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Politics : The Citizens Manifesto -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: SilentZ who wrote (135)	6/16/2005 7:29:54 PM
From: TimF	Respond to of 492

True making it better will encourage its use, but it may not be affordable unless there are other factors that increase demand so that volume and price (or at least one or the other) increase, bringing in more revenue for improvements. Of course particularly poorly managed public transportation systems could get better without new revenue, they just have to stop wasting the revenue they waste now, but if you want an across the board improvement you need more revenue one way or another. Revenue doesn't have to come from riders, but you won't get a lot of support for extra public spending on public transportation unless you also get more people wanting to use it. There currently is nowhere in my area where I can get to faster or more inexpensively by any other mode of transportation than by car. If you counting the car as sunk cost its very hard to public transportation to beat the marginal costs of owning a car. It might do so in Manhattan but not in too many other places. Of course for many people the car is sunk cost. They already own one, and even if they would be willing to use public transportation for 80% of there travel they want to have a car available. For that matter in some areas driving would beat public transport even when you consider the cost of owning the car, and in others public transportation isn't available, or just doesn't fit common commuting patterns. Tim