Fantastic article explaining the importance of fare increases and congestion pricing for transit systems. Austinites, youll want to take note of the nagging dilemmas were still dealing with as a city: (a) the reality that we must pay for our transportation and (b) the reality that government needs to make some decisions without public input. Both these things seem to philosophically contradict things Americans believe theyre entitled to (cheap or free transportation and the tendency to reflexively assume government is bad). And now to elaborate in todays transportation geek rant! :-) Re: (a), we have an extremely low gas tax in the US that drastically limits the transportation projects we can fund with that revenue. In addition, we still vehemently vote against pay-per-use (toll) roads - which further shifts the burden of transportation projects to local governments (and even further to, as Austinites know from their toll roads, private and even offshore companies). Weve known for a long time that making the price of gas $5-7/gallon would help solve for many issues. By making driving extremely cheap, we fail to fund transit effectively and subsidize sprawling, unsustainable growth. Re: (b), heres what normally happens in America: City has transportation problem. City proposes solution that will (naturally) (obviously) (because where else would money magically come from) require increasing taxes and/or charging per use. Citizens vote no (not from my pocket not in my backyard). City either doesnt fix problem or has to fix problem by other less effective means. If we really, truly want to develop successful transit systems in American cities, government has to make some choices without public input to avoid this vicious cycle. Thats a level of trust many of us knee-jerk-when-someone-says-government people have trouble offering, because history because constitution because whatever - but that lack of trust is sometimes unnecessary. Sometimes we need to leave decisions to experts and, if the solution improves quality of life despite increased fares, own it because progress because problem fixed because the world doesnt revolve around only you. So I encourage you to dive into the financial statistics in this article, and if youre an Austinite consider how implementing such a financial structure for mass transit would benefit our city. And of course, feel free to scream SOCIALIST! and kick me out of the city - but before you do please consider how much more radical havoc I could cause in Round Rock. :-)
Posted on: Mon, 30 Jun 2014 19:05:07 +0000
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