Who Should Pay for Mass Transit? (Part One)
Consider the following fact:
New York riders pay a considerably higher share of the cost of mass transit than riders in other cities.
A libertarian would say this makes New York a more just (or less unjust) jurisdiction than its peer cities, since even with a natural monopoly such as mass transit (i.e., that might warrant government provision or at least oversight), the principle still endures that those who use a service, and only those who use it, should pay for it. There is no rational basis, under any system of equity or justice (even anti-libertarian ones) to expect New Yorkers who do not use mass transit, let alone taxpayers outside New York, to subsidize those who do.
(Note that I am referring to taxpayers subsidizing the system. Subsidizing the poor — i.e. by providing fare discounts comparable to food stamps or housing vouchers — is a separate question altogether. Who would dare suggest that lower-income subway non-users should be expected to subsidize higher-income users? Yet that is exactly what subsidizing the system as a whole entails.)
Is anyone surprised, meanwhile, that this fact about “who pays what share” comes from the New York Times editorial pages, not as praise but rather as indictment:
The question is how to find all that cash without sticking up riders again. … Getting money to help fix mass transit is yet another reason why the City Council and state lawmakers should approve congestion pricing before the end of the month — when a deadline to receive more than $350 million in federal funds expires.
…
To finance its capital plan, the authority is also counting on the by-no-means-certain generosity of the city, state and federal governments. And even then there is still a projected $9 billion budget gap. Unless another source of money is found, the M.T.A. chief executive, Lee Sander, may have to further delay some projects, perhaps the next leg of the Second Avenue subway, to pare costs.
Quick, raise unrelated local taxes or else we lose unrelated federal taxes. And hope that we can find more taxpayer teats to suck on down the road subway track. Because, above all else, tapping into that one “other source of money” that is clearly available — fares that reflect true costs — would be utterly unthinkable.
Utterly.
Such is the state of “progressive” urban planning today.
Similar Posts:
- Who Should Pay For Mass Transit Searches?
- Who Should Pay for Mass Transit? (Part Two)
- Another Infrastructure Club Good: Subways
- Mexico City Fact of the Day
- On NYC’s Subway Pricing Chaos
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D.C. uses congestion fares and fare-by-distance. It still loses money. No reporter or public official here ever stops to question if W.M.A.T.A. is best qualified to run a subway system. It's clear it's not.
Those officials seek the federal dole often, as well.