I have just changed my commuting from riding the bus to driving. This was not due to my own choice – my office moved and I was unwilling to take an extra 2 to 3 hours per day to get to and from this highly underserviced area. Coincidentally I had to buy gas on my way to work on my first driving day. It threw some real perspective on the price of riding the bus
At my old building the bus took 30 to 45 minutes each way while driving took 20 to 30. At my new location the bus would take at least 90 minutes each way but more likely 2 hours while driving takes 25 – 35 minutes. Of course the bus has never been portrayed as the fastest method of commuting so lets look at cost. The bus cost me about $6 a month because my employer paid the other $70 for my pass. I no longer have that option so a bus pass costs me almost as much as my gas ($60) plus my insurance while taking 3 or 4 times as long to make the trip. Imagine if I were paying on a per trip basis for my bus riding – that would be $99 a month to ride the bus – not counting the taxpayer money that supports UTA. Notice that all the prices I am quoting for the bus are not the express passes or the trains, just the regular bus system.
As I started to put all that together I realized that despite the fact that I believe that good public transportation is a good idea, it is notanywhere near economically competitive with private vehicle ownership. Whatever money we spend as a society to prop up our public transit system we need to realize that we are not making any significant economic benefit to those who use the system – they come out a little bit ahead of simply hiring a taxi every time they need to go somewhere.
I still favor the idea of public transportation in theory, but in practice I’m not sure that our taxes should be used simply to hide the fact that the system is not economically competitive. If we are unwilling to pay enough to make it beneficial then our tax support is wasted.
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