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I'm not a math whiz. I've never claimed to be. I will do what I can, but more complicated things would take me some time… unless someone else (not necessarily you, chirack) wants to figure them out?
"On an average weekday, 1.7 million rides are taken on CTA."
"CTA has 1,865 buses that operate over 127 routes and 1,354 route miles. Buses make about 19,000 trips a day and serve 11,104 bus stops."
Roughly 1,000,000 of those rides are by bus. If we assume that those million rides live up to the full fare potential of $2.50 per person, then that is $25,000,000 a day that the CTA collects in money.
So, we have 19,000 trips * 1,354 road miles = 25,726,000 total bus miles driven a day.
25,726,000 total bus miles / 1,865 buses = 13,794 gallons of diesel a day.
At $0.50 per gallon (minus state tax) that works out to $6,897.05 per day paid in the federal diesel tax.
If we have 1,865 personal vehicles * 100 road miles (in keeping with my OP) = 186,500 miles a day.
186,500 personal vehicle miles / 25 MPG = 7,460 gallons of gas a day.
At 7,460 gallons * $0.903 in the highest federal and state gas taxes = $6,736.38 per day paid in taxes.
BUS 6,736.38
-CAR 6,897.05
_____________
-$160.67
Yes, the bus skips out on $160.67 in gas tax a day, but it also carries 998,135 MORE PEOPLE than an equal number of private vehicles.
Lot of bad assumptions.
The CTA is used by people who are unable to drive due to age(too young/old) or handicap and there are discounts for student, handicapped, senior as well as an program that hands out free passes to some college students so you would not get 100% of those people into private vehicles. Some people simply would be unable to drive, others unable to afford to drive.
The reason why policy favors the automobile is because it is more efficient than public transit in many ways. The private car is more time efficient most of the day, as well as more flexible. I can arrive at any conner in Chicago using my car at any time...an CTA user can not.
I don't mean to be *too* snarky here, but you are the OP, you started this conversation. Generally, thread starters should be able to back up what they say.
Even if what you say is entirely true (it's not -- NY has the highest gas taxes at a combined $0.69/gal), it still only accounts for that 1 mile of busy road in the state with the highest gasoline taxes. What about the thousands of miles of interstate that maintain only 1000 cars per day (or even less)? How about the states that collect far less in fuel taxes per gallon? The road isn't any cheaper to build, it might cost a little less to maintain and, by a sheer usage driven revenue equation as above, the drivers on that span would be taxed 2% of the amount ($263,676) per mile over 20 years. And, you also haven't taken into account that a mile of Interstate bridge can cost $400,000,000 to build.
The truth is, fuel taxes and tolls only make up about 1/2 of what is spent on US roads each year. The remaining half is subsidized by other tax revenue. It was predicted that the Federal Highway Trustfund will start running out of money this summer due to the fact that the federal fuel tax has not been raised in over 20 years. To raise enough money by fuel taxes and tolls alone, the taxes and tolls would have to double.
We incentivize driving private automobiles because we are Americans. Individual choice always wins over the greater good. Most arguments for prioritizing car travel focus in "it is most efficient for me. We rarely look at it from the perspective of the greater good of the city/community/network/planet.
We incentivize driving private automobiles because we are Americans. Individual choice always wins over the greater good. Most arguments for prioritizing car travel focus in "it is most efficient for me. We rarely look at it from the perspective of the greater good of the city/community/network/planet.
We incentivize transit far more than the automobile. So yes, we incentivize driving as well, largely for reasons of the greater good by reducing the cost on lower-income households at the expense of higher-income households. Transit isn't really any different in except in the scope of the subsidy.
We incentivize driving private automobiles because we are Americans. Individual choice always wins over the greater good. Most arguments for prioritizing car travel focus in "it is most efficient for me. We rarely look at it from the perspective of the greater good of the city/community/network/planet.
In terms of fuel usage the average car beats the bus unless the bus is packed. My experience with transit is that outside of rush busses are rarely packed. For the employer the advantage is freedom to set work hours and location without regard to the availability of transit.For the driver freedom of departure time, non-stop door to door direct trips. It is often a much better way to travel.
Are 1000 car interstates really that common in the US? In Ontario, the rural portions of the freeway network typically carries about 20,000 cars per day.
I-88 is one of the lighter used interstates in NY. Rural section are around 10,000 cars per day.
The traffic may be disportionately truck, making the maintenance costs higher than the traffic cost imply. I-91 drops to 5,000 cars per day in northern Vermont:
I can arrive at any conner in Chicago using my car at any time...an CTA user can not.
... Unless thousands of other Chicagoans are looking to go to the same corner at the same time, of course. That's why it's called "mass transit," not "individual transit."
We incentivize transit far more than the automobile. So yes, we incentivize driving as well, largely for reasons of the greater good by reducing the cost on lower-income households at the expense of higher-income households. Transit isn't really any different in except in the scope of the subsidy.
One could argue that the zoning practices in almost every city incentivize the automobile in a very, very deep and fundamental way, and have been doing this for 80+ years in most cities, while many mass transit systems are 20 years old or younger. This is a HUGE difference!!! Due to minimum parking requirements, one simply CANNOT build something that doesn't cater to automobiles. Meanwhile, there is generally no requirement that development make mass transit more convenient or usable. This subsidy may seem small, but remember it is in effect over almost every square foot in almost every city in the US. Think about it: the typical city block has more space dedicated to cars (parking plus road space), than it does to living space and people actually conducting business. I bet if the free market determined parking requirements rather than excessive parking limits determined back in the 60's and 80's by politicians and commissioners (who BTW tend to drive nice cars), the threshold city size where mass transit is more convenient than a car, at least in the city center, would be much smaller than New York, New York. It would be more similar to many medium-sized European and Asian cities, which can be quite dynamic and exciting and often have better mass transit than our largest cities (apart from NYC and Chicago).
I'm not going to argue which system is "better" here, since both approaches have advantages and disadvantages depending on the resident population, I just want to point out that the way we have REQUIRED US cities to be built in the last 80+ years incentives driving much, much more deeply than the subsidies we have just began to put into mass transit for the last 20 years or so in most cities. Design matters, and zoning is a huge part of design!
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