I think you missed something. Boulder was given as an example of a city that has “turned crappy bus systems into effective ones”, not as one with 100% farebox recovery.
The Newark (NJ) City Subway (#7 line) covered all of its costs from the fare box until it was upgraded from PCC cars to LRV ones in 2001. Of course, that was one small part of the massive NJ Transit system which loses money overall.
Take a look at the pavement at bus stops, particularly ones where buses stand for extended periods. You’ll see that the asphalt is getting squeezed in a “wave” toward the curb. New York City addressed this by paving the bus stops in concrete. Of course, they keep shuffling the stops from beginning-of-block to end-of-block to mid-block, so you can still see some of the effects when the stop moves before the pavng crew gets there.
I think the dutch NS trainservices makes a profit as well.
I worked in a pavements research lab. I might have clue what I am talking about here. Anyhow, carry on.
No, I didn’t miss anything. If you’ll refer to the last sentence of the post to which I replied: The increase in passenger traffic more than paid for the increased costs from new equipment and personnel.
So that we are clear, farebox recovery is the portion of revenue from passengers recovering operational expenses.
There was an article in today’s paper about the bus crisis. Some choice selections from the comments section (and keep in mind that they were ALL like this):
“Sell the buses, tell the people of the transit authority to go get a real job.Quit stuffing money up a wild hog’s butt and hollering suuuuuweeeeee.”
“The City of Columbia always wants to tax and give the money to people who want work. They will not open the books so everyone san see the outragious salaries and benefits that the drivrs, other workers and board members make. That is why they can not get the funds from the other side of the river. They know Columbia is run by a bunch of crooks just like Chicago and Detroit. They are going to run all the working taxpayers and businesses out. When all the government workers get laid off the Vistia will shut down and city will lose their goose that lays the golden eggs.”
“Let it die! In the history of the transit service, I don’t believe it ever broke even, mush less be profitable. With no end of red ink in sight, it has been and will probably always be a black hole of cash.”
In addition, traffic congestion. Without a well used bus system, there may/will be pressure to add lanes/roads.
Is there a good study comparing price and efficiency of transit systems, government-run versus for-profit? I always assumed that governments’ running such systems at a loss was a wise and deliberate use of tax money, helping working class get to work, etc. No?
Any new Public Works project to improve congestion (adding a lane, new interchange) is evaluated using a benefit-cost analysis. Benefits being a reduction in road user costs (fuel, tires, oil, repairs, time, accidents). Costs being money for the project and interest paid on that money.
Now, would the citizens of your city balk too much if a new interchange was being built to alleviate traffic? Maybe they would - I don’t know. But in any case, public transit is just one piece of the puzzle to alleviate congestion. If enough people use it it can be a very important piece.
By lowering congestion you also lower
- road user costs
- maintenance costs (as per previous post explaining heavy vehicles starting/stopping=bad)
- mitigate need for expensive capital improvements
Once the public discourse sinks to the level of wild hog asses, I think there’s not much more talking to be done. 
Some of the topics here have already been covered in the thread:
Lets ponder this.
There are cheap airline billionaires. Cheap food billionaires. Cheap store billionaires. Cheaper/better virtually everthing other than bus service billionaires pimping their services and products.
How come nobody has ever realized they could make an assload of money by coming into a town and offering a private bus service in some given town that was SOO much better than having a second car blah blah blah…
Uhh…maybe, just maybe, its because that by any reasonable socioeconomic measure it ISNT?
Nobody’s making a fortune off cheap medical care for poor people, are they? Possibly there’s no money in some things that are still a net positive for society.
At least in the nearby suburbs of New York City, this has happened - enterprising people with vans started operating shuttle service to (for example) near the Port Authority Bus Terminal in Manhattan. Since they weren’t real buses, they couldn’t get gate assignments in the actual PABT. There have been a number of crackdowns on these independents, but they have banded together and have enough official representation now that they do have gate assignments, etc.
This is something that goes back more than a century - my paternal great-grandfather was one of the first to run a horsecar on Kennedy (no relation) Blvd. This independent spirit persisted for many years (into the 1990’s, in fact). There were a number of IBOA’s (Independent Bus Owner’s Associations) - for example, Boulevard North, Boulevard South, and Bayonne. As the people who owned those buses retired or their buses became unrepairable, they’d individually cede their rights to a larger franchised operator. In the 1970’s you could get a franchised #1 bus, but if you waited for one to come along, you could get an IBOA #1 which was 10 cents cheaper (quite a bit, at a time when the fare from Journal Square to the PABT was 80 cents on the 99S, or 70 cents on the 55).
Through the early 90’s, you could catch Broadway Joe’s bus at the City Line terminal. This was an old fishbowl-type bus decorated with ball fringe and other such things.
As the IBOA’s faded out, they were replaced by either the directly state-subsidized operation (NJ Transit) or a semi-independent operator which received state funding (like CoachUSA). Some faded out slowly, while others decided to throw in the towel all at once. Drogin Bus / South Hudson IBOA just stopped all service one weekend. The next day, CoachUSA was running.
You can see pictures of some of these independent buses here.
Then just call it what it is. Subsidized transportation for people too poor to afford anything else. Which is what it actually is for the most part in most areas IMO. Looking to make a profit, or even break even providing services to the poor is a losing wager IMO, McDonalds and Walmart being the exceptions to the rule.
If you wanna argue that its something that should be subsidized, fine, I have no problem with that. If you wanna argue how to make it better or less costly, have at it, I am all for it. Argue that it can remotely break even…you got your work cut out for you IMO.
I find your job and argument against public transit to be a bit ironic. Streets and roads are heavily subsidized transportation, are they not? Without the government taxing people and building them for the public good you wouldn’t have many asphalt cores to look at.
Roads are clearly subsidized transportation for people who can’t afford their own helicopters and landing pads.
Sure, some major roads can find profitability with tolls - but generally most of those projects were subsidized too in order to make them feasible. And the break-evens can be several decades away. Not going to make Microsoft millions doing that.
Of course public transit isn’t profitable - but only because it has to compete against people with cars driving on FREE* roads. Imagine a city with no streets or roads - but where private companies were allowed to come in and put in as much light rail and bus lanes as they wanted. That public transit would be profitable.
*Free through hidden taxes
So really, spending public money to have a public transit system isn’t just a handout to the poor - it is a reallocation of resources from roads. And in the end, it can achieve the same benefit (to roads) that putting the money directly into roads would - by reducing the congestion.
In Oxford, England, there are two city bus companies, and they compete against each other. I think one is owned by the city and the other is private.
This isn’t quite correct. Federal and State roads are mostly payed for by fuel and vehicle taxes and fees and of course tolls, not from general funds. That means there is some sort of rough connection between what you use and what you pay for. Indeed some of these funds are diverted to subsidize mass transit.
The same principle applies to airports. They are paid for by landing fees and tickets taxes and airport concessions and parking fees, not from general revenue.
OTOH, they are building a light rail system here in Orlando and by my calculations it going to cost around $130,000 per passenger to build . The ticket revenue won’t even come close to covering the operating cost, much less the build cost.
By my calculation Microsoft and Google are getting more people off the road for a fraction of the cost.
Microsoft Connector: 19 routes, 53 buses later
Not to mention that many cities in Africa have exactly this kind of transport (although the line between private buses and taxis is a bit blurry).
One reason that it doesn’t work as well in North America is due to regulation. Taxis and buses need special licensing and insurance. To take an extreme example, a car pooling program in Ontario (that proposed to pay drivers a certain sum) was faced with strong opposition from taxi drivers who argued that this would lead to unfair competition (since the car pooling wouldn’t be licensed or regulated).
But were talking about mainly City roads - which is where public transit is needed. And as far as I understand, most of the time new Capital projects (like a new or replacement bridge, new lanes, etc) often are paid for through issuing bonds and general funds.
Federal & State gas tax mainly gets eaten up through just the maintenance - not new projects to reduce congestion.
As far as funding for Federal/State capital road projects go - much of it comes from the pork barrel. A famous example is the bridge to nowhere, but there are countless more.