Do any public transportation systems make a profit?

Factual Questions
41

That’s certainly not true here in Minnesota, where less than 1/3 of the cost of the roads is paid (not ‘payed’) by fuel & vehicle taxes – the other 2/3rds is subsidized out of the general fund of the state. Money from everybody, including the 20% of the population who don’t own a car at all.

And airports do not pay their own way, either.
Besides the land that they sit on (usually obtained by local governments at low cost (or even free)), and the roads & transit leading to them, there is the whole air traffic control system that is subsidized by federal tax money (from everybody, not just airline passengers).

42

How would a local government obtain free land for an airport? Why would they not have to acquire this in a more or less normal way?

43

Steal it from the Indians. Here in Minnesota, the was the more or less normal way.

44

If by “make a profit” you mean “be run like a private company with a profit paid out to shareholders” then I doubt that you can find a whole public trans. system, only individual things - bus companies like Greyhound etc., which can cherry-pick the profitable routes and times, and set their own fares.

If you mean “be run like a half-public company with certain rules by the city (to provide the service), but efficiently and break just about even, not with a huge deficit each year”, then several systems do this.

In my country, most public transport (local, not counting the train company, which desperatly wants to go and become a Stock Exchange company, to the detriment and anger of the passengers, but that’s another topic) systems are owned/ run by the city or quasi-city companies (that is, the company is partly or fully private, but the city has controlling majority or similarly).

That is because the public transport system is not there to make a profit (it should be efficient and not a waste, sure), but to provide a service to the people. And most certainly not for poor people - people here would be amused or offended if you suggested that - but for the whole population.
Everybody profits from less congestion and traffic jams in the streets (also less pollution) because instead of one single driver in his car getting to work, people take the subway or the bus.
Everybody profits from tired or drunk people using the bus at night after the pub or Oktoberfest, instead of driving drunk (taxis are expensive).
Most people see the sense in not driving a car into the inner city if you can’t get a parking space, or during the rush hour, unless you transport stuff, are invalid or live far in the outskirts.
Taking the local train for 30 mins. means time to read a book instead of getting frustrated with the rush hour traffic jam, so you have more quality of life and leisure time. :slight_smile:

This means that the city council tells the company to have buses running at 2 am when only two people use it, which is not economically useful, but has other values. The city tells the company to provide monthly and yearly tickets, which means that the busses are full but not a lot of profit is made. Of course, the company wants each bus full 100% all the time, but the passengers cry out and complain how full the busses are at 80% because they want to sit down and not be squeezed. :slight_smile:

45

Here is a breakdown for the FAA and airports. Only 18% of the FAA funds come from general revenue and airports are self-supporting.

http://utcm.tamu.edu/tfo/aviation/summary.stm

I live in Orlando and the airport was originally an Air Force base, so I assume we got it for free, but I don’t know what you are talking about on the roads. Do you live somewhere where the Airport is in the boonies and they had to run a new road for it?

In any case, a lot of the railroad right of ways were also given for free.

46

Recently, we spent a lot of tax money re-doing & expanding the roads into our Minneapolis-St. Paul airport. And an airport tends to get more traffic than an AF base, so I expect the roads were rebuilt when it became the Orlando airport.

And the railroads got a lot more than just the right of way – out west here, they got miles of land alongside the railroad (so they built stations there, plotted out the land, and developed towns). Which goes back to my original point: Every transportation system is subsidized, none of them make a profit.

47

Not to mention the Electronic Road Pricing system which has been touted as a revenue source for the government (imaging paying USD $1.50 to enter the area…and USD $1.50 again just to leave).

On reading the abstract of this online journal, ERP seems to be profiting very well.

48

By what yardstick are you making this assertion? I don’t necessarily disagree, since Mn/DOT spends money on a lot more than just the cost of roads. Can you cite your claim?

That said, in 2003, barely 2% of funding for Mn/DOT came from the general fund.

20% came from the feds, 19.5% from gas tax, 14.7% from registrations and over 33% from local sources.

http://www.metrocouncil.org/planning/transportation/MinnesotaTransportationFinance.pdf

49

Well, from your cite: 19.5% from gas tax + 14.7% from registrations = 34.2% direct from highway users, the other 2/3rds all comes from everybody.

The ‘local sources’ is either local property taxes or LGA (state income taxes partially returned as Local Government Aid), the federal money again is taxes returned to the state.

50

I recall reading somewhere that the Metro system here in the Washington DC area covers about 2/3 of its costs via fares, and that’s among the highest in the nation. As constanze noted, the need to run the system even at off-peak hours means that it cannot break even.

Note too that the federal government, the largest employer around here, subsidizes transit costs for its employees as a perk.

51

Are we moving the yardstick here or something?

52

Orlando doesn’t have a freeway connection to the airport. Both the limited access highways that go past not to the airport are toll roads.

Air and water transport have a significant advantage in that you don’t need to build a highway to use them. I can go to Orlando airport and fly directly to over 90 different cities. That is why high speed rail makes no sense in the United States. It takes a billion dollars or more to just connect two cities.

The trouble with the US is that in most parts of the country the population density is too low for mass transit to work. It is one one thing when you are in Manhattan, where the population density is 70,000 per square mile and another thing when it is 1 to 2 thousand people.

Of course, it also doesn’t make sense to use two tons of metal to haul around one passenger, which is why I’m interested in ultra light vehicles.

http://ideas.4brad.com/ultralight-vehicles-vs-large-mass-transit-vehicles

53

Normal for airports used for public transportation?? In MN?

54

If the question is whether Public Transportation (or city road transportation systems) is directly profitbale, then the answer is most certainly no. If it were, there would be private companies lining up to get a piece of the action. This is what has happened in the case toll roads…private firms have ponied up significant up-front money for the ability to construct toll roads and collect the toll revenue. It’s obvious that there isn’t really any way to collect per-use fees for city streets, so profitability rarely comes into the discussion.

In a larger sense; however, I would expect that a number of transportation systems - be they public transportation or the contruction of roads - are profitable in that they bring tax revenue to the enititites which fund them. In the extreme, a city with no roads is unliley to attract businesses or residents which means they will not collect much in the way of tax revenue. When roads are built, they create opportunities to capture tax revenues. These tax revenues may not be associated at all with transportation funding, so the “general fund” discusion is missing a piece. How much transportation adds to a city’s ability to collect tax revenue is beyond my expertise, but I would submit that a police force, roads, sanitation, water, and sewage are the things that most contribute to the “profitability” of a city. I would further argue that roads are the item in that list which be most difficult for a private firm to provide (not that I am arguing that private firms should provide any of the other items in that list).

While public transportation does not provide shipping, etc. it does connect consumers (and employees) to businesses. If it only serves to relocate business from one part of the city to another, it might not contribute to tax revenues. If, however, public transportation allows businesses to be more profitable, then those tax revenues should also be included when determining whether the public transportation system is profitable.

55

ERP Sucks Donkey’s Balls!!

some people pay $5+ to drive to work, then another $2-$3 to drive home again.

The stupid little beep beep drives me crazy.

But it is a nice little earner for the govt

56

We’ll ignore the potential comment about who pays for bridge maintenance there… oh, too late.

I recall a discussion many years ago about why a subsidized transit route was put through the Bridle Path in Toronto, where most of the houses are in the tens of millions and everyone has more cars than people in their houses. As the Toronto Star said… “Of course the people there will use the bus - the maid, the nanny, the gardener, the cook…”

I guess sidewalks don’t make a lot of money either, but people seem to want some walking space between their door and the traffic.