by Linda Sunkle-Pierucki

Created on: March 31, 2008

I'm puzzled by the whole concept that public transportation should be free. Nothing is free. Everything is paid for by someone. If you believe public transportation should be free', do you mean you should ride free and I should pay for it? Or do you mean I should ride free and YOU should pay for it?

If we're talking about public transportation as paid for by someone else, in effect it already is-mostly. The vast majority of public transportation systems in this country are heavily subsidized by government via our tax dollars. Transit is an expensive proposition- in the most economical of systems that $1 fare or $1.50 fare you pay is only about a third of the actual cost. In more expensive systems, the cost to the taxpayer is often higher than $10 for every $1 paid in fares. According to the Cato Institute, government has subsidized public transportation to the tune of over 100 billion dollars in the past twenty-five years.

Mass transit is big business-even though most are non-profit; there are advantages to contractors bureaucrats and employees that drive up the cost. Maintenance costs are high and ridership is extremely low. It costs just as much to run a transit bus with four passengers as it does with forty passengers.

Light rail figures are even worse: a recent cost analysis of the new St Louis light rail system showed it would be cheaper to buy a new Toyota Prius every five years for every low-income rider than to pay for light rail. Extensive transit systems have NOT cut congestion in most areas-the possible exception being the New York/New Jersey metro area. In that area, the difficulties of finding available parking seems to be a major reason for much transit ridership.

Even in areas with extensive transit systems, it has been shown the systems serve low-income workers poorly. Routes do not run to industrial areas at the hours workers are expected to work. Territorialism and infighting between cities, counties and metro areas make it impossible to design routes to interchange with competing routes to offer blanket transportation to where people need to go. As many industrial areas, schools and increasingly business are located outside of the metro area, there is no transit system available to those who might use it. Studies invariably show new routes to be cost-prohibitive.

Proponents of mass transit nearly always point to Europe as a model the U.S. should be following. What is not clear to them is that Europe's systems are also heavily subsidized and that

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