Transit Is Great – But It’s Not a Public Good
bloomberg.com
Transit Is Great – But It’s Not a Public Good
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Re: Transit Is Great – But It’s Not a Public Good
#2Free transit can discourage even poor people from riding transit as service is what they need: most can afford the fares and so not charging it means you have less money to put into better service. Almost everyone who uses transit would benefit ffrom more routes and more frequent service. Even in cities like Tokyo or Paris where people use transit a lot there are missing services that more money is needed to provide.
Re: Transit Is Great – But It’s Not a Public Good
#3Maybe it’s semantics but, this article fails to prove that it’s core argument isn’t a semantic one.
I get that you cannot label transit as a public good in economic terms.
Nobody who is presenting reasons it should be free or heavily subsidized is attempting to do so. They are presenting arguments about environment, equity, etc. They are not trying to prove that it is nonexcludable and nonrival.
The article even admits that advocates are arguing that it should be a public good by design.
But they are mislabeling it according to economic theory. Who cares (other than academic economists)? In a political environment, where you are talking to other politicians and the broader public, the commonly held version of “public good” seems to fit.
Nothing about this article substantiates it’s core claim: “Mistaken assumptions about public goods pose a growing risk to sound transit policy.”
Re: Transit Is Great – But It’s Not a Public Good
#4Public healthcare does not pass their "nonrival and nonexcludable" test...
Re: Transit Is Great – But It’s Not a Public Good
#5> This isn’t just about semantics
It really is. What people mean is "it's for the public good". Write it like that and the premise for the article is gone.
EDIT: I want to add that this looks to me like a fallacy that is very common in mathematical circles: appropriate a term that is in common use, give it a formal definition that works for your theory, and then go back to the public and tell them they're using the term wrong.
Re: Transit Is Great – But It’s Not a Public Good
#6Sidewalks don't even pass the test - like they say for roads, a sidewalk could become congested
Re: Transit Is Great – But It’s Not a Public Good
#7Free transit can discourage even poor people from riding transit as service is what they need: most can afford the fares and so not charging it means you have less money to put into better service. Almost everyone who uses transit would benefit ffrom more routes and more frequent service. Even in cities like Tokyo or Paris where people use transit a lot there are missing services that more money is needed to provide.
>most can afford the fares and so not charging it means you have less money to put into better service.
No, you could take the money from somewhere else. You don't have to finance transit by transit fares.
Re: Transit Is Great – But It’s Not a Public Good
#8Free transit can discourage even poor people from riding transit as service is what they need: most can afford the fares and so not charging it means you have less money to put into better service. Almost everyone who uses transit would benefit ffrom more routes and more frequent service. Even in cities like Tokyo or Paris where people use transit a lot there are missing services that more money is needed to provide.
I bet a transit system can save a lot of money by eliminating the overhead costs of fare collection.
Re: Transit Is Great – But It’s Not a Public Good
#9Free transit can discourage even poor people from riding transit as service is what they need: most can afford the fares and so not charging it means you have less money to put into better service. Almost everyone who uses transit would benefit ffrom more routes and more frequent service. Even in cities like Tokyo or Paris where people use transit a lot there are missing services that more money is needed to provide.
> means you have less money to put into better service
Not really. It just means you're using taxes instead of fares. The cost doesn't go away. You only get less money for transit if the politicians holding the purse strings are not the ones deciding to make the transit free, which would be indicative of a very broken system.
Similarly, if the service is bad, you don't get riders, and you get less in fares. If you're relying on fares to improve service as you suggest, you end up with a negative feedback loop. It's simply not one or the other.
And on top of all of that, there's no positive feedback loop created by charging a fare. Transit in the US is almost never free for most people, and yet the service is still often bad. It's a weird argument to say fares are necessary for good service, and yet we have fares and no good service. Could it be worse? Sure, but there's no broad, obvious correlation between how transit is funded and the quality of service.
Re: Transit Is Great – But It’s Not a Public Good
#10Free transit can discourage even poor people from riding transit as service is what they need: most can afford the fares and so not charging it means you have less money to put into better service. Almost everyone who uses transit would benefit ffrom more routes and more frequent service. Even in cities like Tokyo or Paris where people use transit a lot there are missing services that more money is needed to provide.
Your first sentence is wrong. Not charging for service does not necessarily mean less money for investing into better service. It’s possible for government to fund the service well enough that revenue from fares becomes insignificant. In effect, the fares would be paid by all taxpayers instead of just those who use the service. This is similar in concept to how public schools are funded. We don’t charge people at the point of service for using the public school system.