History of Local Rail Transportation (Columbus, Cleveland: hotel, casino, live)

[Wilson513]

Originally Posted by JR_C

How much are "your" highways subsidized with my (and other non-drivers') tax dollars?

I'm only looking for equal representation, not a handout. IIRC, approximately 14% of Ohioans of driving age don't drive. In 2007, 24% of ODOT's budget, about $1.3 billion, (of $5.4 billion total) came from non-user fees. Yet, ODOT has just announced that they will be increasing their mass-transit budget to a whopping $50 million, from $10 million. As far as I'm concerned, ODOT should be spending 14% of that $1.3 billion (or about $180 million) on alternate forms of transportation, like passenger trains.

DISCLAIMER: If an expert feels that I have incorrect information, or have misinterpreted the numbers, please let me know.

Of course you are wrong. We drivers pay $.46 per gallon of gas to fund ODOT. About $.17 of that goes to the federal government and comes back to Ohio in the form of grants.

How much does an Ohio resident without a car pay towards the ODOT budget? Zero. So now you want some more of our highway fuel tax for the stupid trains? I don't think so. . . .

And, here are the links to prove it:

http://www.dot.state.oh.us/policy/20...t_Proforma.pdf



About 4 percent, or more than $50 million, of ODOT’s annual budget
comes from non-user, non-fuel tax sources such as leases, fees and general
revenue funds. Much of that is already directed to ODOT expenses which
are unaffected by All Aboard Ohio’s suggested budget offsets.

http://members.cox.net/corridorscamp...%20Transit.pdf

[Ohioan58]

Maybe let's turn this around for a second. WHAT FACTORS make the bullet trains in China and Japan economically viable? And what factors make local rail like BART work?

I suspect it's having urban concentrations of hundreds of thousands of commuters with no other viable choices.

Not Cincinnati nor Cleveland's current or future problem.

[JR_C]

Originally Posted by wilson1010

Of course you are wrong. We drivers pay $.46 per gallon of gas to fund ODOT. About $.17 of that goes to the federal government and comes back to Ohio in the form of grants.

How much does an Ohio resident without a car pay towards the ODOT budget? Zero. So now you want some more of our highway fuel tax for the stupid trains? I don't think so. . . .

And, here are the links to prove it:

http://www.dot.state.oh.us/policy/20...t_Proforma.pdf



About 4 percent, or more than $50 million, of ODOT’s annual budget
comes from non-user, non-fuel tax sources such as leases, fees and general
revenue funds. Much of that is already directed to ODOT expenses which
are unaffected by All Aboard Ohio’s suggested budget offsets.

http://members.cox.net/corridorscamp...%20Transit.pdf

This is what I've been "haning my hat on:"

ROAD AND HIGHWAY SUBSIDIES IN OHIO, 2007

Expenditures
Ohio Total Disbursements Local- $2,103,502,000
Ohio Total Disbursements State- $3,318,806,000

Total Disbursements - $5,422,302,000

Revenue from End User Fees
State Gas Tax- $1,866,206,000
State Vehicle Tax- $733,939,000
Tolls- $201,155,000
Total State- $2,801,300,000

Federal Gasoline Tax- $1,335,416,000

Total Revenue- $4,136,716,000

Subsidy- $1,285,586,000

I didn't do these calculations, and haven't checked their work. But here is where they got their information. It appears the calculations could be done for 2008, now.

Highway Statistics Publications - HSS - Policy Information - FHWA

If they were incorrect, please show where.

[jjakucyk]

There's a big difference between ODOT's budget and the overall road budget. It's important to realize just how little of the gas tax actually goes to most of the road network. Even if you take out the earmarks for transit, policing, and non-road uses (and this is for both Federal and State gas taxes), it still only pays for 2/3 of highway costs. With all those other things, the number goes down to 1/2.

The important thing to realize however, and this is not dealt with in most analyses, so the public is even more misinformed about it, is that this is just for HIGHWAYS. That is interstates, US highways, and state routes. I'm not sure how or if county roads fit into the paradigm. The point is that in any built-up area, unless a road has a numbered interstate/US/state shield, then it's not getting any gas tax money at all. Some local roads do fit this definition, such as Linwood Avenue, Montgomery Road, Reading Road, Hamilton Avenue, and Glenway Avenue here in Cincinnati, but the vast majority of surface streets are entirely the responsibility of the local municipality. If they don't collect their own additional gas tax or neighborhood parking fees, then all the money is coming from the city's/county's/township's general fund. That's something most people don't understand about just how massively subsidized the road network is.

Of course, local streets serve much more uses than limited access freeways. They're for driving and parking cars yes, but they're also for pedestrians, bicycles, buses, freight trucks, deliveries, trash removal, emergency access, utility rights-of-way, drainage, neighborhood block parties and parades, and even open space. Most of these uses were around before cars and trucks, of course. However, since their introduction, the cost of maintaining such roads has still grown a lot. Since dirt or even brick paving is not generally adequate anymore, we've greatly increased not only the cost of building and maintaining the road surface, but also for additional sewer capacity and pollution. I don't want to get too much deeper into it right now, but suffice it to say that there's a huge amount of the road network that's not anywhere close to being user funded. In this case it might be ok because there's so many disparate uses, but it also means we shouldn't preference one particular use without making it bear a proportionate amount of the costs.

Also, the notion that passenger rail is not scalable is ludicrous. Of course there's limits, but trains of all sorts take up way less space to move the same number of people as highways. Take for example the CTA Red Line in Chicago. It handles about 200,000 people per day on a double-track heavy rapid transit line. To move that same number of people by car requires at minimum an 8 lane highway (4 lanes each way). A 4-track railroad can handle as many people as the 405 freeway in Los Angeles, while taking up 1/3 as much space.

Also consider that transit, up until it starts bumping against physical limits like the number of tracks, platform lengths, or space between vehicles, operates better when it's more heavily used. When the system gets busier, more cars are added, frequency is increased, and thus convenience and accessibility is improved. The opposite is true for roads. The more they're used, the slower and less predictable they become. When transit systems reach their aforementioned physical limits, it's much easier to add a third passing track or a parallel line than it is to widen a highway or to build a new highway that takes up so much more space.

[Wilson513]

Originally Posted by JR_C

This is what I've been "haning my hat on:"


I didn't do these calculations, and haven't checked their work. But here is where they got their information. It appears the calculations could be done for 2008, now.

Highway Statistics Publications - HSS - Policy Information - FHWA

If they were incorrect, please show where.

Your link is not helpful. It links to an index of hundreds of tables. Without looking at the table in question, I note that you have included the local subsidy for bus services etc. such as Queen City Metro which has nothing to do with ODOT. The link I provided above shows the ODOT revenues and expenses, actual and projected. Try looking at ODOT if you want to know what ODOT revenues are.

[jjakucyk]

Here's an analysis I put together from the FHWA tables for another forum. It's not focused on Ohio specifically, but the nation as a whole.


Disposition of State Motor-Fuel Tax Receipts - 2008
Table MF-3 - Highway Statistics 2008 - FHWA

In 2008 the states had just under $38 billion in state gas taxes to distribute.

49% ($18.8 billion) of state gas taxes go to pay for state administered highways.
29% ($11.1 billion) pay for local roads and streets.
12% ($4.5 billion) pays for mass transit
The rest goes to state non-highway uses, the state's general fund, and other things. What they consider local roads and streets is not quite the same as what most people think.

Funding For Highways and Disposition of Highway-User Revenues, All Units of Government, 2008
Table HF-10 - Highway Statistics 2008 - FHWA

Disposition of Highway-User Revenue
67.06% ($122.1 billion) in receipts available for distribution as percent of total disbursement for highways
...$36.6 billion Federal, $80.1 billion State, $5.4 billion Local
-4.56% (-$8.3 billion) for non-highway purposes
-8.38% (-$15.2 billion) for mass transit
-2.35% (-$4.2 billion) for collection expenses
-0.06% (-$103 million) for territories

51.72% ($94.1 billion) net total

So this means that the total receipts for user fees, most of which are State and Federal gas taxes, only cover 67% of of the amount spent on roads. Other uses for those funds decrease the amount available to road projects to just under 52%. That means the remaining 48% must be subsidized from other sources.

Revenues Used for Highways
51.72% ($94.1 billion) from user fees (gas taxes and tolls)
4.57% ($8.3 billion) from local property taxes
22.19% ($40.4 billion) from general fund appropriations
...$10.6 billion Federal, $6.8 billion State, $23 billion Local
6.84% ($12.4 billion) from other taxes and fees
9.60% ($17.5 billion) from investment income and other receipts
10.95% ($19.9 billion) from bond issue proceeds
-5.86% (-$10.7 billion) to intergovernmental payments

100% ($182 billion) net total

[sandasene]

One of our kids attends college in the Bay Area of California. For the first two years, he did use the trains systems there to get to and from San Fran on the few occasions he went. But this year he took his car. He is taking a class in the San Fran area and the trains are not worth his time. It takes longer to get there than driving. Not to metion having to know where and when to switch from the BART to the CalTrain.

I wouldn't personally take a train from Cincy to Columbus to Cleveland. Where are the studies of who the ridership would be?

[jjakucyk]

Here's the main study: http://www.dot.state.oh.us/Divisions/Rail/Programs/passenger/3CisME/AmtracReport/FINAL_3C_QUICKSTART_AMTRAK_STUDY_FULL_REPORT_12_18 _09.pdf (broken link)

[kjbrill]

Originally Posted by sandasene

One of our kids attends college in the Bay Area of California. For the first two years, he did use the trains systems there to get to and from San Fran on the few occasions he went. But this year he took his car. He is taking a class in the San Fran area and the trains are not worth his time. It takes longer to get there than driving. Not to metion having to know where and when to switch from the BART to the CalTrain.

I wouldn't personally take a train from Cincy to Columbus to Cleveland. Where are the studies of who the ridership would be?

Study - what study? These things are built on pure speculation, obsolete data, and whatever else the proponents can drag into the picture. I am sure the projected ridership includes every current passenger on Greyhound, I guess they are simply toast, even though with all their stops they may actually beat the train.

Oh sorry, I am sure there are plenty of studies. That is one thing we are not lacking for in this country. Everytime I look at a study, and who is responsible for it, I go What? Another non-profit, making a claim for something. I would like to see some statistics comparing the number of people & salaries working for private profit-oriented companies in this country versus the same for non-profits.

[jjakucyk]

Originally Posted by kjbrill

Study - what study? These things are built on pure speculation, obsolete data, and whatever else the proponents can drag into the picture.

I could say exactly the same thing about highway expansion programs too.