Roads and PT discussion

[#Metro]

Started a new thread following from:
http://backontrack.org/mbs/index.php?topic=2877.240

[#Metro]

There have been a number of posts about the relative virtues of roads and PT.

I have looked at the arguments that the PTUA advances.
http://www.ptua.org.au/myths/runcost.shtml

There are quite a few.

By comparison, the cost of public transport is more or less the same regardless of patronage, so that if more people use the system, the cost per passenger actually diminishes.
This is what economists call 'economies of scale'. Since public transport revenue increases with more passengers, it is clearly economic to encourage more people onto public transport.

What we should see: Total cost should fall or stay constant, revenue increase.

Lets look at the graph on page 2 of the http://www.translink.com.au/resources/ticketing/100104_fares.pdf document to verify this.

Observation: Costs increase massively while revenue remains relatively constant.
Explanation: It is true that efficiency (cost/passenger) should fall, but now there are more people.
You have to make infrastructure investment and buy more buses and supply more subsidy, which still means that revenue-costs = loss.

In the short term, the total cost of PT is not more or less the same.
It increases hugely because the network must now be extended (new rail lines, new buses, new stations). This incurs massive investment, requiring large amounts of spending.

Over the long run, the PT system will have long term benefits.
There should be investment in PT, as without it people would simply not be able to get to the city in their cars. Which is odd, but beneficial. PT allows people the choice to travel to work on roads at less congestion than what there otherwise would be without it. It allows those people who must travel by road to do so, and it allows people who would otherwise not buy a car, to travel. So I think PT slows down the growth of, but does not reverse or stop, traffic congestion.
Only banning cars, or insanely high tolls could do that- and that is impossible in a free society.

So I think the PTUA's argument is wrong. Nonetheless, it does not diminish the worthiness of PT provison.
It is on this basis that PT is worthwhile not on "cost" alone. Imagine how much the price (and how impossible it would be!) of driving at peak hour would escalate massively if you were stuck in traffic so huge because the PT effect was removed.

[somebody]

From Jon B in another thread:

Somebody, the numbers are there and they are from official sources.  The fuel excise hardly covers the cost of contruction and maintenance. 

I'd like to see a link to this point.  Some time ago, the NRMA was claiming that the Gov't only spent a small fraction of fuel excise on roads.  I think road funding has probably increased since then though.

[Jon Bryant]

Somebody.  The NRMA and other's line is that only a fraction of the fuel excise goes directly to roads and the rest goes to consolidated revenue.  They then fail to mention that a far greater amount is then paid out of consolidated revenue to cover the costs of motor vehicle use.   It is an emotive arguement that seems to work.  The link was in the oroiginal post and Tramtram has a link in is last post.

Tramtram, your review of the report is spot on. The more people who sue PT the more cost effective it gets.  Roads on the other hand are the reverse. The more people sue it the worse the les effective it gets.

I would still note that there a number of highly sustainable cities (Vancouver, Vienna, Munich, Zurich, Bogota, etc, etc) that show that a PT first approach does reduces traffic growth/car use (i.e.km/person).  They key is to increase public and active transport capacity whilst reducing road and car parking capacity as an overall %.  People will get out of their cars if the service is fast, frequent and comprehensive (ie. anywhere anytime quickly).  Maybe this is in fact a form of banning cars.

Now congestion is different because it is a reflection of the availability of road space.  For example with the London Cordon Charge the motor car volumes droped 37% and congestion initially 21% or so.  They have now started to convert the spare road space to bike and foot paths (thus increasing non-motorised transport) and congesiton has gone ack to the 2003 levels but the volumes are still way down.  Congestion is not the best measure for transport planning but it is politically very visibale though.  Thus we have to manage congestion not attempt to "solve" it.

Agree totally that cost alone is not why we build PT as there are many more benefits but when our politicians say that it costs more to provide for PT than cars we have to correct the perception to show that not only are there many many non-financial benefits there are also financial benefits.  Or conversely if we keep providing for more and more road space we are just making the problem worse and then spend more trying to fix the bigger problem. It is an upward spiral that is going to send Australia broke.

[#Metro]

Benefits only come to one only after one spends the money.
The problem is getting the cash in the first place, and using the funding already available better.

I think there is a case for a peak hour only congestion charge, or if people don't like that a HOT lane proposal. It would be difficult though as the design of some roads aren't good for this.

In my view "PT exclusive" routes (i.e. Eleanor Schonell Bridge) are a winner.
A busway metro (underground where above ground space is not available) exiting into the suburbs, and reserved freeway lanes for buses should be considered. After all, Perth puts its trains right down the middle of a freeway, Bogota puts its buses down the same way.

Frequency, predictability and grade separation are the magic ingredients I think.

[dwb]

In the short term, the total cost of PT is not more or less the same.
It increases hugely because the network must now be extended (new rail lines, new buses, new stations). This incurs massive investment, requiring large amounts of spending.

This is not really true in most senses. I realise the government has a fixed amount it can "spend" year to year, but it is reasonably false to think that the true "cost" of this spend is paid up in full upfront. Really, when you consider about an investment in infrastructure such as a tunnel or roadway or metro or busway, the cost is spread over the term of the loan, and usually the loan is paid off much more quickly than the life of the infrastructure. The government does borrow money, it doesn't simply pay for everything from GST revenue or stamp duty!

So when we think about how the Govt borrowed money in the depression to start construction of the Story Bridge, it may have seemed "expensive" at the time, and the total amount "paid" for the infrastructure would have been quite high, principal + interest or 3x principal, but year to year the government of the time paid it off and affordably so.

Another example would be the Gateway Bridge. It was "expensive" to build, however user charging allowed the government to pay the infrastructure off in a shorter than expected timeframe and commence construction of a new piece of infrastructure - Gateway 2.

To think simply in terms of being in debt for anything being bad seems ludicrous to me. Especially when usually a higher government surplus just means that the economists have shifted that to privately held debt within the community, rather than actually pay it off.

Just think, we're all in debt most of our lives, working to pay off a mortgage for a place to live.  So yes, I am absolutely sure that if you look over the amount spent since the war, or since the mid 60s that astonishingly large amounts of money have been spent on subsidising private travel than that of public travel. And I mean money being spent, and I haven't even included any "costs" incurred from different modes of transport.

And yes, this implicitly means I support borrowing money for significant investments in our future, responsibly so, but surely. And therefore I think it is false to simply look at last years budget and say the government spend the same amount on roads as it did on PT, as that figure is usually only committed money anyway, and would most usually only consider new capital investment, and perhaps maintenance... but surely not across the board costs.

[somebody]

Somebody.  The NRMA and other's line is that only a fraction of the fuel excise goes directly to roads and the rest goes to consolidated revenue.  They then fail to mention that a far greater amount is then paid out of consolidated revenue to cover the costs of motor vehicle use.   It is an emotive arguement that seems to work.  The link was in the oroiginal post and Tramtram has a link in is last post.

I see it now.  There was a link I had to follow within the link.  If what you are alledging is true, shouldn't they be done for misleading and deceptive advertising?  Perhaps they were: I haven't heard such an ad for some time.  If $9bn is spent on roads, with $9.9bn collected in fuel excise + $4bn in GST, it is clear that more is collected than spent, but road trauma makes up for that!