You’re just not thinking fourth dimensionally…

If a person who currently rides the bus to work one day a week, decides to start riding three days a week; their ridership has tripled. Five days a week; it’s quintupled. It’s not a matter of gaining only new riders, it’s getting people who already use the bus sometimes to use it all of the time.

Jerry’s right again though, the low cost of gas will induce people to drive instead of ride. Ipso facto; if the bus fare is lowered so that it’s cheaper than driving or even better; free, it would translate into more bus trips.

I’m pretty confident that the gas prices will soar again after the election, so it may eventually get to a point where, even if the RFTA fares stay as they are, more people will be financially induced to ride more often. Voila! Increased ridership. Then RFTA will need more buses to accommodate the volume of riders. If they need to increase the fare to pay for those buses, ridership will decrease and they won’t need the buses after all. If they can buy the buses without increasing the fare, we’ll have achieved equilibrium.

Jeffrey, you accuse us of operating in an information free zone, which I take as a nice way of calling us ignorant, yet you refuse to acknowledge the fact that ridership is heavily tied to the cost of the fare. As I said before, you have no way of knowing by how much lowering or eliminating the fare would increase ridership. As a result of your assumption that ridership cannot possibly be increased enough to make a perceptible difference, your extensive mathematical formulations simply justify what you think you know. And that is not a good place from which to make public policy decisions.

Also I think it’s worth mentioning that less cars also means less opportunity for accidents with wildlife, pedestrians and other cars. When gas prices rose to near $5.00 a gallon, people slowed down and some quit driving as much. As a result the number of traffic deaths and injuries went down.

However, the mistake that Common Sense makes is that he presumes only a linear reduction in traffic and congestion. In fact, complex mathematical equations exist that show that a small reduction in the number of cars produces a dramatically greater benefit in traffic flow than one could extrapolate by simply using percentages. In simple terms, a 10 percent reduction in number of cars will improve traffic flow by more than 10 percent.

The Boltzman equation can be applied to kinetic traffic flow on roads. It shows that there are complex interractions between drivers and cars in competition for the same space on the road. Without getting into advanced mathematical formulas and calculus, suffice it to say that the best data demonstrates that even a small reduction in number of cars produces a great benefit.

A democratic republic such as the U.S. is a co-operative. We pool our money to take care of the Commons; the air, earth, water, finite and renewable resources (such as minerals and forests), and the transportation system which is vital to our economy.

Obviously you are less interested in the common good than in pursuing and preserving your own interests. That’s fine for you. But if I had the money to spare, I would take the bus on principle like Michael Conniff, regardless of the cost of the fare. Unfortunately, there aren’t enough principled people to make a “perceptible” difference. That’s where incentives come in. There are far more people in this valley who would take the bus rather than drive if they had a financial incentive to do so.

The fact is, you have no way of knowing how much ridership would be increased if the fare was dropped or whether there would someday be a perceptible decrease in the traffic situation because of it. And neither do I. But I’m willing to give it a try on the principle of the common good.

I would have thought that an imperceptible improvement in quality of life is the practical equivalent of no improvement.

So, transit must be subsidized for some in order to provide no perceptible improvement to the community as a whole.

You’ve stumped me. I have no response for that.

Buying a second car is not even an option, nor is it relevant to the discussion. The decision for me and other budget restricted citizens, is not whether it’s cheaper to ride the bus or buy a second car, it’s when I do have access to my car, whether it’s cheaper to take the bus or drive.

As a conscientious citizen, I would like to use my car less and in so doing relieve the traffic on 82 and the air pollution in our valley. But as it is, because I have a limited income, I only ride the bus when I absolutely need to get somewhere and I don’t have a car. If the bus were free, I’d leave my car home and take the bus every time. Many other budget restricted valley residents would do the same.

Jeffrey Evans is right; “There is no rational connection between NYC and the RFV” as far as population density goes. But that doesn’t justify the supposition that mass “transit has no perceptable impact on traffic congestion,” for our valley. If RFTA ridership increased as a result of free fares, traffic would consequently and inevitably be reduced, air pollution would be reduced, and consumption of foreign oil would be reduced. However imperceptible, it would still increase quality of life for all of us.

Which as Jerry pointed out, answers your question; “Why is everyone else obligated to subsidize your travel costs?”

The only reason that I chose a tax on new construction is because it’s my contention that construction vehicles are responsible for many of the traffic delays and a great deal of our pollution. I do not intend for these taxes to be punitive on the construction industry. If structured properly, they would simply allow those causing the problem (and profiting from new development) to pay their fair share.

Finally, I want to be clear that I am not against the automobile. I recognize that many Americans (myself included) enjoy driving their own vehicle. However, we can reduce traffic and ease the commute of those who must take their own cars if we can encourage the use of mass transit. Let’s make RFTA fee!