[Gasification] [Terrapreta] FUELS AND VEHICLES: AN INTEGRATED SOLUTION

[MMBTUPR at aol.com]

          from             Lewis L. Smith

Ref Greg H.'s comments on mass transportation.

I am a semiretired energy economist who has   been concerned with mass 
transportation sporadically since about 1975.

I have never heard of anyone who thinks that it is a panacea for anybody's 
transportation ills. Only strong criticisms that for assorted reasons and in 
most locations, we do not use mass transportation to the optimum level, a 
criticism with which I agree. Hence the word "phony" is out of place in a 
professional discussion.

However, Greg H. is very right that mass transportation systems are very 
sensitive to these very same local conditions and that one must "do ones homework" 
before accepting or rejecting a special proposal for a specific locality.   I 
couldn't agree more.

This brings up point open overlooked by most people who are evaluating mass 
transit proposals. Economists can often give quite a narrow estimate of the 
value to a potential rider of an hour saved, say $2.35 to $2.65 per $10,000 of 
annual income, or at least $9.40 for someone earning $40,000 a year, to pull 
some numbers out of a hat.

But it will be extremely difficult in practice to get someone who saves one 
hour per day to give up even $4.70 at the turnstile. So the project has to 
resort to "end runs" like increasing the cost of downtown parking, increasing 
property taxes or whatever, in order to subsidize the system, most of which are 
not favored by either political leaders or their supporters !

The foregoing illustrates the basic problem of so many mass transit proposals 
and systems. They have good benefit/cost ratios at the level of "Standard 
Metropolitan Area, Incl.", that is, the SMA taken as whole. But they are money 
losers at the level of the organizations which has to run them.This is because 
it is very hard to "capture" from the beneficiaries enough of the benefits to 
cover the costs of the organizations which must actually provide the services.

Cordially.   ###






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