Transit riders save hundreds of $$

Trains Magazine General Discussion
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WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) – Americans who use public transportation are helping save 1.4 billion gallons of gasoline each year, according to report released Tuesday by ICF International.

By riding buses, subways and trains to work each day Americans reduce the number of vehicles packing the roadways. That eliminates the need for 33.5 million barrels of oil each year, according to the report.

Households that use public transportation in lieu of cars also save money – an average of $6,251 a year versus a household with two cars and no access to public transportation service, the report said. That figure includes the cost of maintaining two cars.

Just the fuel savings for a “public transportation household” is roughly $1,399 a year. After subtracting transit fares the savings is about $665 per year.

“The savings are dramatic,” said William Millar, president of the American Public Transportation Association, a nonprofit organization in Washington that commissioned the report.

More commuters turning to buses and rail

Public transportation has seen an upsurge in recent years, with ridership up 25% since 1995, according to the study. Long-term economic growth over the past decade and increased public transit availability over the same period have helped make public transit an option for more Americans, Millar said.

In the first quarter of 2006, public transportation use increased 4% over 2005, with light-rail ridership jumping more than 11%. Areas seeing the biggest increases include those with the largest bus systems – Los Angeles, Detroit, Houston and Seattle, according to the report.

More-frequent spikes in gasoline prices, renewed interest in energy conservation and national security worries over volatility in the oil producing regions of the world also appear to be fueling this trend more recently.

Each time the price of a gallon of gasoline hits the $3 mark there is an increase in ridershi

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I can attest to the savings myself. Before I switched to public transportation, I looked at the costs of car ownership long and hard. I knew exactly what the cutoff point was in terms of mileage. Over a period of time, I reduced my driving habits so that I went from filling up every seven days to filling up only once a month. It wasn’t easy. Nor was it easy to decide to make the switch to public transportation. But once I did, I haven’t regretted the decision.

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But aren’t these commuters saving money at our (tax-payers) expense??

It seems that every time this subject comes up, it is stated over and over that mass-transit does not recover its costs at the fare box. No-one could afford to ride if it did. The shortage is made up somewhere else (in the form of government subsidies) and that means you and I paid for their savings.

I always have mixed feelings when I read about another commuter service starting up or expanding operations. On the one hand, as a railfan, I’m happy that there are more trains to watch. On the otherhand, I feel I’m glad they get to enjoy my tax money. [insert sarcastic smiley here].

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Who do you think pays for the roads you drive on? Either way, the commuters aren’t paying the full cost for their trip into work. Roads are, if anything, even more subsidized than public transportation because other than a few toll roads, commuters pay none of the cost directly (there is indirect funding through the gas tax, but even that is not a perfect way to allocate costs for use - and the gas tax is hidden within a cost of gasoline so people often do not realize it is there - and predominately today roads get funds from the general fund as well as the gas tax since the gas tax is no longer adequate to pay for roads). Just because the subsidies are more hidden doesn’t mean they aren’t there.

The fact is that public transit is a way more efficient allocation of tax resources than building more freeways. The individual person commuting to work in a car is a way bigger drain on the taxpayer than the person who goes to work by subway.

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I am sure some people save time taking the train to work. Doesn’t work in my case.

I save more time driving than taking the train. My time is more valuable to me. Plus they keep raising the cost of parking at the station. Waiting for the bus to take me to the train so I can take twice as long (and change trains once) is not made up by the monetary savings. It takes me 30 minutes to get to work by car, 24 miles. I do experience some savings from carpooling with my wife (works in the same building) and children (drop one on the way at school, the other is in daycare across the street from where I work), but even when we both were driving, it was more cost effective, even with the wear and tear on the cars, to drive. Monetarily, it costs almost $4 one way, plus parking at the station ($3.50 a day). Even with the money my agency gives for taking the train, I would still pay more to ride rail, not counting the time involved. Until gas breaks $4 a gallon (maybe this summer!!!), it is more cost effective to drive.

The time difference is the gamebreaker anyway. By rail, not including driving to the station, would take over an hour to get me to my office. 30-40 minutes driving, plus free parking. With 2 riders (kid still would be free on the train for a couple more years), cost of riding goes up. Driving does not change.

It is nice to have the rail option, and if I worked downtown I would ride rail (time would increase for a shorter drive, plus parking expenses would escalate). Just does not work in my situation now.

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I think that it is important to note that the study presumes the elimination of one car entirely. That means no insurance, no maintenance/repairs, no car loan payments, etc.

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The cost per passenger mile to operate a automobile is less than the subsidy per passenger mile for other modes of transportation.

Gas taxes never funded most of the roads. The origin of local streets and roads pre-date gas taxes and even the automobile and they are needed even if the auto did not exist. The gas taxes were set up as a means of funding and improving routes of state and interstate importance. There may be a shortfall, but it is at least partially due to the fact that money is taken from “highway funds” to subsidize other modes.

------I found the following information at Victoria Transportation Policy Institute
http://www.vtpi.org/

From: TDM Encyvlopedia -Transportation Costs $ Benefit , Table 15
Cost per vehicle mile for motor vehicles (2000 US dollars) is $1.20
costs incliude: travel time, veh ownership, crash damage, non residential off-street parking, vehicle

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That was a perfect example of how to lie with statistics.

You notice that they don’t divide the cost between costs paid by the user and costs paid by the government/general public with private vehicles. Maybe because the cost paid by the user per mile in driving is very low - and the majority of that goes towards paying private enterprise (mainly oil companies and insurance companies, but also private parking companies) rather than the general pool which funds road construction and maintenance. Excepting a few privately owned and constructed toll roads, the cost paid towards the general fund is pennies per mile (figuring an average fuel economy of 25 miles per gallon and the average state/federal gas tax being around 40 cents). The rest of the cost of road construction and maintenance as well as the externalities will be born by the general public - thus, showing a higher subsidy rate per mile than what they show for transit when you figure that their cost is 86 cents per mile, but the road user is paying a few cents per mile (excluding gasoline prices). When you add in gasoline prices (excluding the gas tax which has already been accounted for), the cost per mile at their time period might be about 5 cents (again using the 25 mile per gallon average for all driving which may well be a bit low, but even if you figure 30 miles per gallon, the results are the same). That leaves a subsidy of 80 cents per mile driven using their own figures - which gives a similar, if not higher, percentage of subsidy to the other modes of transportation.

However, that isn’t the only thing wrong with their study. Of course, driving is going to have a lower cost per mile - the total mileage of roads is much larger as is the total mileage traveled. Thus, while the amount of the government subsidy per mile is higher for rail and bus, the total government subsidy for driving is way higher. I’d

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One other point about costs per mile:

If a large percentage of people switched from private autos to public transporation, then the subsidized cost per mile of highways would increase (small decrease in total spending but significant decrease in total miles) while the subsidized cost per passenger mile of public transportation would decrease.

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[quote user=“penncentral2002”]

That was a perfect example of how to lie with statistics.

You notice that they don’t divide the cost between costs paid by the user and costs paid by the government/general public with private vehicles. Maybe because the cost paid by the user per mile in driving is very low - and the majority of that goes towards paying private enterprise (mainly oil companies and insurance companies, but also private parking companies) rather than the general pool which funds road construction and maintenance. Excepting a few privately owned and constructed toll roads, the cost paid towards the general fund is pennies per mile (figuring an average fuel economy of 25 miles per gallon and the average state/federal gas tax being around 40 cents). The rest of the cost of road construction and maintenance as well as the externalities will be born by the general public - thus, showing a higher subsidy rate per mile than what they show for transit when you figure that their cost is 86 cents per mile, but the road user is paying a few cents per mile (excluding gasoline prices). When you add in gasoline prices (excluding the gas tax which has already been accounted for), the cost per mile at their time period might be about 5 cents (again using the 25 mile per gallon average for all driving which may well be a bit low, but even if you figure 30 miles per gallon, the results are the same). That leaves a subsidy of 80 cents per mile driven using their own figures - which gives a similar, if not higher, percentage of subsidy to the other modes of transportation.

However, that isn’t the only thing wrong with their study. Of course, driving is going to have a lower cost per mile - the total mileage of roads is much larger as is the total mileage traveled. Thus, while the amount of the government subsidy per mile is higher for rail and bus, the total government subsidy for drivin

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I can see it now with two wage earners in the family. "Honey is it my day to drive to work or is it yours? Now that’s if they are civil. You can insert your own language if both want to drive on the same day.

But let me be serious for a moment. The APTA study, as somebody already noted, assumes a one car family which might have been the case years ago, but in today’s hectic pace of living is not possible. People drive to work for many reasons. Some car-pooling with both wage earners in the family may be possible if both work in the same general area so then only on car is needed. Some have to do errands after work or during lunch so two cars are necessary. And even if the wife stays home - which rather rarefor these days - she needs the car to transport the kids to their soccer games, music lessons after school or to the doctor.

In some cases there is no direct public transortation service between somebody’s home and their work place so they have to drive. This was my case. If I went from my house in Maryland to my work in the extreme Southeast of Washington, DC it would have taken two buses and two subway rides to get from or to work, and the trip would have taken much longer although it may not have been as aggravating from the standpoint of traffic jams. Then there is another factor, some don’t think the public transit system is safe. This was brought out recently with the recent spate of derailments on the Washington area’s METRO.

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I guess my wife and I are one exception to that one. We’ve been managing to get by on one vehicle since October, in spite of the fact that we both work full-time in different locations.

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I use public transportation exclusively to get to work. One significant savings for me is the pint of bourbon for each one-way trip that I would have to buy to quell the homicidal rage that driving in DC causes.

Seriously, though, taking public transit enables me to get by with a 17-year-old vehicle that wouldn’t stand the strain of commuting every day. Otherwise we’d have to have 2 vehicles in good condition.

Something that just makes me shake my head and ask “What were they thinking?” - all the people who live on one side of DC and work on the other. DDDDUUUUUHHHHH!!! Did they not even consider the horrors of driving in this motorized asylum?

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“The greater miles traveled on of roads is not relevent. The costs are per passenger-mile traveled.”

So we’ll losing money on every mile driven, but we’re making it up in volume?

Seriously, you’re basing your argument on the American Autombile Association figures? That is about the equivilent of basing an argument on smoking from figures from one of those “consumer” groups that the Tobacco Institute used to fund. It might appear more neutral coming from the AAA than the oil companies and automakers, but the AAA is still a pro-driving lobbying group. They’ll use the cost per passenger mile figure despite the fact that it is extremely flawed measurement to try to convince people that building public transit isn’t cost effective. Quite simply you can’t compare the cost per passenger mile of driving with the cost per passenger mile of public transit because driving includes low cost rural areas while public transit includes only high cost urban areas. The social cost of a person driving his or her kid to school in a rural area isn’t comparable to the person commuting by themselves in an urban area - even if they travel the same distance. Yet, the AAA will use both groups and use the way lower cost of the roads for the rural driver with a passenger to balance out the higher cost of the individual driver in an urban area. Then they will use the parking fees, higher insurance rates, and higher gas prices paid by the urban driver to make it look like the rural driver is paying more than he or she really is. They will use the better gas mileage (excepting hybrids) that rural/highway driving gets over city driving to make cars look more fuel efficient. They will balance the lower cost of rural road construction with the high cost of urban road building - you can’t do that with transit systems which are only built and operated in high cost urban areas. S

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I suspect that there are some who wouldn’t take public transportation even if home and office were a half block from the train stations, the schedule was perfect for the work hours and the travel time was half of drive time.

There is a difference between those who won’t and those who can’t use public transportation. I wouldn’t expect someone to use public transport if it took two busses and two trains or the ride took much longer than the drive.

I will usually drive and ride on my occasional trips to Chicago, but the only thing between here and Milwaukee is the Interstate.

Some of my tax money is probably going to pay for public transport that I do not use. I consider it an investment in holding the line on the price of gasoline. Every time some one gets on the train to go to work there are a couple of gallons of gas saved for my use and one more spot on the highway for my car when I have to drive through the big city.

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So true - it makes no sense that people here wouldn’t ride Metro due to safety concerns but somehow think that driving was safe. Let’s see - this is an area where you see people exiting at the last minute from the left most lane of 4 on a semi-regular basis. It doesn’t make much sense. I know plenty of people who moved here and then try to get out after they see what living here is like. Especially when they see how insane the roads are - you really put your life at risk everytime you drive here with as many dangerous and reckless things you see people do on the roads here.

But that isn’t to say that people don’t have safety concerns about Metro - especially given the number of derailments and the time that train backed into another one - they’ve been lucky so far these accidents haven’t happened during rush hour when the trains are packed like sardines. Plus, a lot of people have fears of terrorism attacks. Plus, I remember when I worked at Suitland Federal Center they sent out an email that warned people to not walk to the Suitland Metro Station by themselves after there were several robberies and even a shootout in the middle of the day there.

So really, the safest commuter option in DC seems to be to stay home - either that or move.

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As a regular transit rider since 1978 on either suburban express bus or by rail, I’ve found that you lose a little flexibility (you’re tied to the timetable) but you also virtually eliminate the aggravation factor, especially when the weather turns bad. Parking at my suburban station (Oak Lawn) is a lot cheaper than parking even on the fringes of the Loop area, plus my monthly ticket is appreciably cheaper than the additional fuel, maintenance and insurance expense on my car. My ride may be subsidized in part, but the alternative of no public transit would be unthinkable.

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the citizens of Utah looked at the costs of building a new toll road or building commuter rail and overwhelmingly voted for rail. Long-term that will provide savings for everyone - even drivers.

dd

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I got to check out the interior of one of the new double deck cars for the FrontRunner commuter service when it was on display late last year in Salt Lake City. It was a pretty nice car on the inside, and it had that “new car” smell to boot!

It’s likely that the commuter service will help out in the long run, as Utah’s population continues to grow, although there’s no point in my using the service, unless I want to take a train ride up to Ogden for the fun of it. I happen to live close enough to Salt Lake City, so it’s easier for me to drive than to use public transportation.

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It’s easier for most people to drive then take the transit, in the USA anyways, exept in the most heavily populated areas like New York City. Subsidies screws everything around and makes it all unclear. No subsidies for nobody no mater what is the only way to find out.

Why do they claim trucks polute but busses in transit are “environmentaly clean” when they are mechanicaly the same thing ?