Driver2165

952's? Haha, is that "urban" slang for south-suburbanites? If it is that's great though maybe you shouldn't be stigmatizing them quite so much since it's their tax dollars that help to keep underused and bankrupt things like public transportation running. Oooooooh...

actually dugan, it's the city that subsidizes the suburbs right to things like water and roads. A new home in the city costs the government about $4000. Every new home in the suburbs costs the government about $28000 according to the latest statistics from HUD, however, the burden for that cost is usually spread out over a large metro area which means that people in the city are consistantly overcharged for things like utilities and people in the suburbs are severly undercharged. Truth is Dugan, if the government stopped providing us everything and we had to pay exactly for what we used, I wouldn't have to change my life much, if at all. You on the other hand would be paying an extra $8000 for roads per car per year, and all of your utilities would quadruple, not to mention the property taxes on your parking spots at the mall. So maybe you should think of that before you complain about transit, the cost of which is one of the few things on our national budget that is getting less then foriegn aid.

do you think i'm a rapper, chris?

I'll concede your points on utilities as you know way the crap more about that than I ever could or would want to know but your liberal tactics of changing the subject by trying to prove unrelated points (housing? property taxes? mall parking spaces??) don't convince me. You're telling me my tax dollars that go to MN-Dot and elsewhere don't subsidize mass transit? Oh please, the meager amount metro transit is picking up from fares (and probably even the local taxes) could barely keep 4 buses and a train running. Look, I'm not against all forms of public transit, just ones that don't make any sense (trains that don't go anywhere) or are paid for primarily by people that don't use them. If MT buses are so vital and used by so many why can't the system be that much more self-sufficient? That's the real question here. To keep fares affordable? Well I'm sorry, if you can't afford the extra couples of bucks of fare increase you'll have to walk. Why should Joe Suburban (or even Joe 50th&France) have to pick up your bus tab? I know, I'm an evil bastard for insinuating that but there you go.

I hate the mall.

The cost of fares for transit pays for, on average, 80% of the cost of service. On the other side people who drive only pay for 25% of what they use. I'm the one paying for you, not the other way around man. Like I said. I'm be completely willing to go to a system where we pay for what we use. Would you? If roads and highways to the farthest outer suburbs are so necessary and are used by so many why can't that system be much more self-sufficient? Why don't the 8 people living on a cul-du-sac have to pay for thier own road instead of my taxes paying for it? And how many cul-du-sacs do they build every year?

The cost of fares for transit pays for, on average, 80% of the cost of service. On the other side people who drive only pay for 25% of what they use. I'm the one paying for you, not the other way around man. Like I said. I'm be completely willing to go to a system where we pay for what we use. Would you? If roads and highways to the farthest outer suburbs are so necessary and are used by so many why can't that system be much more self-sufficient? Why don't the 8 people living on a cul-du-sac have to pay for thier own road instead of my taxes paying for a fully-engineered 50 foot wide road ($500+ per yard in case you are wondering)? And how many cul-du-sacs do they build every year? Shift just that burden to the developers. And by the way, MN-Dot doesn't pay anything for transit. It only does roads.

Oh, by the way, my liberal tactics of changing the subject? Cities are incredibly complex systems, of which you just admitted you don't know all that much. Housing, property taxes, mall parking spaces and road and transit subsidies are just as connected as your toilet and your sink are. Different ends of the same pipes. I think your using conservative tactics of bitching about one little problem without understanding the myrid underlying causes.

the point is that you can't say that public transit is underused and bankrupt on the premise that it doesn't pay for itself without saying the same thing about roads. now, i've heard different numbers than zakcq (he might be using boston numbers which are for a county-run system, compared to ours, which is state-run), which is that roughly 33% of the agency's budget comes from fares. of course if you compare that with the 10% of the highway dept's budget that comes from its version of user-fees, the gas tax and tolls, and, well, you can do the math. also, the light rail, while it does pretty much run through nothing, gets more money from fares than buses. three rail systems in the US pay for themselves entirely from fares (BART, philly, and portland). I've never heard of a highway that could do that.

mine were national averages. It'll very state to state and municipality to municipality, but the point holds throughout.

wow, somebody's ass got kicked. sorry dugan. whoever the heck former band mate or whatever you are anyway.
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