
How the Koch Brothers Are Killing Public Transit Projects Around the Country - clumsysmurf
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/19/climate/koch-brothers-public-transit.html
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yostrovs
"A 2012 Brookings study analyzing data from 371 transit providers in America’s
largest 100 metro areas found that over three-fourths of all jobs are in
neighborhoods with transit service—but only about a quarter of those jobs can
be reached by transit within 90 minutes. That’s more than three times the
national average commute time. Another study, by Andrew Owen and David
Levinson of the University of Minnesota, looked at job access via transit in
46 of the 50 largest metro areas. Their data combined actual in-vehicle time
with estimated walking time at either end of the transit trip, to approximate
total door-to-door travel time. Only five of the 46 metro areas have even a
few percent of their jobs accessible by transit within half an hour. All the
others have 1 percent or less. Within 60 minutes door-to-door, the best cities
have 15–22 percent of jobs reachable by transit. Meanwhile, Owen and Levinson
found that in 31 of the 51 largest metro areas in 2010, 100 percent of jobs
could be reached by car in 30 minutes or less. Within 40 minutes, all the jobs
could be reached by car in 39 of the cities. Within an hour, essentially every
job in all 51 places could be reached by car."
[https://reason.com/archives/2018/06/18/stop-trying-to-get-
wo...](https://reason.com/archives/2018/06/18/stop-trying-to-get-workers-
out/print)

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yostrovs
They're killing government run and managed public transportation, not public
transportation in principle. They don't fight group rides on Uber or private
bus companies. This is a typical critique from the left: You don't like
government run schools, you must be against education; you don't want
government to be in charge of healthcare, you must want people to be sick.

~~~
mwwilson
I suspect they're not running campaigns to stop public funding of roadways
though, as it's a subsidy to their business.

As someone who lives in a commuter town and is more libertarian than most
libertarians, I'd happily pay an extra couple percent in sales taxes just for
decent pedestrian access to the city.

If taxes are going to be spent on transit projects then I'd like enough
sidewalks that I'm able to eschew public or private motorized transit all
together.

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merricksb
Previously discussed:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17346028](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17346028)
\- 140 points/167 comments

Also...

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17349025](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17349025)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17346993](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17346993)

