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Rail transit agencies collectively face billions in maintenance
Old story, old news. It’s not a federal problem, it’s a local problem. Local to the area the transit agency serves. Local taxpayers, not the federal government are responsible for the funding problems. While I understand the enormous startup costs involved with a transit service IT should be the responsibility of the local community it serves to fund it. Not the US taxpayer and not the US government.
Transportation is a national concern. I guess you’re also in favor of dropping federal support for highways. Typical conservative crap thinking.
Michael O’Neal, This story is about LOCAL transit and I don’t care to fund your subsidized transportation to wherever you work, if you do. My comment isn’t about conservative crap. this is about you paying your own way and not me paying for your subsidized transportation in IL or NY, or TX, or CA, or WA, and any other state/city that has a subsidized transit system to keep the fares low. If a transit system can’t pay for itself, it needs to raise the fares so it can. same with the national passenger system. You’ll notice that the airlines don’t seem to have any shortage of passengers even with their air fares. As for the federal support, I can only think you’re referring to the Highway Trust Fund which is not classified as ‘free’ money. Every driver who buys fuel pays into that fund with each gallon of fuel purchased. That money is then refunded to each state on a percentage basis. What each state does with that money is one of the main problems with the national transportation system because it is up to each sate on how the money is spent. Thus if the money your state (IL) receives goes into the ‘general’ fund, like in OK, you are going to have a piss poor transportation system. Period.
I agree that the primary responsibility for maintaining and operating local transit systems lies with the local area they serve–and I’m a proud non-Conservative. The Feds don’t have a responsibility per se for local programs, but they certainly have the means, and the odd grant now and then is appropriate for key projects. Subsidizing transit with local and regional tax money is reasonable, however, since even people who choose to drive benefit from less traffic on the road when there’s a decent transit system for everybody else to ride.
As for highway users paying their own way: Fuel taxes, excise taxes, tolls, and other user fees taken together cover only 60% of the cost of building and maintaining highways. The remaining 40% comes from “general funds”–in other words, mostly personal and corporate income taxes. (That was true several years ago, and I doubt that it has changed much, but I admit that I haven’t checked lately.) And I haven’t heard how much of the cost of air transportation is covered by ticket revenues, since governmental subsidies for air transportation are tucked away in all kinds of places, but if air fares suddenly were to reflect the full cost of flying the planes–building and operating airports, supporting a massive security apparatus, operating the air traffic control system–there would be a surge of interest in trains and buses, and high-speed rail would look like a bargain.
One should be careful about saying who is subsidizing who, most of the federal tax dollars come from the urban areas and they are paying a lot of money to cover programs that are in non urban areas. I do agree that the local agencies need to find more local funds (called taxes or fare increases) but those local and urban areas are providing a lions share of the federal budget dollars.
So what percentage of the national economy is in the ten noted cities versus, say, Oklahoma. Is it not in the national interest that the economic centers have transit subsidies? The payback of the investment benefits the entire country. We need to start thinking that way, like we used to, instead of being so parochial.
No. I will not have my relatively low tax area taxed more to fund other’s local transportation modes, be it commuter rail, local streets, or whatever. I already pay for, through taxes, a national network of airports and highways, and that’s enough. No more.
The CTA is getting brand new 5000 series cars and later on newer series cars, they completely redid the Dan Ryan tracks recently, they opened up a brand new station (Morgan), continue to rehab stations, buy new buses, their on time performance is one of the best in the country, what the heck seems to be the problem?
Mr Winegar, you and other Iowans benefit from medical research done at our major hospitals, from software developed at our tech startups, and students being educated at our dozens of universities. These people get to work on a 120 year old subway system. Please don’t tell me it’s not in your interest.
Mr Anderson:
It says “from Maine” above, but I lived my first 48+ years in Iowa and still consider myself an Iowan.
Yes, Iowans benefit from the glow emanating the great Commonwealth of Massachusetts, just as Bay Staters benefit from the medical research conducted at the U of Iowa Hospitals & Clinics in Iowa City, one of the largest teaching and research hospitals in the world. And bear in mind what your refrigerators and cupboards would look like without the participation of Midwestern farms (or the Amana refrigerators built in Iowa, for that matter). You support us, we support you, and together we are all better off.
I guess this means taxpayers will pay instead of riders
Automatic Bus Control
NATHAN ANDERSON: We already pay for that research through high medical and drug costs. Do you want us to pay twice? Large metro areas are drawing in excessive amounts of taxes already. They just need to prioritize. A good example is a visit to NYC can cost 18-22% more than the book price simply due to fees and extra taxes. A visit to my area might cost 6-8% more.
I’ve watched Q.E. grants / TIGER grants where a few minority business owners make a fortune, but very little quality maintenance is completed. Leave it to the Fed. and it’ll get Fu&$#d up.
I have to pay for my transportation costs every day in South Carolina. Why do I have to pay for Chicago’s, Philly’s and LA’s, too? Why not just charge the passengers what it costs to maintain the railroad? I find it so ironic that MTA in NY took over the LIRR b/c the RR wanted to raise the fares. The MTA took over and within months raised the fares. It just doesn’t make sense to me. Total idiocy.
The backlog for highway upgrades in the US also exceed billions of dollars. A lot of it could be paid for “if” the politicians raised the Federal gas tax but they will not. I see comments about making transit riders pay the full cost. I agree so let’s stop using any Federal dollars and instead use the Federal Highway trust fund for it’;s original purpose which was to pay down the Federal debt. After that let the users pay for everything. Those users include every airplane passenger pay the full costs for everything that goes with airports. Let the highway users pay the full cost for every road rather than property tax payers covering the costs in their municipalities. Let all the barge owners and ship owners pay the full costs for dredging of canals and harbors and let them pass the costs onto consumers.
I see so many complaints about “my” taxes going to pay for someone else’s ride. In case none of you have noticed the Federal Highway trust fund has been officially broke for 4 years. It has been propped up by the transfer of taxes out of the US general fund for that entire time. Congress refuses to raise the Federal gas tax so it will only get worse.