Article: Riding Public Transit Saves Individuals $9,242 Annually

[ozbob]

From the American Public Transportation Association click here!

Riding Public Transit Saves Individuals $9,242 Annually   

Riding Public Transit Saves Individuals $9,242 Annually   

Transit riders now save $600 more per year compared to last year at this time

as the cost of gas has increased nearly $1 per gallon

Washington, DC – Individuals who ride public transportation can save on average $9,242 annually based on the January 11, 2010 national average gas price and the national unreserved monthly parking rate.  Compared to last year at this time, the average cost per gallon of gas was $1.79 which is nearly $1 less than the current price of gas at $2.75 per gallon.  This increase in cost equates to an additional $600 in savings per year for transit commuters as compared to last year's savings amount at this same time.

"The Transit Savings Report" released monthly by the American Public Transportation Association (APTA) calculates the average annual and monthly savings for public transit users.  The report examines how an individual in a two-person household can save money by taking public transportation and living with one less car.

Transit riders can save on average $770 per month.  The savings amount is based on the cost of the national averages for parking and driving, as well as the January 11 national average gas price of $2.75 per gallon for self-serve regular gasoline as reported by AAA.

Taking public transportation provides a safe and affordable way for individuals and families to cut costs, according to APTA.  In addition, local public transit offers a travel option that has an immediate positive impact in reducing an individual's overall carbon footprint while helping reduce America's dependence on foreign oil.

The national average for a monthly unreserved parking space in a downtown business district is $154.23, according to the 2009 Colliers International Parking Rate Study.  Over the course of a year, parking costs for a vehicle can amount to an average of $1,850.

The top 20 cities with the highest transit ridership are ranked in order of their transit savings based on the purchase of a monthly public transit pass and factoring in local gas prices for January 11, 2010 and the local monthly unreserved parking rate.* ...

[Mobility]

I bet it didn't save them time. Since time is money, and the article does not adjust for this, perhaps it didn't really save them money either.

[Golliwog]

But I would aruge that even if you spend more time on a bus or train than you do a car you still benefit as you no longer have to concentrate on driving but can talk to other passengers, or read a book or do some work or anything really.

[somebody]

I bet it didn't save them time. Since time is money, and the article does not adjust for this, perhaps it didn't really save them money either.

I may not have, but many trips are in fact, somewhat faster on PT.  Besides peak hour, there is also going to concerts or sporting events where it is nothing to sit in a parking lot for the best part of an hour to get out of the car park.

Would you pay $10k/year to save 10 minutes/day?  Perhaps you would.  I don't think I would.

[Mobility]

But I would aruge that even if you spend more time on a bus or train than you do a car you still benefit as you no longer have to concentrate on driving but can talk to other passengers, or read a book or do some work or anything really.

You can't read and talk while you are walking to and from the train station or bus stop, and walking is most of the trip time. My train trips each day to and from work are each 20 minutes. I have an 8 minute walk from home to the station and a ten minute walk from statoin to workplace. Walking's almost half the trip. I find I do have to concentrate on that. Add to that waiting time at stations or bus stops. It's hard to read while watching for your bus.

True I don't have to concentrate on riding a train, except I do have to watch for my stop, especially on a bus when it's an unfamiliar route or after dark. But it is also so noisy and rough that it is also not easy to concentrate on reading. Blaring PA announcements, other passengers chatting or telling their life's story on their mobile, other people playing music on their phone. Noisy school kids or gangs of kids. Sometimes you have to stand - it's harder to read then, Trains and buses shake and vibrate as they move and make a lot of noise of their own. Train and bus stations are noisy places too. The PA announcements at Central Station (Brisbane) are deafenning.

As for talking to passengers - that usually doesn't happen unless they are workmates or know each other some other way. Trains and buses are as social as dentist's waiting rooms. People seated near each other actively ignore one another. It's an invasion of everyone's personal space. Throwing everyone together in one place doesn't make them want to talk to each other. Real socialising is when people associate with people they have something in common with. We're not ants.

I've been riding trains and buses (and therefore also walking) for twenty years, so I know the reality as opposed to the marketing. I think you are making a virtue of necessity here - if it is a necessity. In a car you get where you want to go with no stops, no walking and no milk runs. You don't need a book. If you want to read, you do it at home undisturbed. That's if there are decent roads to drive quickly on but I guess I'm being unrealistic there aren't I because the Queensland government hasn't addressed that for over twenty years and there are no community groups demanding they do it - and plenty demanding they don't.

[Mobility]

I bet it didn't save them time. Since time is money, and the article does not adjust for this, perhaps it didn't really save them money either.

I may not have, but many trips are in fact, somewhat faster on PT.  Besides peak hour, there is also going to concerts or sporting events where it is nothing to sit in a parking lot for the best part of an hour to get out of the car park.

Would you pay $10k/year to save 10 minutes/day?  Perhaps you would.  I don't think I would.

If I had a car I could drive to work in 20 minutes using the inner city bypass. My train trip alone takes that long and walking from home to station, waiting for train and walking from station to workplace takes that long again. Add to that the delays on trains which happen every other day due to service cancellations and trains stopping for other trains using the same line. I'd save 40 minutes a day. Trains and buses make stops all along their routes, cars don't. Buses do the milk run, cars go direct from A to B.

Sport events and concerts may be a good reason to take train or bus. They are only a once a fortnight thing for most fans, not a necessary daily routine. Or we could have better parking facilities. If people have to wait, they probably have a lot to talk about after a concert or game. Waiting half an hour or more while out relaxing on a weekend is not the same as taking the same amount of extra time each day before and after work, which is just extra stress on top of work and cuts into free time outside of work.

There is another thing we have to add to the financial cost of public transport. Fares do not reflect the real cost, since they finance less than a quarter of the total cost of maintaining PT. For every dollar paid in fares, the government gives Translink five dollars. That's the figure long-time QR employees have told me in conversation. The figure mentioned on an ABC panel discussion a few years ago was that fares are a quarter of the cost. So the real cost is far higher than the cost of fares, since the revenue comes out of our pockets via taxation. Some of the cost also came from profits of QR's freight rail service, but that was sold off recently.

Traffic mobility in peak times can be improved  Providing more multilevel parking in the CBD would mean less driving around for cars stopping there. More direct routes linking various regions would take unnecessary traffic off of many roads. Congestion in many areas is due to bottlenecks in one area because road infrastructure which could alleviate it has not been built. Congestion in Brisbane is due to the road system being neglected for 20 years. It's not like we have been constantly upgrading our roads and demand is continually outstripping improvements.

[Golliwog]

I'm sorry, but theres is always going to be a bottleneck somewhere. Yes, building a bunch of extra parking spaces in the CBD would alleviate some of the short term traffic as cars could duck into the first parking lot they see and be all but guaranteed a spot. However once Joe (or Joesphine) Blow sees how easy it is to get a park in the city from his seat on the bus/train, every man and his dog that has a car will be jumping in his car to take their spot in the parking lots. So then all the roads leading into the CBD would be clogged, leading to calls for them to be widened. If those then get widened there will be a bottleneck further out somewhere which would then need to be fixed. Somewhere around this stage would be when parking would once again become scarce, needing further parking to be built. This then leads for the cycle to repeat itself.

The problem is traffic lanes carrying cars have a maximum capacity of IIRC something like 1200 vehicles/hour in free flowing conditions, less once you have traffic and traffic lights. Into the future this needs to be changed to public transport as there simply is not enough space to continue to build more road space to allow everyone to drive their own car to work. No, you don't get a door to door trip, but is that 10 minute walk on either end of your journey that bad?

[Golliwog]

Heres a comparison of travel costs, car versus PT. Feel free to criticise, or point out if I've missed something or stated an assumption or value which you think is not valid.

From Connecting SEQ 2031:

The average commute distance in 2006 was 15.3km. Now I have a small car which has a fuel efficiency on the highway of roughly 7-8L per 100km so lets take the best case scenario of 7L/100km. So to travel 15.3km would take 0.07*15.3=1.07L of fuel. Thats one way so double it to 2.14L for the roud trip. Let's say fuel is $1.20 per L. So that would cost $2.57, but thats highway fuel economy, and in a relatively fuel economic car, and assuming fuel is only $1.20 (looking online the lowest fuel price today in some parts of Brisbane were $1.26). Factor in rego and CTP (I paid $654.45 for the year), which comes to $1.79 per day (which assumes equal usage across every day). Now drivers licence for 5 years (maximum length and most efficient spend) is currently $75.55, but with the new licences will go up to $96.05 and by 2014-15 will be $152.50, but for this I will use to lower current price, which comes to $0.04 per day.

All up this comes to $2.57+$1.79+$0.04=$4.40 per day, as a minimum.

I haven't included parking for the day here, but the article on October 3 in the car parking thread gave the average maximum price for parking in the CBD of $44. Obviously there would be cheaper, but I can't be bothered at this stage to trawl through all the parking websites looking at their prices.

I'm also certain that rego is not the sole source of money that the government uses to build and maintain roads, but I don't know what the split is.


Meanwhile, looking at the Translink website, the Ferny Grove line is about 16km long and ends in Zone 3 which using the go car in peak periods would cost $3.20 each way for a total of $6.40 for the day, or if you travel off-peak $2.88 each way for a total of $5.76 for the day.

Car, the impossible to achieve minimum of $4.40 for the day.
PT fixed $6.40 in peak or $5.76 off-peak.

[#Metro]

If I had a car I could drive to work in 20 minutes using the inner city bypass. My train trip alone takes that long and walking from home to station, waiting for train and walking from station to workplace takes that long again. Add to that the delays on trains which happen every other day due to service cancellations and trains stopping for other trains using the same line. I'd save 40 minutes a day. Trains and buses make stops all along their routes, cars don't. Buses do the milk run, cars go direct from A to B.

This is in part due to network design. Brisbane has designed their system to be radial. In other places it is easy to get on a main PT corridor and then transfer horizontally to connect you to your destination.

Waiting half an hour or more while out relaxing on a weekend is not the same as taking the same amount of extra time each day before and after work, which is just extra stress on top of work and cuts into free time outside of work.

Which is one of the reasons why off peak services must be increased to 15 minutes minimum. Perth and other cities worldwide has moved to this, and even in Brisbane the BUZ network of buses shows this.

There is another thing we have to add to the financial cost of public transport. Fares do not reflect the real cost, since they finance less than a quarter of the total cost of maintaining PT. For every dollar paid in fares, the government gives Translink five dollars. That's the figure long-time QR employees have told me in conversation. The figure mentioned on an ABC panel discussion a few years ago was that fares are a quarter of the cost. So the real cost is far higher than the cost of fares, since the revenue comes out of our pockets via taxation.

This is true, however the unpriced externialities also have to be priced in. These items do not appear in a purely 'cash in cash out' calculation that perhaps the private sector would only do- only bothering to see costs that occur on its own turf. As a government, governments have much broader views and look at costs/benefits that fall outside its organisational borders, so to speak.

If we set PT costs = 0 there would be no public transport, or perhaps only peak hour expresses. That's not good for the city, would require massive investment in roads (the least efficient way to move masses) (Clem 7/Go Between Bridge/Inner City Bypass/SE Freeway/Airport Link/Gateway Bridge/Northern Link).

The lesson from Perth is that there are economies of scale too. The more people that use PT, the less it costs per person. Perth's cost/passenger for buses, trains and ferries has been going down as more people use it. Cities that have good public transport systems also spend less of their city wealth moving people around.

Traffic mobility in peak times can be improved  Providing more multilevel parking in the CBD would mean less driving around for cars stopping there. More direct routes linking various regions would take unnecessary traffic off of many roads. Congestion in many areas is due to bottlenecks in one area because road infrastructure which could alleviate it has not been built. Congestion in Brisbane is due to the road system being neglected for 20 years. It's not like we have been constantly upgrading our roads and demand is continually outstripping improvements.

But we have been constantly upgrading our roads. They are black holes so to speak. Its the same roads taking more and more money. A number of projects have already been completed or are in planning, in additions to the ones we already have:

* Clem 7
* Go Between Bridge
* Inner City Bypass
* SE Freeway
* Airport Link
* Gateway Bridge
* Northern Link

add to that the existing Riverside expressway, Centenary highway, Ipswich motorway, Logan motorway...

These tunnels/GBB etc services have formed a triangle around the CBD.
It is now possible to travel around the CBD without going into it.

More car parks in the CBD would increase congestion issues. There is huge demand for car parking, and the market knows this, which is why private car parks are priced so high- high demand, low supply = high price.
More car parks in the space constrained CBD is not the highest and best use for that space, or even a remotely good use of space. That space would be better used for office buildings where productive work can be done and businesses can set up.

Brisbane will always have congestion of some kind. A trip to Canberra confirms that even Canberra (!!!) has congestion in the peaks.

Car rapid transit. A 1960s idea

[Golliwog]

Oh, and my analysis above didn't take into account the cost of servicing and repairing your car. Which is a variable cost, but in my experience is usually around $400, and if you have to replace anything major (clutch, wheels, crank shaft) say goodbye to at least $1000.

[somebody]

Mobility, coming on to RailBoT and then attempting to argue a point which is contrary to everything RailBoT stands for, I trust you will understand if I regard you as a troll. 

But as for your points:
(1) If I had a car I could drive to work in 20 minutes using the inner city bypass.
- I'm curious about this one.  I'm guessing you work in Milton and live somewhere like Albion?  If you worked in Milton, a car space wouldn't necessarily be that easy to come by, but perhaps you are lucky.  Also, it is much more stressful driving in light traffic than on PT.  Heavy traffic makes this worse.

(2) Sport events and concerts may be a good reason to take train or bus. They are only a once a fortnight thing for most fans, not a necessary daily routine. Or we could have better parking facilities.
- For the love of God, no!  The Gabba and Suncorp have this right.  No parking - easy commutes to and from.  Try going to anything in Sydney by car or to Brisbane Entertainment Centre and you may not find it so much fun.

(3) Waiting half an hour or more while out relaxing on a weekend is not the same as taking the same amount of extra time each day before and after work, which is just extra stress on top of work and cuts into free time outside of work.
- Not my idea of fun.  I'd rather be at home talking about it rather than sitting in the car in a traffic jam talking about it.

(4) There is another thing we have to add to the financial cost of public transport.
- This is largely due to high fixed costs of the rail system and poor patronage.

(5) Add to that waiting time at stations or bus stops. It's hard to read while watching for your bus.
- RailBoT has long argued for more frequency to reduce this problem.

(6) So the real cost is far higher than the cost of fares, since the revenue comes out of our pockets via taxation.
- Where do you think road spending comes from.  That dwarfs PT spending.

(7) Buses do the milk run
- That is not a problem with buses per se, but with Brisbane's management of PT.  And in fact, in many cases buses are quite direct.  The problem is reducing the times that they are not.

( Traffic mobility in peak times can be improved  Providing more multilevel parking in the CBD would mean less driving around for cars stopping there.
- Are you serious?  That would mean more congestion.

(9) That's if there are decent roads to drive quickly on but I guess I'm being unrealistic there aren't I because the Queensland government hasn't addressed that for over twenty years and there are no community groups demanding they do it - and plenty demanding they don't.
- So, the Go Between Bridge and Clem7 were never built, the ICB was never built, Coro was never widened, Ipswich motorway was never widened, Logan motorway never built.  I'm sure others can add numerous other examples, and I am ignoring projects still in progress.  I'm sure the Pacific Motorway and Bruce Highway have been widened in the last 20 years too.  And as for community groups, perhaps you have heard of the RACQ?

[#Metro]

(4) There is another thing we have to add to the financial cost of public transport.
- This is largely due to high fixed costs of the rail system and poor patronage.

That's correct. I would like to point out another thing- its quite hard to move 10000s of tonnes of export grade
coal to china or freight efficiently without the rail network. That rail system is underpinning the entire QLD economy.

And what about the large and fixed and ongoing costs of the government subsidised road system?, and the land opportunity costs that are there simply from the fact that road lanes must take up far more space to carry the same amount of people for example, as a busway?

[ButFli]

The average commute distance in 2006 was 15.3km. Now I have a small car which has a fuel efficiency on the highway of roughly 7-8L per 100km so lets take the best case scenario of 7L/100km. So to travel 15.3km would take 0.07*15.3=1.07L of fuel. Thats one way so double it to 2.14L for the roud trip. Let's say fuel is $1.20 per L. So that would cost $2.57, but thats highway fuel economy, and in a relatively fuel economic car, and assuming fuel is only $1.20 (looking online the lowest fuel price today in some parts of Brisbane were $1.26). Factor in rego and CTP (I paid $654.45 for the year), which comes to $1.79 per day (which assumes equal usage across every day). Now drivers licence for 5 years (maximum length and most efficient spend) is currently $75.55, but with the new licences will go up to $96.05 and by 2014-15 will be $152.50, but for this I will use to lower current price, which comes to $0.04 per day.

All up this comes to $2.57+$1.79+$0.04=$4.40 per day, as a minimum.

Rego, insurance, license and part of the maintenance costs are fixed costs and do not change whether a car is parked in the garage at home or driven to work and back. If you're going to include these costs in a comparison with public transport fares then you're assuming that people will not own a car if they take public transport to work. For the huge majority of commuters this isn't going to happen any time soon. A fair comparison will only include the additional costs incurred by driving to work over and above keeping the car at home. For commuters whose employers provide them with parking you can only compare the cost of fuel and maintenance to public transport fares. Even in heavy traffic the car costs are likely to be cheaper in Brisbane.

[Stillwater]

In making the comparison of the costs of car travel versus the cost of public transport, don't forget to add in depreciation costs of the motor vehicle.  On that basis, I am sure PT wins hands down.  BTW, the cheapest all-day car park I can find in the CBD charges $36.

[somebody]

For commuters whose employers provide them with parking

Except for people that need their car to work, this practice needs to be stamped out, or at least in CBD and vicinity locations!  Also, tax subsidies for company cars!  (These have been reduced, but still apply for some people.)

[ButFli]

In making the comparison of the costs of car travel versus the cost of public transport, don't forget to add in depreciation costs of the motor vehicle.  On that basis, I am sure PT wins hands down.  BTW, the cheapest all-day car park I can find in the CBD charges $36.

Once again that assumes that the PT rider does not own a car. Very few people will sell their car if they choose PT.

Sure, maybe the extra kilometers on the clock from driving to work and back decrease that value a bit, but most of the depreciation comes from age which happens when the car is garaged at home or on the road.

[Golliwog]

Ok, so yes the PT user who also owns a car (probably most, but not all) would still incurr depreciation, rego, insurance and at least proof of age card costs, but CBD parking is still only incurred by car drivers and it is no small cost. There are also a few car insurance companies these days who realise that there are people who don't use the car much except maybe to get to the station or just on weekends and so give cheaper insurance.

And yes PT users would also still have to keep their cars in good condition, but obviously being used less things would take longer to wear out.

[#Metro]

I'm going to throw a spanner into the works and say this:

Not everyone views PT as a perfect substitute for the car.

Only some people do- and that is because these people would be people who live within the range of PT access. So if you don't live or can't reasonably get to frequent PT) then this calculation will be meaningless. I suppose one of the major weaknesses of the study (I have not read it though) is that it did not calculate the savings PT users give to non-users. This is likely to be significant- see the strike example I use below.

This is not to say, however, that people who have no or limited access to PT, don't benefit from it. It just means that they benefit in an indirect way- through not having to share the road with more 'other' people, because those other people DO have good PT and can therefore choose not to drive on those roads.

The second problem with the calculation is this- drivers might have a higher willingness to pay, because the service quality is not the same. People are not purely rational calculating machines- even if the trip time between a bus and a car were identical (and there is some evidence to suggest that the difference between PT and car travel at rush hour tends to approach zero) many people will still choose car- because they would pay more for a car trip. This is why PT must be fast, clean, high quality and frequent.

This isn't at all an argument against PT- indeed one way to speed up traffic is to take advantage of the tendency for the difference between car and PT speeds at rush hour to tend to zero-- is to simply speed up public transport using railways, busways and T2 lanes. One would expect the resulting people taken off the road should speed up traffic flow too. It is why PT infrastructure and absolute priority is so important.

We can test this too in the real world- just look at any city that has a public transport strike. When a strike is on, the speed of PT is pretty much zero, because there isn't any PT. We would expect that driving speeds should also be close to zero- and this is true-- The roads become impossible to drive on because there are so many cars now, and the city cannot function properly and goods or employees can't get anywhere.

It is also why I believe that heavy discounting of PT is a counterproductive way of attracting more patronage. You charge less, but you ultimately also make the product worse. It would be like trying to sell 'free' rotten apples. It would be better to charge more and make the product much better as well.

[Mobility]

I'm sorry, but theres is always going to be a bottleneck somewhere.

We can eliminate many of them by eliminating the cause. In one case in Brisbane, replacement of a roundabout at a five-way intersection with traffic lights caused traffic to bank up for streets further back every day. So in this case, congestion was obviously nothing to do with too many cars being on the road. It was simply a local effect caused by a local problem.

Yes, building a bunch of extra parking spaces in the CBD would alleviate some of the short term traffic as cars could duck into the first parking lot they see and be all but guaranteed a spot. However once Joe (or Joesphine) Blow sees how easy it is to get a park in the city from his seat on the bus/train, every man and his dog that has a car will be jumping in his car to take their spot in the parking lots. So then all the roads leading into the CBD would be clogged, leading to calls for them to be widened. If those then get widened there will be a bottleneck further out somewhere which would then need to be fixed. Somewhere around this stage would be when parking would once again become scarce, needing further parking to be built. This then leads for the cycle to repeat itself.

Not parking lots, multilevel parking. Joe and Josie don't drive to the CBD just to park their cars there, they need reasons to go - jobs, shopping, business, recreation etc. The city can accommodate only a limited number of places for all of those activities and therefore cater to a limited number of people.

Only about 10% or less of the population uses trains and buses, and many of those would not wish to drive instead even if they could. Therefore the number of drivers could not increase due to people switching from PT very much from it's present number, no matter how much new road and parking space becomes available.

Increasing road space or efficiency does not encourage more people to drive. Roads are upgraded to meet the current (or predicted) demands. It does not follow that demands will increase in response to increase in road space. Demand changes according to variations in population and driving needs. Upgrading roads does not cause population growth and does not create new reasons for people to drive or more time each day for them to do it and the activities which require them to drive. Any given person has only so many needs and desires which require him to travel. The number of cars on the road does not go on increasing just because more road space or parking is made available.

Road and parking space cannot continue to increase indefinitely either. If they did, then at some point all land would be occupied by roads and parking space, with no buildings. Then people would have nowhere to drive to and nowhere to live. They would have nowhere to work. At that point they would stop driving because (1) they have no reason to drive; (2) they have no income to pay to maintain their cars and (3) they would be dead, because there would be nowhere to buy necessities and nowhere to manufacture it. So some time before this point arrives, car infrastructure and facilies must strike some equilibrium with other forms of land use.

The amount of multilevel parking in Brisbane has halved in recent years, some of it due to government intervention. This has driven up parking prices. The fewer parking places you have in the city, the further a car must travel to get to one and the longer and further people must drive around looking for available parking. That means more cars on the road at any given time, because of cars which are not actually traveling anywhere, but looking for somewhere to stop.

The problem is traffic lanes carrying cars have a maximum capacity of IIRC something like 1200 vehicles/hour in free flowing conditions, less once you have traffic and traffic lights. Into the future this needs to be changed to public transport as there simply is not enough space to continue to build more road space to allow everyone to drive their own car to work.

Your underlying assumption is that road use in one area will continue to increase steeply and that congestion is due solely to too many people driving, which is false. Congestion is due to poor road design. But say it is true - the number of commuters goes on increasing, more road is built, allowing more people to travel, which they do, then more road needs to be built and so on. Why does this not also apply to public transport, or bicycling or walking? Why won't travel increase if we use those, requiring more infrastructure and facilities to be built, allowing more people to travel on it, and so on? Why does this only happen with cars and roads?

Presently trains and buses, and pedestrian walkways, are overcrowded at peak times. You know that, because you are demanding  more public transport to meet that demand. Also, train lines are congested  - three or four times a week my train will stop for five minutes or longer to wait for another train passing on the same line. The bus stops and train stations are crowded. Buses are queuig up in long lines at busway stations and other stops which are used for a number of routes. So what happens when they do provide more trains and buses and more rail lines and bus routes? More people start traveling on it more often, right? You tell us that PT is (potentially) easier, more enjoyable, social, convenient, relaxing and healthy to use than cars, so won't people want to increase their use it even more than they want to increase their use of cars?

No, you don't get a door to door trip, but is that 10 minute walk on either end of your journey that bad?

Today my ten minute walk to work from the train station was through heavy wind rain and strong wind, which soaked my trousers, boots and socks and even my jumper. I had an umbrella - a very large one; but that does not keep rain off of me when it is windy and even when it is not windy the rain still falls on my feet. It was so windy, though, that I had to close the umbrella. So not only was the ten minute walk bad, the whole work day was bad. It's not a healthy way to go - not "livable". What do you suggest? Wearing weather gear on the train? A courtesy bus at every station to drive all people who get off there to where they are going? Enclosed walkways along every street?

My ten-minute walk is also up and down a number of steep hills between my home and the train station. Also, sometimes I have to carry a heavy load with me on foot. Those walks to and from stations are not always relaxing and enjoyable strolls. I do enough walking about at work - the last thing I need before or after my work is to be on my feet for longer.

[Mobility]

Heres a comparison of travel costs, car versus PT. Feel free to criticise, or point out if I've missed something or stated an assumption or value which you think is not valid.

From Connecting SEQ 2031:

The average commute distance in 2006 was 15.3km. Now I have a small car which has a fuel efficiency on the highway of roughly 7-8L per 100km so lets take the best case scenario of 7L/100km. So to travel 15.3km would take 0.07*15.3=1.07L of fuel. Thats one way so double it to 2.14L for the roud trip. Let's say fuel is $1.20 per L. So that would cost $2.57, but thats highway fuel economy, and in a relatively fuel economic car, and assuming fuel is only $1.20 (looking online the lowest fuel price today in some parts of Brisbane were $1.26). Factor in rego and CTP (I paid $654.45 for the year), which comes to $1.79 per day (which assumes equal usage across every day). Now drivers licence for 5 years (maximum length and most efficient spend) is currently $75.55, but with the new licences will go up to $96.05 and by 2014-15 will be $152.50, but for this I will use to lower current price, which comes to $0.04 per day.

All up this comes to $2.57+$1.79+$0.04=$4.40 per day, as a minimum.

I haven't included parking for the day here, but the article on October 3 in the car parking thread gave the average maximum price for parking in the CBD of $44. Obviously there would be cheaper, but I can't be bothered at this stage to trawl through all the parking websites looking at their prices.

I'm also certain that rego is not the sole source of money that the government uses to build and maintain roads, but I don't know what the split is.


Meanwhile, looking at the Translink website, the Ferny Grove line is about 16km long and ends in Zone 3 which using the go car in peak periods would cost $3.20 each way for a total of $6.40 for the day, or if you travel off-peak $2.88 each way for a total of $5.76 for the day.

Car, the impossible to achieve minimum of $4.40 for the day.
PT fixed $6.40 in peak or $5.76 off-peak.

You are assuming fares pay the whole expense of building and running public transport. Wrong. For every dollar paid in fares, the government subsidy contributes 5 dollars. (QR transport rail profits also paid some of it before they sold it off.) So we pay six times what we pay in fares. A three zone weekly ticket, which is priced at $37.60, really costs you $225.60.

But that's paper tickets only. On Go Card you pay per trip. You get half price after ten trips each week, you get 10% discount in off-peak times and you don't pay extra for transfers (trips made within one hour of each other). But it's still more expensive than the paper weekly ticket. The paper weekly ticket is equal in price to 12 trips the full number of zones on the ticket, i.e. effectively you pay for 12 trips and pay nothing for subsequent trips that week. So on Go Card, the real cost is even more than for a weekly paper ticket for the number of zones you regularly travel.

BTW, the amount of subsidization doesn't go down as fare prices go up, it still goes up. When paper ticket prices went up 40%, the subsidy went up 40% - it remained $5 for every fare dollar.

Now factor in the time driving a car saves you and also factor in the greater mobility a car allows and the more carrying capacity it provides you, enabling you to do more with less effort, i.e. increase your productivity. The extra cost in money of a car is more than returned.

And read ButFli's point above. Most people who use PT also own cars, which they need for many things they can't do using PT, so the costs of rego, insurance, license and maintenance must be added to the costs for users of PT. Put another way, cost of PT use is for most people just additional to costs of running a car, except that maintenance may be less because they don't commute in it.

[ozbob]

The fare subsidy for public transport is actually returned as broader savings in terms of reduced road trauma costs, reduced congestion costs and lessened environmental impacts, many times over.  There would be no point in having public transport if this was not the case.  Public transport in Brisbane has much untapped capacity, and in January we will start to see some reasonable train frequency which will provide a much better service.
Many public transport users are community minded, they actually are concerned with lessening their individual footprints.  The RACQ is a strong supporter of public transport, as they are too concerned with the increasing road congestion.

There will always be people who need to drive for various reasons.  Many don't and choose other modes, and it is these folk who do the community a big favour.  The Government has determined that public transport mode share targets are to rise.  They too are well aware of the benefits in a broad context and is why the draft Connecting 2031 SEQ plan was formulated.  Road transport of course features in that as well as the need to start to share the resources more equally and put in place better options for all the community.

There is another issue looming that needs some consideration, the aging of the population and their ability to be mobile in cars.  As we age we are less able to drive a motor vehicle, and it seems that there is a growing awareness in the medical profession and society generally of ensuring folks who should not be driving aren't.  Having in place transport that is not dependent on self driving is therefore becoming increasingly important in our society.  Another driver for the mode projected mode share increases.  Just imagine if you lost your ability to drive tomorrow?  It is not pleasant for many people who have to cope with that.  For example  Seniors slam talk of licence ban.  This worries a lot of people, and an important reason for having reasonable alternatives to cars.

As far as getting wet.  I sometimes get wet using public transport. In fact in Melbourne where I grew up I was often wet, sitting in W class trams.  I just toughened up .. and wore a rain coat.  You don't see many rain coats in Brisbane, perhaps you could get one too?

[Mobility]

If I had a car I could drive to work in 20 minutes using the inner city bypass. My train trip alone takes that long and walking from home to station, waiting for train and walking from station to workplace takes that long again. Add to that the delays on trains which happen every other day due to service cancellations and trains stopping for other trains using the same line. I'd save 40 minutes a day. Trains and buses make stops all along their routes, cars don't. Buses do the milk run, cars go direct from A to B.

This is in part due to network design. Brisbane has designed their system to be radial. In other places it is easy to get on a main PT corridor and then transfer horizontally to connect you to your destination.

Even with horizontal transfers you are not going to get stations closer than ten minutes walk to every point on the map.

Waiting half an hour or more while out relaxing on a weekend is not the same as taking the same amount of extra time each day before and after work, which is just extra stress on top of work and cuts into free time outside of work.

Which is one of the reasons why off peak services must be increased to 15 minutes minimum. Perth and other cities worldwide has moved to this, and even in Brisbane the BUZ network of buses shows this.[/quote]

This will not completely eliminate waiting times - passengers are advised to arrive at stops five minutes early to be assured of catching their bus or train. You must leave home early to be assured of arriving on time, you must buy a ticket, and you must be in time to walk to another platform if a change of platform for your service s announced, or if you don't know the platform for the service you will catch.

More frequent services cannot reduce the time for the actual train or bus trip (the indiect routes, the passenger stops, etc.), or the walking trips to and from stops.

There is another thing we have to add to the financial cost of public transport. Fares do not reflect the real cost, since they finance less than a quarter of the total cost of maintaining PT. For every dollar paid in fares, the government gives Translink five dollars. That's the figure long-time QR employees have told me in conversation. The figure mentioned on an ABC panel discussion a few years ago was that fares are a quarter of the cost. So the real cost is far higher than the cost of fares, since the revenue comes out of our pockets via taxation.

This is true, however the unpriced externialities also have to be priced in. These items do not appear in a purely 'cash in cash out' calculation that perhaps the private sector would only do- only bothering to see costs that occur on its own turf. As a government, governments have much broader views and look at costs/benefits that fall outside its organisational borders, so to speak.[/quote]

English, Doc.

If we set PT costs = 0 there would be no public transport, or perhaps only peak hour expresses. That's not good for the city, would require massive investment in roads (the least efficient way to move masses) (Clem 7/Go Between Bridge/Inner City Bypass/SE Freeway/Airport Link/Gateway Bridge/Northern Link).

Rail infrastructure is far more expensive per passenger mile than roads.

Roads are not the least efficient way to move masses. PT advocates assume that all buses and trains are completely full to capacity at all times when they claim this, which is not even nearly true. Also, you are only talking about efficiency in terms of fuel and emissions. PT is the least efficient in terms of the cost in time and energy for USERS.

The lesson from Perth is that there are economies of scale too. The more people that use PT, the less it costs per person. Perth's cost/passenger for buses, trains and ferries has been going down as more people use it. Cities that have good public transport systems also spend less of their city wealth moving people around.

How do you get significantly more people to use PT, since even at it's best it is still generally not as convenient to use as cars for most people? If more routes are provided and frequency of services are increased, people will use PT more, but it still won't be better than cars. These can only be increased so much before reaching a point where it is impractical to increase them further. Since all people (as taxpayers) now pay most of the cost (as subsidies) whether they use PT or not, any increase in users will not greatly lower the cost.

Traffic mobility in peak times can be improved  Providing more multilevel parking in the CBD would mean less driving around for cars stopping there. More direct routes linking various regions would take unnecessary traffic off of many roads. Congestion in many areas is due to bottlenecks in one area because road infrastructure which could alleviate it has not been built. Congestion in Brisbane is due to the road system being neglected for 20 years. It's not like we have been constantly upgrading our roads and demand is continually outstripping improvements.

But we have been constantly upgrading our roads. They are black holes so to speak. Its the same roads taking more and more money. A number of projects have already been completed or are in planning, in additions to the ones we already have:

* Clem 7
* Go Between Bridge
* Inner City Bypass
* SE Freeway
* Airport Link
* Gateway Bridge
* Northern Link

add to that the existing Riverside expressway, Centenary highway, Ipswich motorway, Logan motorway...

These tunnels/GBB etc services have formed a triangle around the CBD.
It is now possible to travel around the CBD without going into it.[/quote]

I said roads have been neglected, not ignored. Most of the above addtions were built only relatively recently. They do not constitute continual and comprehensive upgrades to the whole system. Some of them are not being used in the desired numbers because of relatively high tolls, some of which are planned to be increased later. This is because the costs blew out due to the usual government graft, incompentence and unnacountability.

These links, although a perhaps good ideas in themselves, have not eliminated bottlenecks in areas at either end of them, which are due to local road design in areas at either end of the links. Also, these links and bypasses do not have what most people consider an adequate number of lanes for the amount of traffic expected along those routes.

More car parks in the CBD would increase congestion issues. There is huge demand for car parking, and the market knows this, which is why private car parks are priced so high- high demand, low supply = high price.
More car parks in the space constrained CBD is not the highest and best use for that space, or even a remotely good use of space. That space would be better used for office buildings where productive work can be done and businesses can set up.

How do you get successful businesses and productive workplaces without easy access for employees and customers? Car parking is a good use as any other kind of business or any workplace. What constitutes a good use of space for you?

In some ways, more availability of parking space decreases congestion. People don't have to drive around looking for available pariking and they don't have to travel as far through the city to the nearest parking location.

It is  not the market's fault parking prices are high, When prices rise, competition moves into the market. Businesses can command prices only if they have an artificial monopoly in it, which is only possible with some form of government intervention, or there is a naturally low supply. Higher prices discourage customers, so it would be in the interests even of monopolists to respond with more parking spaces. Presently something is preventing competition or ezpansion by present parking providers.

Brisbane will always have congestion of some kind. A trip to Canberra confirms that even Canberra (!!!) has congestion in the peaks.

Not that it would affect politicians. Whatever degree of congestion is inevitable, (1) I think you are exaggerating it and (2) its inevitability is not a reason to do nothing about it and instead try to replace car use with inferior alternatives. There is no reason why these other forms of transport would not also become congested at a similar rate. A small percentage of the population uses PT now. How will it handle the other 90% once they switch, or even a significant fraction of that 90%?

Car rapid transit. A 1960s idea

Rapid train transit is a 19th century idea. What has changed since the 1960s?

[somebody]

Increasing road space or efficiency does not encourage more people to drive.

Are you a moron?  Almost everyone in the world realised that it does 20 years ago.  Perhaps you set your clock back 30 years when you come to Brisbane.

You are assuming fares pay the whole expense of building and running public transport. Wrong. For every dollar paid in fares, the government subsidy contributes 5 dollars. (QR transport rail profits also paid some of it before they sold it off.) So we pay six times what we pay in fares. A three zone weekly ticket, which is priced at $37.60, really costs you $225.60.

BTW, the amount of subsidization doesn't go down as fare prices go up, it still goes up. When paper ticket prices went up 40%, the subsidy went up 40% - it remained $5 for every fare dollar.

Your maths are in error.  Current ratio is 3.1:1.  However, this is with a completely ineffective transport authority.

[somebody]

Rail infrastructure is far more expensive per passenger mile than roads.

Roads are not the least efficient way to move masses.

If you are going to say that black is white, I see no point in talking to you.

Why don't you move to LA? They have followed the model you want.  Most people around the world think it is a p%ss poor model, but you seem to like it.

[ozbob]

A double railway line has the passenger carrying capacity of a 30 lane road.  More expensive?   No, it is not. Roads are.  Obviously in many situations roads are the transportation system.  Where there is the need rail will be increasingly implemented whether car users like it or not.  

You are welcome to your views, but save your best efforts for when the road congestion charges are levied, which despite recent state government assurances to the negative I think is inevitable.

Our view is one of mode fit for purpose.  The poor cousin of transport systems in Australia is public transport.  We will continue to lobby hard for improvements.  Road has had the lion's share of resources since the 1960s.  Time to move forward with a more enlightened society now.

Thanks for sharing your views Mobility. 

[Mobility]

Mobility, coming on to RailBoT and then attempting to argue a point which is contrary to everything RailBoT stands for, I trust you will understand if I regard you as a troll.  

So the purpose of RBOT is to defend a stance rather than discuss real solutions and if I don't do that, I'm a troll?

RBOT's own description of itself is: "a web based community support group for rail and public transport and an advocate for public transport commuters". Well I'm a member of the community and a PT commuter. "There are no qualifications for membership other than an interest in rail transport solutions and/or public transport and a desire to see improved rail transport outcomes for the community." I am interested in public transport  and improved outcomes. They just don't involve supplanting car use with PT, bicycling and walking.

The forum rules don't forbid me to disagree with RBOT's stance and if it is a good stance RBOT should be able to defend it. If they can't, it is not a stance worth having. You should welcome challenges to your stance as an opportunity to rectify misunderstandings and address objections If RBOT's views are not sound, then they should be rectified. Your forum cannot be an effective, genuine discussion if it is allowed to address only one side of it and ignore the other side.

But as for your points:
(1) If I had a car I could drive to work in 20 minutes using the inner city bypass.
- I'm curious about this one.  I'm guessing you work in Milton and live somewhere like Albion?  If you worked in Milton, a car space wouldn't necessarily be that easy to come by, but perhaps you are lucky.  Also, it is much more stressful driving in light traffic than on PT.  Heavy traffic makes this worse.

I live in Milton and I work at Geebung. Actually my train trip is 30 minutes, not 20minutes. Relying on public transport is not at all stress free.

(2) Sport events and concerts may be a good reason to take train or bus. They are only a once a fortnight thing for most fans, not a necessary daily routine. Or we could have better parking facilities.
- For the love of God, no!  The Gabba and Suncorp have this right.  No parking - easy commutes to and from.  Try going to anything in Sydney by car or to Brisbane Entertainment Centre and you may not find it so much fun.

I said better parking facilities, not bad ones. With 21st century technology, we could find  a way so that a stadium crowd does not have to take half an hour to all leave the parking area. Of course, I would hate the extra traffic due to these mass events. Suncorp stadium is located between my home and the city so I know the crowd causes problems for trains and buses, and car traffic in the area. The roads are closed off to all other traffic for about an hour after each game to be used as walkways for the large crowd and allow buses to take people from the stadium. The crowds cause the trains to be late, even with extra services provided for the game, causing service cancellations in the city. The walkways are crowded with shambling football zombies. Roads around the stadium are closed to traffic to allow wider walkways for the crowd leaving the stadium.

Actually, this is a taste of what could be happenning every day at peak times if most of the populace used public transport for daily commuting.

(3) Waiting half an hour or more while out relaxing on a weekend is not the same as taking the same amount of extra time each day before and after work, which is just extra stress on top of work and cuts into free time outside of work.
- Not my idea of fun.  I'd rather be at home talking about it rather than sitting in the car in a traffic jam talking about it.

The problem raised was waiting to get out of the parking lot, not waiting in traffic on the way home. Though mass exits from a stadium parking lot could cause excessive traffic on surrounding roads. Perhaps this could be eliminated by changes to road design in the area. Perhaps the stadium should be relocated.

(4) There is another thing we have to add to the financial cost of public transport.
- This is largely due to high fixed costs of the rail system and poor patronage.

If the fixed costs are high, then is it economical? Increased patronage would increase user-funding, but it would also require greatly increased facilities, which would further increase costs. Also, how do you get more people to use PT? Even if services are made more frequent and the routes service more areas, etc,, it is still less attractive to most people than cars. It also has to be run efficiently (this is the human element) and that is not happening currently. Management of QR (ultimately by Translink) is criminally insane. Many of QR's employees are as convinced of this as the customers. Why would it improve?

(5) Add to that waiting time at stations or bus stops. It's hard to read while watching for your bus.
- RailBoT has long argued for more frequency to reduce this problem.

That would reduce waiting times, but I was referring to the extra time one has to wait simply because one must be at the stop 5 minutes ahead of the scheduled time for the service, which contributes to the total trip time.

However, I question whether bus and train frequency can be increased without causing congestion in the CBD and large queuing at busway stations (which are already large in peak times) and also congested inner-city rail lines. Trains are frequently running off-shceduel due to faults and other, unavoidable delays. It would be a lot harder to coordinate trains which are all running on more frequent schedules.

Buses would probably also be a problem. In the CBD now at peak times buses crowd the streets and kerbs. PT advocates want many more routes added and much more frequent services on each route. Projecting from current situation, buses alone could congest streets in the CBD if increased by the desired number. Already, half of Victoria Bridge (between the city and South Brisbane) is reserved for buses.

(6) So the real cost is far higher than the cost of fares, since the revenue comes out of our pockets via taxation.
- Where do you think road spending comes from.  That dwarfs PT spending.

What are PT spending and road spending per passenger mile? I know from U.S. sources that train infrastructure spending is far higher. Give me a numerical comparison. Rail lines are far more expensive to build per kilometre than ordinary roads and the cost of building them is repeated every 30 years in maintaining and upgrading them.

(7) Buses do the milk run
- That is not a problem with buses per se, but with Brisbane's management of PT.  And in fact, in many cases buses are quite direct.  The problem is reducing the times that they are not.

By "milk run" I am referring to the fact that a bus must travel by an indirect route to service as many users as practically possible in the area the route goes through, especially in suburbs further out from the city.

( Traffic mobility in peak times can be improved  Providing more multilevel parking in the CBD would mean less driving around for cars stopping there.
- Are you serious?  That would mean more congestion.

Not if roads are upgraded to meet demand. You are probably assuming the "infernal cycle" myth which I refuted in an above post.

(9) That's if there are decent roads to drive quickly on but I guess I'm being unrealistic there aren't I because the Queensland government hasn't addressed that for over twenty years and there are no community groups demanding they do it - and plenty demanding they don't.
- So, the Go Between Bridge and Clem7 were never built, the ICB was never built, Coro was never widened, Ipswich motorway was never widened, Logan motorway never built.  I'm sure others can add numerous other examples, and I am ignoring projects still in progress.  I'm sure the Pacific Motorway and Bruce Highway have been widened in the last 20 years too.

Yes, quite a bit of road building but not necessarily enough and not necessarily of the right kind or design. Listen to the people who actually use them - they don't complain about there being too many drivers, they complain about the obvious mistakes in design.

For example, our freeways don't have stopping lanes. Whenever there is a breakdown or accident, a whole lane is blocked and diverted into the other lanes, slowing them down too. I was told that our planners thought an extra lane to allow more traffic to flow would be better than a stopping lane which would be used only in event of a breakdown. But fewer lanes would be adequate - the only congest when they are blocked by traffic incidents, which happen every day. A stopping lane would eliminate that.

And as for community groups, perhaps you have heard of the RACQ?

One - thank you very much. RACQ have jumped on the "sustainablility" bandwagon along with every other major organisation and institution. They are a motorist group, but they don't necessarily share or promote the interests of motorists. It depends on who is in control and what outside infuences are acting upon them. Since the governments and corporations, as well as pressure groups, are on the sustainability bandwagon, we should expect influences on the RACQ act in that direction.

[Mobility]

(4) There is another thing we have to add to the financial cost of public transport.
- This is largely due to high fixed costs of the rail system and poor patronage.

That's correct. I would like to point out another thing- its quite hard to move 10000s of tonnes of export grade
coal to china or freight efficiently without the rail network. That rail system is underpinning the entire QLD economy.

And what about the large and fixed and ongoing costs of the government subsidised road system?, and the land opportunity costs that are there simply from the fact that road lanes must take up far more space to carry the same amount of people for example, as a busway?

I didn't say we should have no rail network. I am questioning replacing  car use (largely or wholly) with PT. That has nothing to do with the transport industry. However, road transport may well be competitiive with rail transport.

[Mobility]

Rego, insurance, license and part of the maintenance costs are fixed costs and do not change whether a car is parked in the garage at home or driven to work and back. If you're going to include these costs in a comparison with public transport fares then you're assuming that people will not own a car if they take public transport to work. For the huge majority of commuters this isn't going to happen any time soon. A fair comparison will only include the additional costs incurred by driving to work over and above keeping the car at home. For commuters whose employers provide them with parking you can only compare the cost of fuel and maintenance to public transport fares. Even in heavy traffic the car costs are likely to be cheaper in Brisbane.

Good point, I forgot to mention it. Most people will still have cars, since PT cannot serve all personal needs, e.g. family grocery shopping, moving furniture etc. Since PT users must also own cars, the cost of using PT is the cost of using a car withthe cost of using PT added onto it. So in practice using PT to commute is more expensive than using a car. The main factor PT advocates say makes car use more expensive is rego, insurance, license and maintenance, and PT users still own cars and pay all of these. Only the maintenance cost is lower because of less use and less wear.

It's wrong to compare PT and cars purely on monetary cost basis. That's like comparing handsaws and power saws on their price only. Obviously the power saw saves time and effort, and therefore allows more productivity, which are more than equal to the extra cost - or people would not buy them. In the same way, a car allows more mobility, speed and carrying capacity than PT, and therefroe more productivity.

[Mobility]

In making the comparison of the costs of car travel versus the cost of public transport, don't forget to add in depreciation costs of the motor vehicle.  On that basis, I am sure PT wins hands down.  BTW, the cheapest all-day car park I can find in the CBD charges $36.

What are our buses and trains and infrastructure worth now? They must be paid for again every 30 years. Parking prices depend on availability. In recent years prices doubled due to halving of the number of spaces.

[ozbob]

See my earlier post. You are welcome to share your views Mobility as I have posted above.

Do you know that for the Brisbane CBD the highest mode share for journeys to and from is public transport, and the highest mode is rail.  Outside the CBD car is the greatest followed by bus and rail.

It doesn't surprise me that parking is being increasingly restricted in the CBD. There are alternatives which make for a better outcome for all, including those who do need to continue to drive as there is less road congestion etc.

[Mobility]

For commuters whose employers provide them with parking

Except for people that need their car to work, this practice needs to be stamped out, or at least in CBD and vicinity locations!  Also, tax subsidies for company cars!  (These have been reduced, but still apply for some people.)

Stamped out? How authoritarian. Making laws to restrict car use is an admission that PT cannot be made attractive enough for people to want to use it voluntarily. To this you will probably argue that PT cannot be made attractive enough until most people are using it. But I know from experience that most of the unattractive things about PT are inherent and independent of it's size, frequency etc. The simple fact is that any communal, i.e. shared, service is a compromise for all users and therefore greatly restrictive.

[Jonno]

Mobility, your belief that providing more road space does not encourage more drIving has been refuted by studies all over the world and is evidenced by our own Connecting SEQ 2031 which shows that car usage has increased 100% whilst the population has grown around 20%. Just look around billions spent on roads and they are still congested.  Believing that we can build enough roads to fix congestion is like believing in the Tooth Fairy and Santa.  Ok for a 5 year old not good for a transport planner.

Ease follow the many links provided here
http://railbotforum.org/mbs/index.php?topic=4349.0

I can only assume you are a policy advisor to the Lord Mayor.  Pass on my regards and ask him how successful the Clem 7 is going at reducing congestion.

[STB]

Heres a comparison of travel costs, car versus PT. Feel free to criticise, or point out if I've missed something or stated an assumption or value which you think is not valid.

From Connecting SEQ 2031:

The average commute distance in 2006 was 15.3km. Now I have a small car which has a fuel efficiency on the highway of roughly 7-8L per 100km so lets take the best case scenario of 7L/100km. So to travel 15.3km would take 0.07*15.3=1.07L of fuel. Thats one way so double it to 2.14L for the roud trip. Let's say fuel is $1.20 per L. So that would cost $2.57, but thats highway fuel economy, and in a relatively fuel economic car, and assuming fuel is only $1.20 (looking online the lowest fuel price today in some parts of Brisbane were $1.26). Factor in rego and CTP (I paid $654.45 for the year), which comes to $1.79 per day (which assumes equal usage across every day). Now drivers licence for 5 years (maximum length and most efficient spend) is currently $75.55, but with the new licences will go up to $96.05 and by 2014-15 will be $152.50, but for this I will use to lower current price, which comes to $0.04 per day.

All up this comes to $2.57+$1.79+$0.04=$4.40 per day, as a minimum.

I haven't included parking for the day here, but the article on October 3 in the car parking thread gave the average maximum price for parking in the CBD of $44. Obviously there would be cheaper, but I can't be bothered at this stage to trawl through all the parking websites looking at their prices.

I'm also certain that rego is not the sole source of money that the government uses to build and maintain roads, but I don't know what the split is.


Meanwhile, looking at the Translink website, the Ferny Grove line is about 16km long and ends in Zone 3 which using the go car in peak periods would cost $3.20 each way for a total of $6.40 for the day, or if you travel off-peak $2.88 each way for a total of $5.76 for the day.

Car, the impossible to achieve minimum of $4.40 for the day.
PT fixed $6.40 in peak or $5.76 off-peak.

You are assuming fares pay the whole expense of building and running public transport. Wrong. For every dollar paid in fares, the government subsidy contributes 5 dollars. (QR transport rail profits also paid some of it before they sold it off.) So we pay six times what we pay in fares. A three zone weekly ticket, which is priced at $37.60, really costs you $225.60.

But that's paper tickets only. On Go Card you pay per trip. You get half price after ten trips each week, you get 10% discount in off-peak times and you don't pay extra for transfers (trips made within one hour of each other). But it's still more expensive than the paper weekly ticket. The paper weekly ticket is equal in price to 12 trips the full number of zones on the ticket, i.e. effectively you pay for 12 trips and pay nothing for subsequent trips that week. So on Go Card, the real cost is even more than for a weekly paper ticket for the number of zones you regularly travel.

I'm a little confused by this.  You get more than 12 journeys (not trips - technically speaking) out of the Go Card before you go over the weekly.  By my calculations, after 10 journeys ($32.00), assuming you are still travelling to/from zones 1-3, you would need to travel on peak fare another 4 times before going over the cost of a zone 1-3 weekly.  Although that's obviously unrealistic, you're more likely to get an extra 2 journeys on off peak half price (after 10 journey fares).

[STB]

Okay, a quick hypothetical...

Pax travels to and from work everyday between Zones 1-3...

Total cost at end of working week on Go Card: $32.00

You're now on half price fares and more than likely will be travelling in off peak so that drops to $1.44/journey

From that you need to travel an extra 4 times (journeys) between zones 1 to 3 on Go Card which = $37.76.

Cost of weekly is $37.60, so you go over by 16c, which is basically equal.  From that one could assume that you travel to and from zones 1-3 on Saturday for whatever reason, and Sunday for whatever reason.  A little more if you travel between zones 1-1 or zones 1-2 or a little less if you travel from zones 1-4 and beyond.  Although, of course, it should be noted that Go Card isn't zone restricted unlike the weekly paper ticket.

Ie: Go card is $3.20/journey (peak), $2.88 (off peak), weekly ticket is $3.76/journey (peak/off peak)

[somebody]

I live in Milton and I work at Geebung. Actually my train trip is 30 minutes, not 20minutes. Relying on public transport is not at all stress free.

Ok, but then you are luckier than most for the driving possibility because your trip to work is counter peak mostly.

I said better parking facilities, not bad ones. With 21st century technology, we could find  a way so that a stadium crowd does not have to take half an hour to all leave the parking area.

That cannot be done.  No one can think of a way it can, and neither can you.

Actually, this is a taste of what could be happenning every day at peak times if most of the populace used public transport for daily commuting.

Yes.  People getting to and from where they are going with a minimum of congestion and traffic.

(3) Waiting half an hour or more while out relaxing on a weekend is not the same as taking the same amount of extra time each day before and after work, which is just extra stress on top of work and cuts into free time outside of work.
- Not my idea of fun.  I'd rather be at home talking about it rather than sitting in the car in a traffic jam talking about it.

The problem raised was waiting to get out of the parking lot, not waiting in traffic on the way home.

Sitting in a parking lot with cars jammed up in front of you IS a traffic jam.

If the fixed costs are high, then is it economical?

Not if it is under-utilised like CityTrain, and CityRail to a lesser degree.  What about Japan, New York, Hong Kong or Singapore, for example?  And you also have the external benefits of reduced congestion and trauma.  In some places, fares completely pay for the service.

That would reduce waiting times, but I was referring to the extra time one has to wait simply because one must be at the stop 5 minutes ahead of the scheduled time for the service, which contributes to the total trip time.

That really only applies to buses, but it is a limitation.

However, I question whether bus and train frequency can be increased without causing congestion in the CBD and large queuing at busway stations

Yes, they can.  Although at the moment there is little room to increase capacity over the Merivale Bridge.  This is why we are going to build Cross River Rail.

What are PT spending and road spending per passenger mile? I know from U.S. sources that train infrastructure spending is far higher. Give me a numerical comparison. Rail lines are far more expensive to build per kilometre than ordinary roads and the cost of building them is repeated every 30 years in maintaining and upgrading them.

Per km?  Maybe, but per unit of capacity PT is far far better.  This is an axiom.

As for a numerical comparison, how about the airport?  Train: $220m.  Road: >$4bn.  If a decent service had been provided on the train, the road wouldn't have been required.

As for your US reference, do you have a source?

(7) Buses do the milk run
- That is not a problem with buses per se, but with Brisbane's management of PT.  And in fact, in many cases buses are quite direct.  The problem is reducing the times that they are not.

By "milk run" I am referring to the fact that a bus must travel by an indirect route to service as many users as practically possible in the area the route goes through, especially in suburbs further out from the city.

I knew what you meant.  And my argument still stands.

( Traffic mobility in peak times can be improved  Providing more multilevel parking in the CBD would mean less driving around for cars stopping there.
- Are you serious?  That would mean more congestion.

Not if roads are upgraded to meet demand. You are probably assuming the "infernal cycle" myth which I refuted in an above post.

No, you did not refute that.  As I said before, all you need to do is look at the example of LA.

(9) That's if there are decent roads to drive quickly on but I guess I'm being unrealistic there aren't I because the Queensland government hasn't addressed that for over twenty years and there are no community groups demanding they do it - and plenty demanding they don't.
- So, the Go Between Bridge and Clem7 were never built, the ICB was never built, Coro was never widened, Ipswich motorway was never widened, Logan motorway never built.  I'm sure others can add numerous other examples, and I am ignoring projects still in progress.  I'm sure the Pacific Motorway and Bruce Highway have been widened in the last 20 years too.

Yes, quite a bit of road building but not necessarily enough and not necessarily of the right kind or design. Listen to the people who actually use them - they don't complain about there being too many drivers, they complain about the obvious mistakes in design.

For example, our freeways don't have stopping lanes. Whenever there is a breakdown or accident, a whole lane is blocked and diverted into the other lanes, slowing them down too. I was told that our planners thought an extra lane to allow more traffic to flow would be better than a stopping lane which would be used only in event of a breakdown. But fewer lanes would be adequate - the only congest when they are blocked by traffic incidents, which happen every day. A stopping lane would eliminate that.

The current levels of road building are not sustainable, and you are suggesting more?

As for mistakes in design, there may be some, but that is dwarfed by the policy failing of attempting to build out congestion.

Stamped out? How authoritarian. Making laws to restrict car use is an admission that PT cannot be made attractive enough for people to want to use it voluntarily. To this you will probably argue that PT cannot be made attractive enough until most people are using it. But I know from experience that most of the unattractive things about PT are inherent and independent of it's size, frequency etc. The simple fact is that any communal, i.e. shared, service is a compromise for all users and therefore greatly restrictive.

It's like the way we have made laws to discourage people from relying on Medicare for their health insurance, because it was believed to be a problem.  That's only one example, I'm sure I could come up with many others.

[ButFli]

What's with all the LA bashing? Has anyone actually been to LA? Yes, it's a sh%t hole. Yes, they seem to have massive roads going every which way. I am yet to see any evidence of this real bad congestion problem they are supposedly crippled by, though. LA does have more of a problem with smog than most cities but that is due to weather and geography rather than an actual car or road problem. LA does have a reputation of having bad traffic, but their traffic jams are nothing compared other "world cities". At least in LA the cars keep moving.

If you want to complain about a city with bad traffic you might want to focus on New York. Most New Yorkers don't even own cars and their public transport use is close to the highest in the world yet their roads are choked all day, every day (not just in rush hour). What's up with that? I can't figure out how that fits in our "PT reduces congestion" theory.

[STB]

I might just throw this interesting fact if I may...

Levels of public transport use vary considerably around the world. An International Union of Public Transport (UITP) study found that the rate of public transport use in selected Australian and New Zealand cities (Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth and Wellington) was relatively low by world standards, with an average of 5% of all trips made using public transport. Cities in the United States (USA) such as Los Angeles and New York recorded similarly low rates (3% of all trips).

http://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/abs@.nsf/Lookup/4102.0Chapter10102008

[ozbob]

New York City is an interesting situation.  Roads are not the go there.

" Eighty-two per cent of Manhattan residents travel to work by public transit, by bicycle, or on foot. That's ten times the rate for Americans in general, and eight times the rate for residents of Los Angeles County. "*

"Most Americans, including most New Yorkers, think of New York City as an ecological nightmare, a wasteland of concrete and garbage and diesel fumes and traffic jams, but in comparison with the rest of America it's a model of environmental responsibility. By the most significant measures, New York is the greenest community in the United States, and one of the greenest cities in the world ... "*

This was presented at the Growth Summit earlier this year.  Interesting view point  http://www.davidowen.net/

* http://www.treehugger.com/files/2006/10/new_york_city_waste.php

[STB]

I was just going to add, that after reading the ABS article in full.  It is quite an interesting read and relevant.

http://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/abs@.nsf/Lookup/4102.0Chapter10102008

[ozbob]

... Public transport systems have the potential to reduce traffic congestion and pollution, as well as providing a relatively low cost method of travel for people who are unable to drive ...

There you go!  Thanks for the link.