posted on Tuesday, July 22, 2008 7:00 AM
by
Jeremy RVARC
All Aboard?
The Roanoke Times has a couple of pieces on the possible return of passenger rail to the Roanoke region. Jeff Sturgeon's
news piece looking at the existing plan and the cost gives a good overview of the challenges facing the implementation of passenger, not the least of which is the cost.
I always find it interesting that, in the language of public transportation, we refer to the public funds that go into operating costs as "subsidy" - something of a negative connotation - and yet the public money that goes into highway construction and maintenance, not to mention the mitigation of externalities like air quality and congestion, is not labeled as such. This
recent study by the Texas Transportation Institute, examining Texas highways, concludes that no road pays for itself - they are all subsidized:
For example, in Houston, the 15 miles of SH 99 from I-10 to US 290 will cost $1 billion to build and maintain over its lifetime, while only generating $162 million in gas taxes. That gives a tax gap ratio of .16, which means that the real gas tax rate people would need to pay on this segment of road to completely pay for it would be $2.22 per gallon.... Some roads pay for about half their true cost, but most roads we have analyzed pay for considerably less.
There's also an
opinion piece offering sound reasons for passenger rail.