

Ask HN: How would you make public transit profitable / create more value? - JayNeely

Reading the discussion on http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1069703 got me thinking about the fiscal crisis I keep seeing transportation authorities having. Both the MBTA (Massachusetts Bay) and MTA (NY Metro) systems, in my area of the world, have staggering debt and frequent problems, and I've heard about similar problems elsewhere.<p>From what I can tell, their main sources of revenue are vehicle / station advertising, fares, and in-station rents for business venues.<p>How would you improve or add to these revenues?<p><i>Update:</i> There's a lot of (possibly justified) cynicism in some of the responses received so far. Maybe a better way of looking at this is:<p><i>How would you have public transit create more value?</i>
======
pchristensen
It's a complicated issue, so here's a little background (I have a Masters in
Urban Planning so I've read a lot).

Streetcar lines (and subways in some places) _were_ profitable businesses,
just like railroad lines. But there were a few features that we don't have
today.

First, it was a new mobility technology so it opened up land that was too far
away to be developed. There is no such land now in metro areas because
highways and have cars make all areas equally accessible.

Second, they were a real estate play as much as a transportation play. Because
they opened up new land, the lines tended to go to greenfields where the
streetcar companies and their allies owned or could buy land. Take a look at
the Brown line in Chicago and watch how it winds - that was a land acquisition
issue. This wouldn't work now because a rail line doesn't increase the value
of land enough since so much is accessible by car.

Third, people rode trains _a lot_ more then than people ride them even now.
These trains were extensions off of a very dense, centralized city. Technology
and social changes reduced the number of daily rides. For instance,
refrigerators meant that women didn't have to ride into the market every day.
Worker benefits (like the 6 or 5 day work week) meant that workers didn't ride
as often. As shopping and employment decentralized, people didn't have to ride
to the city as often. And when people got cars, they had an alternative to the
train.

So what can we learn from history and contemporary transit to make transit
more valuable today?

First, there must be attractions at both end so the fixed costs in tracks and
cars can make money both ways. Early streetcar lines often has amusement parks
at the terminus to promote two-way travel. The Las Vegas monorail is a decent
modern version of this - there's something at every stop. Transit lines that
end in the suburbs at a big parking lot will be underutilized by definition.

Second, land use matters. All of the streetcars and subways were built before
zoning and so the market built what the market could bear by transit, and
buildings could be razed and built bigger if demand grew. Housing in transit-
rich cities and near light rail in cities with new transit systems if more
expensive because zoning restricts how much can be built. In addition to
maximum height, massing, and lot utilization, there are also minimum parking
limits that mean every house/condo is much more expensive and not affordable
to people that would use transit the most. Take a look at the area around the
transit stops in Arlington, VA for an example of transit zoning done right -
extremely dense development within 1/2 mile of transit stops. It has the
lowest car ownership and usage in Northern VA and generates 50% of the
county's property tax in 5% of its land area.

Third is that quality of service matters. Busses in the US suck and are slow
because fare collection takes place one at a time while the bus is stopped.
Curitiba, Brazil (look it up, it's the world leader in bus transit) has bus
stops where you pay to enter and everyone boards at once. The city has one of
the highest rates of car ownership in Brazil _and_ the highest transit
utilization in Brazil. On their main bus routes they have 1-3 minute headways
so there's no such thing as looking at a schedule. Other things like priority
lanes for buses at stoplights, tech to let the bus hold a green light to make
it through, etc help. Bogota Columbia is the other leading bus tech center and
both cities do something like 50x the miles of service per dollar as a subway
would have cost to build and operate.

Fourth, if there's lots of free parking at the destination it's almost always
easier to drive. Point to point means the trip is faster and free parking
means it costs less. Places in the states that have the highest transit usage
(Boston, New York, Chicago Loop, SF) are places where parking sucks or is
expensive. Even LA traffic doesn't keep people from driving because a) the
buses are stuck in it too, and b) it's free to park when you get there.

Basically, any city that's building a light rail or subway line and not
_dramatically_ increasing the zoning around it is throwing money away. For
instance, the 2nd Ave subway in NYC probably won't change much for the $5
billion because there's no way to dramatically increase the number of people
that live in the Upper East Side or Harlem. Without the proper land use,
there's not enough population to drive demand, without demand there's not
enough incentive to provide good levels of service, and without good levels of
service people will find it faster to drive.

~~~
lutorm
Do you know how the total amount of subsidies to mass transit compares to the
subsidies to drivers by supplying a completely tax-funded street network?

~~~
pchristensen
I've always wondered how that would shake out. My guess is that roads are
subsidized more per trip but less per mile than transit, because road networks
are huge and trips are long but drivers pay for the vehicle and labor. I have
no doubt that car trips cost more because drivers pay for their own vehicles
but the economic advantages of point to point travel are tremendous and
generally worth it in a society that's wealthy enough to afford cars and
doesn't have parking congestion problems.

~~~
easp
Just pointing out that parking is often a hidden subsidy to drivers.

------
natrius
Separate the functions of providing mass transit service and providing
mobility for those who can't afford it on their own. There is no need to
subsidize mass transit beyond the value of the congestion, pollution, and any
other externalities it reduces. Cincinnati does this to an extent through
Everybody Rides Metro[1]. A similar concept is facing a lot more resistance in
Austin[2].

Another necessary policy shift is ceasing to discourage transit-supportive
density. Most American cities have wide swathes of land zoned for single-
family housing. If everyone is _forced_ to spread out by their government, it
will be harder to provide high quality mass transit. This is even worse when
you have neighborhoods full of culs-de-sac, which I think should be outlawed,
or at the very least they shouldn't be maintained with public funds as they
are effectively private driveways that make the street network function more
poorly.

Cities also often tax density by requiring large developments to provide a
certain amount of funds for affordable housing. Dense developments make
housing more affordable in the areas where people want to live by supplying
more of it without a commensurate effect on demand. Single-family housing
rarely has the same requirements. We shouldn't be taxing the things that make
our transit systems work better and provide more affordable housing than the
alternatives. Most zoning should be abolished.

[1] <http://www.everybodyridesmetro.org/>

[2]
[http://www.austinchronicle.com/gyrobase/Issue/story?oid=oid:...](http://www.austinchronicle.com/gyrobase/Issue/story?oid=oid:940810)

------
wallflower
Public transportation is a choice for some. Whether economic-driven or
lifestyle. My point is its optional - you can't force people to take public
transit.

Public transportation is necessary because not everyone can afford a private
car or wants to drive a car (not everyone can bike - and biking in inclement
weather is not a good experience).

Public transportation works poorly outside of urban centers because of grid
density problems (in the suburbs, you can't cut through someone's yard to get
to a bus stop - whereas in the city, regular blocks make it more direct to get
to bus stops).

However, public transportation has to support the suburbs because a lot of
lower-paid workers rely on it to get to their jobs in the suburbs. On many
suburban bus routes, you will probably find it a maddening experience - as it
is designed to go in loop-around fashion through office parks.

In other forums, its been argued that private auto industry gets a huge
indirect subsidy from the government by the government supporting almost the
majority of infrastructure road costs, wars to keep oil producers in check.
The private auto industry has huge lobbying powers (see how much highway
construction dollars came out of the last stimulus bill). It's also been
argued that the true purpose of public transit is to give jobs to people.

------
maryrosecook
Public transport can create value by running all night. That way, more young
people move to the city and bring money with them and create wealth while they
are there.

~~~
imgabe
As a relatively young person living in a city, I'd appreciate public
transportation being available all night. I don't think the ridership would be
high enough for it to be profitable, though. You'd also have to deal with the
problem of it becoming a de facto homeless shelter.

~~~
byrneseyeview
Instead of selling tickets and passes directly, sell bonds that pay interest
in tickets / passes: you pay $1000, you get ten rides per month. These bonds
would be transferable. That way, it's restricted to people who can put
together, say, $1000 in cash. It wouldn't be hard to borrow that much, if you
didn't have it on hand, unless you were a total failure.

Tourists would just put up the money as a deposit, and get it back at the end
of their trip.

------
plusbryan
I can think of several times here in SF where I took a taxi instead of a bus
because I didn't have cash on me. Now with the new RFID translink cards, it's
much less hassle and I ride the bus a lot more.

------
tjic
Much of mass transit (airplanes, tour buses, Greyhound, ocean cruise lines,
etc.) are profitable.

There are things that people are not willing to pay for, and government types
have labelled these things "market failures", which, BTW, is a misuse of the
term.

Government has then stepped in and run programs that people are not willing to
pay for.

So the question really boils down to "how would you make something that noone
has ever figured out how to make profitable...profitable?"

It's a bit like recycling: there have been metal recyclers for centuries.
People do not recycle glass and paper because it is a value DESTROYING
activity.... and thus government got involved, and requires people to separate
their trash streams...before recombining about 75% of the "recycled" materials
and putting them in landfills.

The only good answer to this question is "mu".

~~~
jbooth
Have you heard the term "externality"?

~~~
tjic
Yes.

Mass transit is subsidized, in most cases, FAR beyond whatever the
externalities cost.

In Boston, 75% of the cost of each fair is payed for by other taxpayers. I
dated a woman getting her PhD at MIT in transportation studies for a few years
and asked her "are there any studies showing that the negative externalities
that are dealt with here cost anything like the MBTA subsidy?"

The answer is no - even if you count externalities, most public transit is a
huge exercise in value destruction.

~~~
plusbryan
Does anyone know the approximate percentage spent on actual operations vs.
management and build-out of the system?

I lived in Boston for a summer in 2006, and I got to witness the transition
from decades-old transit tokens to paper cards.

It was a giant cluster: Horrid machine usability, non-reusable transit cards,
and untrained station personnel. It made me wonder what sort of premium the
MBTA paid for that "upgrade" and how much rider confidence was lost.

~~~
jbooth
The MBTA's a case study in incompetence, due to years of turf battles between
the lege and governor's office. It's run by a bunch of overlapping boards with
an org chart that looks like a spider web.

So anyways, they're about 30 billion in the hole over the next 10 years for
what it will cost to do routine maintenance on the system going forward,
mostly because it was all neglected for 20 years during the big dig fiasco.

I continually wonder why we can't build these things in this country anymore..
in the 20th century, a whole bunch of cities went from 0 to a complete transit
infrastructure. These days, adding a single line or extension is a multi-
decade fiasco (green line extension in Somerville, or the second east side
line in manhattan).

~~~
tjic
> The MBTA's a case study in incompetence, due to years of turf battles
> between the lege and governor's office. It's run by a bunch of overlapping
> boards with an org chart that looks like a spider web.

Why is it that the MBTA, BART, the Phoenix light rail, etc. always have these
problems (unrealistic projections, turf battles, overlapping spheres of
control, etc.), and yet Greyhound, Southwest Airlines, etc., don't?

I'd suggest that this sort of problem is endemic to government run transit
organizations, and doesn't crop up in the private sector because there's
competition, and private firms can only get as many dollars of budget as the
paying public is willing to give them.

Horrific incompetence results in extinction ... in the private sector.

~~~
jbooth
You know, when I'm talking to engineers, if they say "relational databases are
always good" or "relational databases are always bad", I conclude that they're
either inexperienced or stupid.

The same oughta be true when evaluating different methods of solving other
problems as well. Busses can be run by private companies as long as the
government provides the roads, because you don't need government involvement
to drive on a road.

Building a road, or a train track, requires some amount of government
involvement, especially in dense areas with small lot sizes. Unless we're
gonna knock down half the skyskrapers for 30 story parking garages in our
major cities, we need to find a way to make mass transit work.

There's 2 approaches towards that -- try to help the right people get into
government, or throw your hands up, bury your head in the sand and declare
that "databases are never the right solution".

------
yaacovtp
Get rid of the unions and lower revenue/fares at the same time.

~~~
9oliYQjP
You know, I try to give unions the benefit of the doubt. I think they still
serve a function and I am not ideologically opposed to them. But then we come
across incidents like this:

[http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/ttc/article/754297--is-he-
sl...](http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/ttc/article/754297--is-he-sleeping-
photo-of-mccowan-ttc-booth-goes-viral?bn=1)

Toronto's transit system is amongst a select few in North America where
middle- and upper-middle class folks make up a significant chunk of the
ridership. Other cities dream of trying to convince folks to give up their
daily commute by car. We've achieved this for a good number of people. It also
happens to receives the least government funding in all of North America. But
the union is really holding our system back.

For crying out loud, it is 2010 and we still have manned booths whose sole
purpose is to convert one kind of coin into another. We also have -- I kid you
not -- workers that wait on the side of the road with crow bars to switch
streetcar track paths during rush hour. Also, I'm embarrassed for anyone
visiting our city to ever think of going to the washroom at a subway station.
They're absolutely vile.

~~~
JayNeely
What can you say on how Toronto's succeeded in getting more people to give up
on commuting by car?

~~~
9oliYQjP
I pretty much concur with potatolicious' assessment. I'd just like to add that
it took some visionary thinking to get to where we are today. The city
anticipated during WWII, that cars would be the preferred mode of
transportation for many more people when the war ended. Instead of building
just freeways, the city transit commission went to work planning public
transit around rail. At first streetcars were to be used and would just run
underground, but eventually the idea morphed into a fully fledged subway
system.

That's not the only example of forward-thinking. There is a huge urban valley
in Toronto called the Don Valley. In 1918, Toronto decided to build a bridge
connecting roads on both sides of the valley and the designer figured "hey,
why not build a lower deck capable of holding two lanes of rail
traffic....just in case?" About half a century later, when the subway was
being extended, they just ran the line through this bridge. In today's fiscal
and political climate, a similar decision would never be made. In fact, I'm
positive that 50 years from now, future Torontonians will look back at us with
frustration at our shortsightedness. Funny thing about that bridge... it can
hold 5 lanes of car traffic with sidewalks for pedestrians to boot. The
designer successfully designed a bridge to last more than 100 years. It's an
incredible accomplishment.

I just want to elaborate on my first post. Toronto's transit system's problems
aren't all due to the union of course. They bare the brunt of criticism these
days, but the truth of the matter is financial and political backing of the
system at provincial and federal levels pretty much stopped happening at the
beginning of the 1990s. The federal Liberal government was voted into power in
the early 1990s at a time when Canada was dealing with its own financial
crisis, not too dissimilar to what the U.S. is facing now. We had all these
social programs financed on deficit spending. The Liberals slashed spending on
a lot of programs, and Toronto's transit system was one of them. A few years
after the Liberals got into power, the Progressive Conservatives were voted in
at a provincial level and they also slashed spending. They "downloaded" some
social programs onto cities which affected municipal budgets drastically. So
basically, the Toronto Transit Commission (TTC) has been cash strapped for the
better part of 20 years now.

Things are so petty here that when our Prime Minister announced stimulus
funding last year, he flat out rejected Toronto's request of money to build
out the TTC infrastructure because it "didn't meet the criteria" (details
here:
[http://www.blogto.com/city/2009/07/a_look_back_at_torontos_s...](http://www.blogto.com/city/2009/07/a_look_back_at_torontos_streetcar_debacle/)).
Days after the rejection, our PM decided to fund a $790M mass transit system
for a small university town an hour away from Toronto (one which he hopes to
win votes in and probably will).

In any event, transit riders in Toronto are the ones getting screwed. It costs
$3 for a one-way cash fare. The system is overcrowded. The infrastructure is
getting old, although the TTC does a good job of keeping old workhorses
running. You know those old GM "fishbowl" buses originally designed in 1959?
We still have some of these clunkers operating on routes today
(<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:TTC_T6H_5307N_Bus_2284.jpg>).

On my more cynical days, I'm of the opinion that Toronto eventually needs to
threaten to secede from Ontario
(<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Province_of_Toronto>) in order to ensure we get
our proper share of the tax money so that we can spend it on things that
matter to us like mass transit. The provincial and federal governments love to
take our money and then not give much of it back when we truly need it.

------
fortes
Make it really easy to get to the airport.

Pro: Airport parking is an expensive hassle, thus people are always taking
cabs or asking for rides. Airports are far from city centers, and often
inconvenient to get to.

However, it's probably not enough traffic to sustain an entire system, but I
think it makes for a good first step in a new system.

The other thing is that we either need to:

1) Stop subsidizing air & road travel so much

2) Subsidize public transit in order to make it more competitive with road /
air travel

#1 is politically infeasible ... but perhaps #2 is as well. Maybe public
transit support could be billed as a way to get everyone else off the road?

~~~
lionhearted
> 1) Stop subsidizing air & road travel so much

Huh, I get that road travel is subsidized, but never heard about air. Do you
know how that shakes out? Federal government or localities building airports,
or providing some sort of free coordinating services, or some such? I had
always just kinda assumed that airlines were renting or leasing airport space
and covering most of the costs from it, but that was just me idly guessing.

~~~
fortes
I'm not super-educated here (learned from a friend of mine), but here are some
links:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Essential_Air_Service> (about $74/passenger
subsidy for small airports in rural areas.

<http://www.dot.gov/bib2009/htm/FAA.html> \-- the FAA 2009 budget, includes:

$9.7 billion for Air traffic organization $2.1 billion for Safety & Operations
$2.8 billion for Airport grants

------
arfrank
In response to your updated question, I think the best way would be to change
the experience of people who ride.

\- Install TVs with captions and an FM channel so I can listen to the news on
my 30 minute commute.

\- Take out chairs from a few of the cars and make them standing room only so
that during rush out you aren't crammed in like sardines.

\- Make the first and last cars dark so that in early morning and your way
back from work you can sleep if you'd like.

\- Add WiFi so I can work my entire trip in, just came to mind.

These are things I'd love to see on the metro cause right now I feel like I
lose 30 minutes a day just sitting there and reading.

~~~
maukdaddy
I would _LOVE_ SRO cars. The CTA in Chicago ran some trials last summer, but
the populace was too lazy and bitched enough that they ended the trials early
and no SRO cars exist any more.

------
frankus
Michael O'Hare (Berkeley Prof) has an article about why public transit really
wants to be subsidized:

[http://www.samefacts.com/2007/05/energy-and-
environment/more...](http://www.samefacts.com/2007/05/energy-and-
environment/more-on-transit-and-urban-planning/)

The short version is that the marginal cost for an additional rider is
basically zero.

------
bwh2
MTA could add value to NYC subway by:

* Adding a compass/direction indicator directly out of the subway exit. Frequently, I get out of the subway and my sense of direction is off and street signs aren't much help.

* Make them safer to ride late at night.

* Get rid of the bible pushers yelling at everyone in the path between Port Authority and Times Square subway

~~~
wallflower
When I was travelling in Europe, I glanced at a small compass while exiting
the subway so I could head in the right direction and look like I knew where I
was going, even though I'd never been a certain place before.

------
marze
Reduce the fares to nothing. Utility of a system rises dramatically as the
frequency of bus/train arrivals drops below about eight minutes so people can
just show up without checking the schedule.

Tax money goes to build roads and other car related infrastructure. Car travel
is obviously subsidized since you generally do not pay to drive on a given
road at the time you drive.

It would not be unreasonable to subsidize buses or other public transportation
in a similar way.

Obviously, free internet should be provided on all buses and trains, as well
as increased bicycle carrying capacity.

Also, if the ticket price was reduced to zero for buses, ridership would
increase and costs per rider would be reduced. Greater bus ridership would
reduce the money municipalities would need to spend for road expansion.

------
rossriley
Maybe I can give a UK perspective on how this is possible. I'm not sure
whether we can say that rail travel is profitable here, it still receives
substantial government subsidy each year, but it is successful in that last
year saw a record number of rail journeys taken.

I'm not sure what the parking situation is like in the US but here if you work
in a major city car parking will cost you at least $100-150 per month, London
is much more expensive. A lot of our suburban railway stations allow free or
discount parking so even if you can't make your entire journey by train you
can park and travel into the city by rail.

When it comes to longer journeys the tickets are sold on a reverse pricing
basis, if you buy in advance the first 10-20% of tickets for a train are sold
at the cheapest rate, sometimes a 200 mile journey costs as little as $20. If
you buy a ticket on the day and during a peak period you'll pay a lot more.
This structure however seems to result in more of the trains being full more
of the time as pricing reflects the demand.

Also faster trains all fitted with wifi make longer journeys much more simple.
I often travel into London and buy an advance ticket that costs around £25
($35 ish)the train at 125mph takes half the journey time of the car and you
avoid parking charges and the london congestion charge. I also get to work the
entire journey for a similar cost to the fuel alone. It really is a complete
no-brainer, you'd have to be stupid to want to drive.

That is I suppose a long reason for a simple answer. When it becomes more
attractive to travel by rail people will leave their cars at home.

------
Murkin
In Medellin, Colombia. The subway is connected to two systems of Sky carts
(similar to ones used on ski resorts). That allows the "subway system" to
reach hard terrain (mountains) and expensive terrain (need only to set large
polls and stations).

For residential areas with high land prices, this might seem as an excellent
and cheap to implement public transport. (These are the same areas where cars
are usually sitting in traffic jams).

Does anyone have information if this model is working out for them ? Is it
used somewhere else successfully ?

------
thingie
There is no general solution, of course. Every city is different, and cities
in the USA are very different from the cities in Europe, and so on.

I'd like for the public transit to be seen more as a public service than just
another private business. After all, transportation is a vital part of the
city, and something that the local authorities simply have to manage somehow.
It also affects every other aspect of the city life.

I believe that the actual question should be much more like "how would you
like to your city look like?"

To offer some "solution". I'd try to abolish the fares. I'd try to reduce
maximum velocities for the cars, make more one-way lanes, narrow some other
lanes, and so on. I'd try to bring new development into the brownfields inside
the city (every city has them). But, there is no general Solution for
everything. After all, it's not a fight between public transit and individual
cars, but aim should be to provide the best service for the lowest price (to
bring that viewpoint here too).

And after all, things will simply change with the time :-) I expect, one day,
that all those disgusting highways around and inside the cities will turn into
parks or something similar, as the old city walls from the middle-ages did.
:-)

------
fragmede
The future of public transit once prominently featured a monorail, but that
glamorous view of the future soon lost out to the utility of a car. Current
public transportation simply cannot compete with that level of convenience.
What should follow from that is a plan to make public transportation more
convenient.

Follow the adage of giving people what they want - make the subway more
convenient by automating the system. Follow that up with MUCH smaller subway
cars. I'm imagining subway cars that are the size of a compact car. I go to
the subway station, get in a subway car, and tell it my destination, and it
takes me there in the most efficient way and not stopping at stops in between.

Of course, the cost just to renovate all subway stations to have 4 lines so
that some cars can wait at the station while others zip past would be
unimaginable, and I can't imagine citizens of any municipality voting to fund
this.

That is, however, my view of how public transportation would create more
value.

------
dpapathanasiou
This brings back memories of a similar discussion in a finance class a few
years ago.

Someone suggested increasing the cost of using private automobiles (via higher
tolls on bridges and tunnels, etc.), and making the subways and buses free
(both to encourage ridership and to reduce the overhead required for
collecting fares).

The professor responded that the first idea was good, since it would motivate
changes in behavior, but it would have to be _a lot_ , i.e., triple or more
the current tolls, to really have an effect.

He thought the second idea made less sense b/c mass transit is an inelastic
service to the population that currently uses it (i.e., people who ride the
subway have no choice but to keep using it), and also since the cost of
collecting fares is small relative to the overall income.

------
kattervon
Additional property taxes on land near the stations would be a good source of
revenue. It's likely that the adjoing land commands higher rents due to
proximity to transit, and it's rational that some of this extra revenue goes
towards maintaining the transit that is its source.

~~~
potatolicious
This may be counterproductive - now you're penalizing people for using the
transit system. A lot of municipal transit systems are unprofitable because of
low usage (but high service level commitments) - penalizing people for riding
transit wouldn't solve this at all.

------
frankus
Deregulate parking.

Right now nearly all municipalities have laws that require a certain minimum
amount of parking per square foot of building floor area, with the amount
varying by use.

This has three perverse effects:

1\. Buildings cost more (surface parking requires extra land, underground
parking is insanely expensive), so fewer people can afford to live close to
employment centers, amenities, and transit stations. 2\. It encourages the
ownership and use of cars. If you've already paid for parking in the cost of
real estate and the price of crap from the mall, you might as well use it. 3\.
Unless the parking is underground, everything is more spread out, so fewer
trips are practical on foot or by bike.

------
jgrahamc
Why make them profitable?

~~~
dunstad
So people have a reason to make them, which will lead to improvement on the
current systems.

~~~
run4yourlives
Public transit is a natural monopoly. We don't really need five different and
independent subway lines per city, the same way that I don't need five sewer
system connections to my house.

As such, the notion of making public transit anything other than a break-even
government funded service is misguided. I'd consider break-even however to be
key.

~~~
dantheman
I believe that tokyo has 3 competing subway companies, so I guess there is
room for competition.

~~~
run4yourlives
I'm not saying there isn't room, I'm just saying that with limited space and a
captive target audience, having three competing subway lines is incredibly
inefficient, especially when you consider that there will be 1-2 lines that
all three will service, while other areas won't have any service, given
traffic patterns.

I'm not sure how this is in the interests of any city really.

------
patrickgzill
Don't bother.

Instead, allow for car-based mass transit, by allowing far cheaper taxi cab
medallions and issuing as many as people will pay for.

WHY is the cost of a taxi cab medallion in NYC $750K?

Instead sell them for say $1200/year renewable yearly. Allow pricing to fall
or rise based on the market, provided they are within a range (e.g. no less
than 50 cents and no more than $3 per unit of distance traveled).

~~~
JayNeely
There's no way it would be more cost-efficient for people to take even a $0.50
/ mile cab trip in their daily transportation than it would a $15/week bus &
subway pass.

The congestion would be unbelievable, both on the highway and particularly at
well-used pickup and drop-off points.

See:
[http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3402/3342003343_0fa801cec5.jp...](http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3402/3342003343_0fa801cec5.jpg)

~~~
patrickgzill
Clever photo; however the whole idea of a cab is to serve multiple people over
the course of a day; so it doesn't really apply.

What would make more sense would be to show say 3 taxis, each of which had 20
fares during a shift. Which would take up less space than the parked bikes and
a little more than 1 bus.

~~~
natrius
If people keep all other aspects of their commute constant while switching
from private cars to taxis, traffic will remain almost exactly the same. The
same number of cars will be on the road at the same time. Parking lots will
free up, but roads will stay packed.

------
cmos
Stop subsidizing low gas prices for automobiles.

~~~
gvb
[citation needed]

Did you mean _increase_ gas taxes? When I look at the gas price breakdown
where I am (Michigan, USA), I only see taxes, no subsidies.
<http://www.michigangasprices.com/tax_info.aspx>

Europe has much larger taxes on gas, diesel, and automobiles than in the US,
which discourages car use and ownership.

~~~
kiddo
I consider the taxes I pay to fund the US military to be a gas subsidy.
Without it we wouldn't have access to such cheap and plentiful oil.

~~~
jacoblyles
I believe most countries that are the target of the US military see an
immediate drop in petroleum production and our single largest source of oil
imports is Canada.

~~~
kiddo
You're probably right, but that's not what I was referring to. I was referring
to the US Navy that patrols international waters to ensure smooth flows of oil
tanks, and I was referring to the money that goes to protect the Saudi
government and their oil fields, etc.

It doesn't really matter where we import our oil from. The world market is
interconnected. If supplies drop in Venezuela, Norway, Saudi Arabia, Iraq and
Iran, then the demand for oil from Canada will go up worldwide. So it's in our
interest to keep the oil flowing from countries other than Canada.

------
whyenot
I take light rail from Mountain View to San Jose almost every day. My trip of
about 18 miles takes 50 minutes. Fix that please.

------
pbhjpbhj
On your last question

> How would you have public transit create more value?

I'd answer by subsidising it more. That way more people can afford to use it.
Of course that will increase debts further which is the contrary to your
original question. Revenue and value are not synonymous.

~~~
JayNeely
Nothing I've seen suggests that fares are a barrier to use of the bus or
subway. With the MBTA, subway rides are $2, bus rides are $1.50, and a week-
long pass for unlimited use of both is $15. Even New York's $89/month for
unlimited use of subway and local bus is many times more cost-effective than
cab fare or car insurance.

Subsidizing further to reduce fares doesn't seem like a net gain to me.

~~~
pbhjpbhj
I only said it because I'd ride the bus twice a day (and use it for leisure,
the kids love going on the bus) if it were cheaper.

n=1, yeah, yeah.

------
spoiledtechie
More Ads for one. I know in DC Metro (where I am) the ads are insanely small
and you could definitely increase ad space on the subway and buses. Cram Ads
down people in order to pay for the transit system.

~~~
mahmud
That improves the advertising, not the transportation. Google just posted 2
billion dollars in profits, and I don't remember noticing increased ads or ad
space in any of their properties.

~~~
javanix
Selling more ads would probably increase revenue for the metro systems. Making
them bigger and selling them for more would help as well. Google doesn't apply
here because they can't use this technique for fear of backlash.

I can't imagine anyone complaining about more/bigger ads on buses, especially
if it helps reduce subsidies and spending.

------
cabalamat
Increase population density. Admitedly, this is not a quick fix.

~~~
natrius
It's a quicker fix than you'd think in the central areas of most American
cities. In Austin, the neighborhood next to the University of Texas
(enrollment: ~50,000) was drastically underzoned for decades. Within five
years of its rezoning, the neighborhood changed drastically. I'd estimate that
the neighborhood has about doubled in density in half a decade, and there's
still plenty of land that will be redeveloped in the next decade.

Most suburbs will never be easy to serve with high quality transit, but most
central cities could do it fairly quickly with the stroke of a pen.

[http://www.austinchronicle.com/gyrobase/Issue/column?oid=oid...](http://www.austinchronicle.com/gyrobase/Issue/column?oid=oid:193942)

------
iuguy
Consolidate the routes and reduce the number of stops on routes. Attempt to
compensate for this by increasing capacity where possible on reduced routes.

------
Mankhool
In cities where subways or other types of rail transit do not operate 24/7,
use the cars (or different cars) to move packages in the off hours.

------
kingkongreveng_
Privatize the road system. Completely private public transits will emerge to
compete. It's really that simple.

People don't use public transit because they're already paying for the roads
with their taxes. If they had to pay tolls reflecting the true cost of
maintaining the roads they would choose public transit, and public transit
accessible housing and workplaces.

Pre-50s toll roads were much more common and private street car lines were
very common.

~~~
barmstrong
Totally agree. Privatizing public transportation would be the fastest way to
both make it profitable and deliver more value to consumers.

There is a good research to back this up, but intuitively it makes sense also
for the simple reason that you always spend your own money more carefully than
you spend someone else's.

A government employee is just trying not to be noticed or fired. A private
company is fiercely competing to save their own money and make more of it (the
only way to do the latter is to deliver a product customers want). The selfish
profit incentive is the greatest method we've ever found to motivate people
and drive progress for everyone.

