swtmix

I’m often reading comments from people who insist that transit should pay for itself, that they don’t believe in giving a subsidy to any form of transportation. The truth is that there is no form of mechanized transportation in use today that pays for itself, so why should transit be treated any differently?

Let’s look at the major forms of transportation:

Air Travel: Airports built, expanded and maintained using local, state and federal tax dollars. The air traffic control system and the TSA paid for by federal (tax) money.

Rail Freight: The land the tracks are on was given to the railroads by local, state and federal governments in the 19th and 20th centuries, along with large sections of land on either side of the tracks that the railroads were free to use or sell as they saw fit. Imagine how much it would cost the railroads if they had to pay back the cost of all of the land they were given. There is also government paid over/underpasses and grade crossings to enable more efficient movement of trains as well as the government paid for roads to and from rail facilities.

Shipping: Useless without port facilities usually paid for by state and local governments as well as government paid for roads to move goods to and from the ports. Also supported by government paid Navy, Coast Guard and lighthouse facilities as well as Army Corps of Engineers dredged ports and shipping channels.

Roads: Gas (user) taxes and tolls don’t even begin to approach the actual cost of road and highways, let alone the indirect costs of traffic, pollution, injuries and deaths. There are not only the building costs, but maintenance, cleaning and patrolling which over the lifetime of the road cost more than the initial construction costs. Check the budget of cities, counties and states and they will all have budgets for roads that are not paid for by gas taxes but by general funds. If gas taxes paid for all of the costs of roads you wouldn’t need tolls or bond issues.

If you eliminated all of the various types of subsidies every type of transportation receives in this country all types of travel would soon grind to a halt.

So again, if no other mode of travel exists without some form of government subsidy why should transit be held to a different standard and be forced to pay for itself?