The real reason American public transportation is such a disaster

The real reason American public transportation is such a disaster

Interesting. I was curious, so ran some quick numbers, and didn't get what I expected. I wanted to compare fares in the rough context of cost of living, so I made a spreadsheet with columns for median household income, that same number per month, cost of a 30 day transit pass (eg 30 day unlimited metrocard or closest equivalent), and finally what percentage of the median monthly income the transit pass was. Eg

Median Household Income | Median Monthly Income | Monthly Transit | %

NYC: 58003 | 4833.58 | 116.5 | 0.024

BOS: 53601 | 4466.75 | 75 | 0.016

CHI: 47270 | 3939.17 | 100 | 0.025

----

Toronto: 72830 | 6069.17 | 141.5 | 0.023
Montreal: 73250 | 6104.16 | 82 | 0.013

---

Paris: 25711 | 214258 | 60.7 | 0.028

So obviously these are some super rough numbers, with a lot of assumptions/broad strokes. Currencies are local currency, and I picked full fare 30 day subway+bus cards, did median household income (and for the city not the metro area). So I'm not taking into account any resident or special class subsidies/reduced fares, etc, plus a whole bunch of other methodological short cuts. All those caveats aside, I was surprised how close the final column ended up being across cities.

So this is obviously very different from the data the article cites, which is collected fares vs operating costs, but I was surprised that when looking at fares in the context of median household income, it was pretty even. Guess that says something about how expensive transit systems are to run, or the economic politics of how fares are set, or something else that would require more solid data than I threw together.

Suburban rail commuters probably pay three times that -- the subway fare plus a monthly train ticket that would be twice again that much.

For what it's worth, now that I've moved to New York, I find that Metro North fares seem higher than those on NJ Transit, and the service seems better, too. That is not to say that NJ Transit could improve its service if it raised its rates. I really don't know. And my sample of Metro North is very small. I don't commute on it.

Tom_Reingold said:
For what it's worth, now that I've moved to New York, I find that Metro North fares seem higher than those on NJ Transit, and the service seems better, too. That is not to say that NJ Transit could improve its service if it raised its rates. I really don't know. And my sample of Metro North is very small. I don't commute on it.

Metro north does not have to share any of its infrastructure. It is the primary tenant at Grand Central and doesn't have a crumbling tunnel to contend with. Raising NJT fares wouldn't help any of these issues

Odd that the author never focuses on the comparatively low cost of gas in the US. Having lived in Europe, I can confirm that one of teh primary reasons people take public transportation is because it is much, much more expensive to own and operate a car in Europe. In the US, it is still possible to live in Pennsylvania and drive to NYC or close to NYC. In Europe, that is prohibitively expensive. That is why European cities are more dense. That is why public transportation is a more affordable option in Europe.

As an example, it is very difficult and super expensive to drive into London, Paris, etc. Gas is about $7-$8/gallon in these areas. So there is greater demand for public transport.

I wonder if the author has ever loved outside of the U.S.

Woot said:

I wonder if the author has ever loved outside of the U.S.

great typo.

Woot said:
Odd that the author never focuses on the comparatively low cost of gas in the US. Having lived in Europe, I can confirm that one of teh primary reasons people take public transportation is because it is much, much more expensive to own and operate a car in Europe. In the US, it is still possible to live in Pennsylvania and drive to NYC or close to NYC. In Europe, that is prohibitively expensive. That is why European cities are more dense. That is why public transportation is a more affordable option in Europe.
As an example, it is very difficult and super expensive to drive into London, Paris, etc. Gas is about $7-$8/gallon in these areas. So there is greater demand for public transport.
I wonder if the author has ever loved outside of the U.S.

I used to live in eastern PA and drive to Morristown area to work. 60 miles one way. Often sat in traffic wondering why we live so crazily. In fact, one of the lures used by PA realtors was the promise of a train line to the east. Never happened, even as folks flocked to PA area (in 80's) for cheap real estate. Moved back to NJ (Mplwd) and loved the (albeit wanting) mass transit to City and other destinations.

We're lazy, in love with cars, and piggy in our consumption of resources.

BTW, cons were howling about "Obama's" $4 gas a few years back; where's the praise for "Obama's" $2.50 gas?

Until we have $8 gas, we'll wallow in our wasteful ways.

GL2 said:

Woot said:
Odd that the author never focuses on the comparatively low cost of gas in the US. Having lived in Europe, I can confirm that one of teh primary reasons people take public transportation is because it is much, much more expensive to own and operate a car in Europe. In the US, it is still possible to live in Pennsylvania and drive to NYC or close to NYC. In Europe, that is prohibitively expensive. That is why European cities are more dense. That is why public transportation is a more affordable option in Europe.
As an example, it is very difficult and super expensive to drive into London, Paris, etc. Gas is about $7-$8/gallon in these areas. So there is greater demand for public transport.
I wonder if the author has ever loved outside of the U.S.

I used to live in eastern PA and drive to Morristown area to work. 60 miles one way. Often sat in traffic wondering why we live so crazily. In fact, one of the lures used by PA realtors was the promise of a train line to the east. Never happened, even as folks flocked to PA area (in 80's) for cheap real estate. Moved back to NJ (Mplwd) and loved the (albeit wanting) mass transit to City and other destinations.
We're lazy, in love with cars, and piggy in our consumption of resources.
BTW, cons were howling about "Obama's" $4 gas a few years back; where's the praise for "Obama's" $2.50 gas?
Until we have $8 gas, we'll wallow in our wasteful ways.

I've been following the train line issue since the early 1990s, when I wrote a story about its history for New Jersey Bell's Tel-News bill insert. (Anyone remember that? It ran for more than 50 years and disappeared when NJB became part of Bell Atlantic.) That train line, usually referred to as the Lackawanna Cutoff, was abandoned in the 1970s. It is now slowly being rebuilt. NJ Transit is saying that construction re-starts in Oct 2016 and the first train to Andover, NJ would be in Oct 2018.

Don_Maxton1 said:

GL2 said:

Woot said:
Odd that the author never focuses on the comparatively low cost of gas in the US. Having lived in Europe, I can confirm that one of teh primary reasons people take public transportation is because it is much, much more expensive to own and operate a car in Europe. In the US, it is still possible to live in Pennsylvania and drive to NYC or close to NYC. In Europe, that is prohibitively expensive. That is why European cities are more dense. That is why public transportation is a more affordable option in Europe.
As an example, it is very difficult and super expensive to drive into London, Paris, etc. Gas is about $7-$8/gallon in these areas. So there is greater demand for public transport.
I wonder if the author has ever loved outside of the U.S.

I used to live in eastern PA and drive to Morristown area to work. 60 miles one way. Often sat in traffic wondering why we live so crazily. In fact, one of the lures used by PA realtors was the promise of a train line to the east. Never happened, even as folks flocked to PA area (in 80's) for cheap real estate. Moved back to NJ (Mplwd) and loved the (albeit wanting) mass transit to City and other destinations.
We're lazy, in love with cars, and piggy in our consumption of resources.
BTW, cons were howling about "Obama's" $4 gas a few years back; where's the praise for "Obama's" $2.50 gas?
Until we have $8 gas, we'll wallow in our wasteful ways.

I've been following the train line issue since the early 1990s, when I wrote a story about its history for New Jersey Bell's Tel-News bill insert. (Anyone remember that? It ran for more than 50 years and disappeared when NJB became part of Bell Atlantic.) That train line, usually referred to as the Lackawanna Cutoff, was abandoned in the 1970s. It is now slowly being rebuilt. NJ Transit is saying that construction re-starts in Oct 2016 and the first train to Andover, NJ would be in Oct 2018.

But this is a great example of a really long and expensive train line. They may not get the riders needed to support the train, because people prefer to sit in their own cars. And it's cheap.

The suburbs stretch to pennsyltucky because of cheap gas.

I believe that Germany and France have land use policies in place that discourage urban sprawl.

Spend less on bombing other countries and planting democracy.

Spend more on mass transit, roads, bridges, the environment and renewable energy sources.

It's not how much money is allocated but how the money is spent. Increase the budget and people in charge will find ways to missmanage it.

norman said:
It's not how much money is allocated but how the money is spent. Increase the budget and people in charge will find ways to missmanage it.

I've actually increasingly come around to that POV. As an example, by some measures, the nordic countries are more regressive in their taxation than we are, as they use a VAT (basically a big old sales tax). But they spend a lot more of that money on infrastructure and welfare than we do.

As far as how much money, or what tax rates should be, etc, I'm increasingly agnostic, so long as the money is spent on the correct things (and that, whatever tax rates and policies we set, their with an eye to being able to fund that spending).

In the context of this discussion, I'd like to see less money on roads, more on transit. Given our already very extensive network of roads, though, I'd like that transit spending to include not just trains, but also taking finding way to re-purpose our roads for mass transit -- eg dedicated bus lanes (physically separated from cars, not just lines painted on the road).

Good points, everyone.