> Yeah, having lived in the Mission beginning in 1981,
Me too! Where in the Mission do you live? (I'm at 25th and
Bryant.)
> Various studies suggest that ridership *is* sensitive to price.
> The loss of roughly a quarter of transit ridership in the UK
> (outside London) after the Thatcher privatization is generally
> attributed to the fare increases, for example.
You defeat your own arguement, here, with your modifier
"outside London." London ridership is insensitive to price
precisely because it is a dense inner city and people have
no real choice. British Rail (and its commercial spinoffs)
are outstandingly expensive, so people choose to drive when
they can. Fortunately, Britian is still relatively "road
constrained" so rail travel is still an important method of
transport there.
Likewise, I suspect that whilst BART _is_ sensitive to
price, MUNI is not. Whatever you do to MUNI's price, it
will not increase the available parking, and the
approximately eighty-percent of downtown workers who take
public transit is not likely to change (although if the
price got high enough you could probably drive people and
jobs out of the city, but MUNI is a long way from there).
(Incidentally, in my opinion, this is one of the best
arguements for keeping jobs downtown; it forces people not
to drive.)
> Low income riders in particular will simply use the system
> less when the fare goes up.
So, what are they going to do? They can't park either.
Which doesn't mean that the poor should not be helped. But
transportation subsidies should be given to those who need
it, not applied across the board. The latter only prevents
MUNI from getting money she needs -- note the article in
yesterday's EXAMINER that MUNI now needs more money because
the ridership decline during the ATCS fiasco cost the agency
(as I recall) $2 million. Riders do provide a significant
portion of MUNI's budget, and middle class riders should
provide more of it. You get what you pay for, and we are
certainly getting the MUNI service that we pay for. Just
wait until it's "free".
-- Donald
_________________________
Donald F. Robertson
San Francisco
donaldrf@hooked.net
Donald's Space Exploration page:
http://www.hooked.net/~donaldrf/index.html
The known is finite, the unknown is infinite; intellectually
we stand on an islet in the midst of an illimitable ocean of
inexplicability. Our business in every generation is to
reclaim a little more land. -- Thomas Huxley.