Meanwhile, the 47 Muni bus that connects the Van Ness transit corridor to Caltrain has been “suspended” since 2020, and the extension of Caltrain to the transit center is still unfunded.
I appreciate solutions that meet us where we are, but it’s depressing that we don’t seem to actually have the will to make a sustainable, integrated mass transit plan.
Obviously yes, you have to since the vast majority of expenses (>70%) are fixed costs. If you only exclude them and only look at marginal costs, they're profitable.
But you cannot run a transit system on marginal costs, so using that comparison is also misleading.
The usual rule of thumb is that fixed costs of public transit are covered by increased property values. It could mean a private transit company developing the areas around stations (as it often works in Japan), or it could mean the government getting more money from property taxes. Or it could even mean more money from income taxes, if the transit project stimulates economic activity.
If a transit project doesn't increase property values enough to justify the investment, or if the entity funding the project cannot extract that value, the project rarely makes sense.
Do you mean that nobody wants property values go up? The government gets more property taxes, because properties near transit stations are more valuable than in other places.
Yes, if you don't intend to sell, and actually want to live somewhere, higher property values just mean higher taxes (or if constrained like with Prop 13, declining services).
This doesn't have to be true. Washington State, for example defines the amount of property tax revenue to be charged and then divides that in proportion to everyone's taxable value.
So if everyone's value goes up 40% your property tax bill stays the same. If your area climbed faster than others, it goes up but not by 40%.
If property prices increase 40%, then cost of living increases, government needs to collect additional revenue to pay employees a living wage, and that feeds into taxes. Even without higher order effects, the above chain was literally about net increases in property taxes to fund more services and saying it's fine because property values increase (in specific locations, too). But property values are not a tangible thing for anyone who doesn't want to sell.
dcrazy · · focus · HN ↗
I appreciate solutions that meet us where we are, but it’s depressing that we don’t seem to actually have the will to make a sustainable, integrated mass transit plan.
tristanj · · focus · HN ↗
For comparison, federal spending for the interstate highway system is about 2-3 cents per passenger mile.
tyzoid · · focus · HN ↗
tristanj · · focus · HN ↗
But you cannot run a transit system on marginal costs, so using that comparison is also misleading.
jltsiren · · focus · HN ↗
If a transit project doesn't increase property values enough to justify the investment, or if the entity funding the project cannot extract that value, the project rarely makes sense.
trollbridge · · focus · HN ↗
jltsiren · · focus · HN ↗
ndriscoll · · focus · HN ↗
Arainach · · focus · HN ↗
So if everyone's value goes up 40% your property tax bill stays the same. If your area climbed faster than others, it goes up but not by 40%.
ndriscoll · · focus · HN ↗