by Julie Dancer

Created on: March 25, 2008

Consider the price of running a car. Aside from the initial investment, you need to also be able to afford gas, insurance and regular maintenance. However, many people consider a car a necessary expense, particularly in countries such as the United States, which lacks a unified public transportation system.

In order to make public transportation viable, it has to be accessible. This means it needs more stops, more buses, running more often. It need integrated rail and bus connections. It needs to provide transport not just for the cities, but for the rural, isolated communities as well.

To expand the transit system in this way will cost money. That money can come from taxes, or it can come from the people who use the system. Ideally, it should come from the people who can afford it. This means a combination of tax money and fees.

For those who cannot drive, and are in the lower income brackets, public transportation should be free. This includes the disabled, the elderly and the young. The public transportation system helps the members of these groups to achieve independence and a higher quality of life, as well as giving them the opportunity to connect and contribute to the world. To deprive them of this would be unethical and marginalize these groups.

A user who makes a choice to use the public transportation system as opposed to walking or cycling, however, should contribute funds to the maintenance of the system. Public transportation should be cheaper than running a car - after all, it is both environmentally and economically better to have groups of people traveling together, reducing traffic and road accidents. However, the costing needs to reflect the price of gas, the regular maintenance of the vehicles, the training of the drivers, and the miscellaneous costs associated with running a service.

When you pay to travel on a bus or train, you know that every cent that you hand over is funding that service. By subsiding the transport system via taxes, there is a strong chance that money will be diverted for other uses. If the government decides that fighting another war is more important than unified mass transit, they will use your tax money to buy tanks instead of buses.

On the other hand, whilst its entirely possible that the fare you pay on the bus goes towards CEO bonuses, at least some of it is also paying the driver's wages.

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