As I whined earlier, public transit is really expensive here, and that's just within the city. If you have to take the commuter train to the suburbs, that can be $15 per round trip. How in the hell is anyone supposed to afford that? Though I'd prefer to use public transit, this cost actually creates an incentive to drive if I know I'm going somewhere I can park for free.
I always found it odd that public transit is something one has to pay for. I think public transit should be public the way the public libarary is--that is, free. As curbing greenhouse gases becomes a greater and greater concern, this approach seems more and more appropriate. Cities could pay for the transit by gathering money from the drivers though gas taxes, fees, parking fines, parking meters, etc.
One of the things about charging for the public transit is that doing so put an enormous burden on the transit agencies. Public transit exists to move people around. But much of their equipment and personnel are there to gather fares. If transit were free, you wouldn't have: turnstiles, token machines, drop boxes on buses, people in booths sitting top of the money. Most of the equipment and people that public transit users interact with are involved in gathering fares, not transporting people. One thing is certain; a lot of the fares gathered goes to the continued gathering of fares. I would love to know what the typical proportion is; it must be significant.
Also, the gathering of fares makes the transit system inefficient as well. On a busy bus route, each stop is slowed because every new passenger has to line up and pay the fare. If there were no fares, the bus would stop, both doors would open, people would get out, then people would get on. Much faster.
These are the things I think about.
Well, today, I'm getting a bike, so I'm looking forward to avoid transit fares the old-fashioned way.
4 comments:
You know I love New Orleans with a wild, unrestrained passion. I'm warned frequently there is a lot not to love about NO. So far, my only real complaint is the public transportation system. Traveling east to west isn't sooo bad...but traveling river to lake has brought me to tears twice in three weeks. It's curious to me that the system worked better during the period right after the storm when there was no fare...
Alex,
I'm glad you're back in the city and that it's going well.
Have you checked out norta.com, the RTA's web site. That might help you. (I said "might.")
Damn, that's a good point about the cost of turnstiles and booth staff, etc.! I've been itching to sell my beat-up Mercury Tracer (the sequel, not the nice one you bought us in New Orleans). It's not the pleasure to drive that my black Del Sol was (before it was creamed by a gas-guzzling Nissan Titan). I am transitioning to working solely online so that I never have to commute again. Here on Capitol Hill in Seattle we're surrounded by cafes, boutiques, and bars and only a 1 1/2 mile walk downhill from world-famous Pike Place Market. I'd be content to use public transportation supplemented by a ZipCar car share for occasional shopping trips to the suburbs and a scooter for convenience for tooling around our immediate area in a hurry.
Morgan,
Have you thought of getting a bike?
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