A thought on the "city" versus the "suburbs" of Dayton (Hamilton: 2013, employment)

[ohio_peasant]

The debate of mass transit vs. highways, is interminable. It's hopeless to advance the discussion in a context such as this, let alone to effect a solution. But I would like to note that Dayton is unusual in its low ratio of core-city population, to overall metro-area population. I'm sure that a person living in Connecticut or central New Jersey would have little reason to support funding for the NYC subway, but an enormous percentage of the NYC metro area's population is reached by said subway. How many Miami Valley residents are within access of Dayton city-based buses? So, yes, of course, a public resource such as libraries or parks or buses can't possibly benefit everyone or benefit everyone equally. And that by itself isn't necessarily a reason to cut taxes and budgets, slashing services and having residents fend for themselves (but also save on taxes). But if the many are taxed for the benefit of the few, then we have a problem.

Another data point: several of my Wright-Patt colleagues live in Cincinnati or Columbus, and commute 60+ miles in each direction, each day. Why? Because they crave the city-lifestyle, but so abhor Dayton-city, that to them the commute is justified.

[Amandarthegreat]

Originally Posted by hensleya1

Tell me how many Centerville residents use RTA to get to their job near Austin Landing?

Or how many Kettering/Beavercreek residents use RTA to get to WPAFB?
(Hint: the answer to this one is definitely "zero" because there is only one bus that even enters the base and it goes straight from the hub.)

Or how many workers actually use route 1 to get to their job on Pentagon Boulevard?

The answer to all of these is either "zero" or extremely close to zero. The bus is inaccessible, incompatible, or undesirable for many Dayton area residents... but everyone in the county has to pony up in sales and property taxes to subsidize the transit system.

I'm not advocating abolishing the transit system altogether - but I'm tired of watching subsidies account for 86% of its operating budget. It's time transit users acknowledge the full cost of each trip taken on public transit - which in the case of a bus is closer to $10 or $12 per trip.

The capital cost of building a facility and buying vehicles is not cheap. Maintaining them is not cheap. And hiring professional drivers is not cheap. Transit isn't a bad idea per se - but it's time that suburban residents who never use it stop having to pay for someone else's benefit.

I'm willing to bet it's a sizeable amount seeing as those routes exist. As for your last line: *everyone* buys something or uses something that is subsidized. You can't just play the ol' 'I don't use it so I don't want to pay for it' game.

[SWOH]

Originally Posted by Amandarthegreat

I'm willing to bet it's a sizeable amount seeing as those routes exist. As for your last line: *everyone* buys something or uses something that is subsidized. You can't just play the ol' 'I don't use it so I don't want to pay for it' game.

Especially since the government built and owns those roads you drive on....

As well as 30' on each side on the center line if it is a rural road, more if it is an urban one.

[Amandarthegreat]

Originally Posted by SWOH

Especially since the government built and owns those roads you drive on....

As well as 30' on each side on the center line if it is a rural road, more if it is an urban one.

Exactly! It's an asinine argument...and especially hilarious arguing this on the internet. 'Keep your guv'mint hands offa my Social Security' indeed.

[CarpathianPeasant]

Originally Posted by Amandarthegreat

Exactly! It's an asinine argument...and especially hilarious arguing this on the internet. 'Keep your guv'mint hands offa my Social Security' indeed.

Senator Paul isn't far.

[hensleya1]

Originally Posted by Amandarthegreat

I'm willing to bet it's a sizeable amount seeing as those routes exist. As for your last line: *everyone* buys something or uses something that is subsidized. You can't just play the ol' 'I don't use it so I don't want to pay for it' game.

The sales tax that subsidizes RTA is a flat percentage. Ditto the property taxes in terms of mills.

But someone in Washington Township is going to pay far more in tax than someone in Trotwood - 0.5% of a higher income is going to add up to a lot of money. And your typical house in the further suburbs may be worth 10 times as much as one in the city... and thus pay 10 times as much tax to subsidize the core city. Essentially, the more you pay into the system, the less you actually receive in benefits.

And the whole argument that "roads are subsidized" is absolute rubbish. Roads pay for themselves - drivers pay gas tax every time they fill up the tank.

The only reason the highway trust fund has a shortfall is because for 30 years Congress has raided the highway trust fund to subsidize mass transit.

Stop the subsidies and the highway trust fund will be solvent. But make transit riders pay the true cost of maintaining the system - a bus fare should be $10 or $12 per trip, because that's the real cost of keeping the buses on the road.

[Amandarthegreat]

Originally Posted by hensleya1

The sales tax that subsidizes RTA is a flat percentage. Ditto the property taxes in terms of mills.

But someone in Washington Township is going to pay far more in tax than someone in Trotwood - 0.5% of a higher income is going to add up to a lot of money. And your typical house in the further suburbs may be worth 10 times as much as one in the city... and thus pay 10 times as much tax to subsidize the core city. Essentially, the more you pay into the system, the less you actually receive in benefits.

And the whole argument that "roads are subsidized" is absolute rubbish. Roads pay for themselves - drivers pay gas tax every time they fill up the tank.

The only reason the highway trust fund has a shortfall is because for 30 years Congress has raided the highway trust fund to subsidize mass transit.

Stop the subsidies and the highway trust fund will be solvent. But make transit riders pay the true cost of maintaining the system - a bus fare should be $10 or $12 per trip, because that's the real cost of keeping the buses on the road.

You're wrong. Federal subsidies pay for just shy of half of the roads. Gasoline Taxes and User Fees Pay for Only Half of State & Local Road Spending | Tax Foundation

I've already told you once before; the suburbs are federally subsidized up the wazoo. For example, there are no tax breaks for renters and no FHA loans for tenants. One of the reasons that suburbanites pay more in taxes is because there is a lot more maintenance required for upkeep: windy roads take longer to plow than a grid, light population density over a huge area means more police and firefighters are needed to cover that amount of land. All that big box development is subsidized, and so on.

[hensleya1]

Originally Posted by Amandarthegreat

You're wrong. Federal subsidies pay for just shy of half of the roads. Gasoline Taxes and User Fees Pay for Only Half of State & Local Road Spending | Tax Foundation

I've already told you once before; the suburbs are federally subsidized up the wazoo. For example, there are no tax breaks for renters and no FHA loans for tenants. One of the reasons that suburbanites pay more in taxes is because there is a lot more maintenance required for upkeep: windy roads take longer to plow than a grid, light population density over a huge area means more police and firefighters are needed to cover that amount of land. All that big box development is subsidized, and so on.

50.4% - the number cited in your article - is still more than twice the 22.5% share that user fees cover on all mass transit.

As I've cited earlier, the share of user fees as a percentage of transit funding in Dayton is still lower than the national average - about 14%.

***

Truth is, the percentage of miles traveled by transit has not budged in decades, despite hundreds of billions of dollars of investment in transit at the federal, state, and local levels.

It's time that we reexamine our infrastructure priorities in an era of a tight economy and look to where we can get the greatest return on investment - our roads.

[ohio_peasant]

Originally Posted by Amandarthegreat

I've already told you once before; the suburbs are federally subsidized up the wazoo. For example, there are no tax breaks for renters and no FHA loans for tenants. One of the reasons that suburbanites pay more in taxes is because there is a lot more maintenance required for upkeep: windy roads take longer to plow than a grid, light population density over a huge area means more police and firefighters are needed to cover that amount of land. All that big box development is subsidized, and so on.

Many of these subsidies are for house-ownership, rather than for suburban vs. urban living. It's true that rental-units are more common in the city than in the suburbs, but the fact remains that what's subsidized is ownership itself.

It's also true that per capita, public services are easier to render when the population density is higher. This applies to transit, emergency-response, utility-connections and so forth. By such reckoning, the city subsidizes the suburbs, and both subsidize the countryside.

However, this relationship reverses when we consider property values and incomes. If we had a core city with $1M houses and household incomes of $250K - as for example happens quite commonly in Washington DC - then indeed we could reasonably say that there's no likely flow of funding from suburb to city, and if anything, it might be the reverse. But that's not what we have in the Miami Valley. In the Miami Valley, we have $70K houses in Dayton-city, $90K houses in Riverside and Huber Heights, $150K houses in Beavercreek and Bellbrook, and $300K houses in Sugarcreek and Washington Townships. We have, to put it politely, low-income earners in the City of Dayton, the lower middle class in Riverside, the middle class in Beavercreek, and what passes for the upper middle class in Sugarcreek.

The tension between city and suburb brooks no reconciliation. It's inevitable. But what makes it so perverse in the Miami Valley, is that our core city is so impoverished, our inner suburbs are only marginally better, and out outlying suburbs are doing fairly well.

[Amandarthegreat]

Originally Posted by hensleya1

50.4% - the number cited in your article - is still more than twice the 22.5% share that user fees cover on all mass transit.

As I've cited earlier, the share of user fees as a percentage of transit funding in Dayton is still lower than the national average - about 14%.

***

Truth is, the percentage of miles traveled by transit has not budged in decades, despite hundreds of billions of dollars of investment in transit at the federal, state, and local levels.

It's time that we reexamine our infrastructure priorities in an era of a tight economy and look to where we can get the greatest return on investment - our roads.

Evidence shows that public transit use is currently the highest it's been since the 1960s and for every dollar put into public transit, $1.70 is put into the economy. In Dayton itself, a change in funding or cessation of funding will impact ~1000 jobs and remove $3.8 million from the local economy. http://www.apta.com/resources/report...investment.pdf Roads and sprawl are unsustainable and toxic. Nice dodge on the rest of it.