter part of the book that describes technological advance contrasted with the ‘boosterism’ era in the early part of the book. One of these should be interesting reading if you are so inclined.
HTH
DS