[PRCo] Re: Pittsburgh - think tank blasts possible new transit taxes

[Bill Robb]

Bill Robb wrote:
> What you fail to realize is that subsidies did not exist before the early 70s.
So what?  Cities weren't heavily dependent on cars once, either.
The mere fact that it was once possible for urban transit to have operational
self-sufficiency (a phrase from a slightly different context...) is no reason
to demand that it do so today.
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Subsidies were orginally given to transit when cities became alarmed at the loss of property tax in their downtown areas.  Downtown was once the heart of the property tax base and there was genuine reason to fear the loss of the base in late 50s and 60s.  But over the last 50 years commercial real estate has dispersed and downtowns have largely hollowed out and have loss there economic domination. Most commercial real estate now is entirely auto oriented.

Transit was self-sufficient when people worked six days a week. As soon as the six day work week (really 5 1/2 days) ended downtown went into a long decline and transit service started to slowly decline.  We are moving into a time when there will a large percentage of retired people, 40% in Japan, 33% in Canada and 25% in the US. The babies born after WWII are now on the verge of retirement.  Retired people are a poor market for most local transportation services.  
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Really, why should urban mass transit make money?  Should we require that police
departments break even (operationally)?  Should they charge user fees?
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I did not say transit should make money.  I said it should recover all its operating costs and not be a drain on the taxpayer.  You really cannot rationalize or set priorities.  Police, fire and ambulance are an essential service. There is no alternative to having effective emergency services. There are alternatives to transit.  Walking, driving a car or taking a taxi.  Conducting your affairs so not as much travel is needed. Or paying  the full cost for a transportation service.
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> Subsidized transit service is
> not available to the majority only an (largely) urban minority.

Looks like a pretty big minority.  Pennsylvania has 12 million people.  The SEPTA
region has 3.8 million people.  Allegheny County (PAT goes outside the county a
bit, but not enough to matter) has 1.3 million people.  That's close to half
already and I haven't started in on Harrisburg, Altoona, etc.
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What's the percentage of users?  Normally its about 3% of trips, that means 97% are non-users. A pretty big majority of non-users.

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[...]
> The concept of service to
>  all within a community is now close to be dropped by several places, notably San Jose
>  and Toronto.

I knew the TTC was going through a budget snafu, but I didn't know they
were going through an existential crisis.  The "Transit City" plans don't
look like an existential crisis to me.

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http://www.toronto.ca/ttc/myttc.html#serviceatrisk

You are badly uninformed. Because of a vote (orchestrated by a real estate lobby) to defer a land transfer tax mechanism (which would be new tax) by city council  the TTC faces huge service cuts this year and next year or a fare increase of 25% this year to maintain service. All east-west service between Bloor and St. Clair will  be eliminated. Large blocks of the system would be hollowed out including between St. Clair, Bathurst. Bayview and Lawrence.  

http://www.stevemunro.ca/?p=547#more-547

The city faces a huge deficit over which it has little control.  Uncutable spending is imposed by the provinical government without funding. The city can borrow for capital projects, but operations by law must be funded by taxes and the city cannot borrow for daily operations. Arenas will close (killing hockey leagues), snow will not be plowed until it reaches 6" in depth and the TTC faces huge cuts among other  by the citycuts.  The TTC is not being singled out.  The transit subsidy is one of the largest expenditure categories for the city. The deficit next year is in the hundreds of millions of dollars and this time it looks like little can be done to avoid the cuts.  The motion that defered the new taxes called for a review in October, but the new taxing powers require setting up a mechanism to collect the land transfer taxes.

Even adovcates are saying there is no point in building Transit City if there is no funding to operate it.


       
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