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

On 1/17/2025 5:44 PM, AMuzi wrote:

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.

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

Same thing happened with the Ohio Turnpike just a few years ago. People blamed the Republican-controlled legislature.

 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.

My overall point is, we've obviously decided to subsidize road transportation. It's not immediately obvious why we should not subsidize rail transportation. Asking fares to cover all expenses skips over that point.
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- Frank Krygowski