Re: Lost your home? Car? Everything? Thank a bicyclist and the California road diet.

On 1/17/2025 4:13 PM, Frank Krygowski wrote:

On 1/17/2025 2:17 PM, AMuzi wrote:

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This line?
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https://sfstandard.com/2024/08/02/bart-silicon-valley- extension-funding/
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Seems to be 'in progress' as of last summer.
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For the whole system, fares cover a whopping 22% of operating expenses (that's negative ROI on capital), more than most passenger rail systems.

 Hmm. I wonder what percentage of, say, I-880 or I-680 operating expenses are paid for by fares. Anybody got a figure?
 

Impossible to know.  Too convoluted, just like most government accounting (which practices would land me in prison post haste).
Regarding tolls, I remember when Illinois paid off its original Interstate bonds, at which point the toll booths were supposed to go away. Never happened because it's a slush fund for politicians and the civil service.
But if you meant the road tax, that's different everywhere you go and depending on where you are 2% to 20% of road tax doesn't go to roads:
https://reason.org/policy-brief/how-much-gas-tax-money-states-divert-away-from-roads/
And, in the other view, road taxes don't cover road maintenance expense, as far as we know:
https://taxfoundation.org/data/all/state/gasoline-taxes-and-user-fees-pay-only-half-state-local-road-spending/
So every argument can be both right and wrong, depending.
Short answer: it's a mess and a muddle. Which suits the insider beneficiaries just fine.
--
Andrew Muzi
am@yellowjersey.org
Open every day since 1 April, 1971