Comments on: Is There an Optimal Supply and Demand for Transit?

By: Stephen Cheung

Stephen Cheung — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 19:04:05 +0000

I got 11/15 on that quiz. Pretty good for a suburbanite and a perceived “car advocate who probably never took a subway”. Perhaps you guys should take some lessons from me, huh? (I’m only kidding)

Your remark about the percentage of fares lost for every percentage of fare increase caught my attention. Consider the loss of free parking: assuming one person per car, that is a $6 surcharge and pretty much a 100% increase in fares. By those calculations, only 25% of those fares would be lost. Unfortunately, that is not my impression as a petition that came to my apartment regarding the reinstatement of free parking had mentioned in several polls that “upwards of 85%” of drivers (and their carpoolers) who rely on the parking lots would rather drive downtown instead of forking out the extra money. I would probably rely more on an upwards quadratic (parabolic) relationship rather than a linear relationship. For small fare increases, I can understand the results, but for large and very significant fare increases, it is much more serious and with a greater impact. This is despite my previous 7-8 persons in a minivan example.

By: Trevor

Trevor — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 13:18:33 +0000

One of the things that has concerned me recently is that many/most/perhaps-all the estimates in reports to date do not appear to have taken into consideration the change in usage patterns/volume caused in the past year or so by the price of gas and other economic factor changes. (I understand that most report would not have been able to, since such reports take time to generate.) It should be interesting to see who reports what (and when) about this issue and how it should be factored into budgets, etc. for the future.

By: Bob Brent

Bob Brent — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 02:57:46 +0000

For a totally different (tongue-in-cheek) take on what constitutes a “higher investment in transit” in other parts of the (subway) world, see the Globe & Mail’s delightful “Underground tourism” article (Section T1 Saturday, September 20, 2008) and don’t forget to do the “Subway Know How” quiz.

I scored 8/15 on the quiz and was rated “Average. You are not afraid to venture underground in a new city, but still prefer the bus.”

I want to know if Steve will score 15/15? or somehow flub one answer and only get 14!~

Steve: I got only 8 too. Contrary to popular opinion, I don’t know everything.

By: Beltliner

Beltliner — Sun, 21 Sep 2008 03:52:11 +0000

“For me, it’s a curiosity, one of those reports that sits on my shelf until its value as an historic reference falls below the ever rising pressure for space.”

Good thing I only sent you my report as a soft copy, then, innit?

But seriously — without the benefit of the full report, all I’m seeing from the executive summary put forward by CUTA is a load of figures pulled out of thin air to attempt to justify pseudoscientifically what we already know empirically and want to see confirmed scrupulously.

This presentation does an especial disservice to those of us amongst the Green South Park Republican nomyenklatura out here in The New Centre of the Universe who already know Pasha Weyrich’s arguments chapter and verse and who want to find some way, ANY way, to motivate Stefka to give a wet slap about mass transit as a strategic investment in urban mobility in this new century — his sort have to be rigorously convinced that the higher initial capital investment in mass transit is well repaid in lower operating, maintenance, fuel, and repair costs relative to spending on roads and automotive infrastructure.