Even if you think what you would say is obvious, please add. This is genuinely something I think makes sense regarding local bus routes given the longevity of light rail and how infrequently routes change, but I also suffer from confirmation bias, so I’m hoping for reasons this would be a terrible idea but obviously would prefer reasons it would be an even more amazing idea than I thought.

  • NaibofTabrEnglish
    10•10 months ago

    no one has ever said a light railway doesn’t pay for itself.

    Most metro rail systems lose money. They cost more to operate than they generate in fare revenue.

    This is OK because they provide a useful public service and should be funded by tax dollars. Light rail should not be expected to turn a profit. It should be expected to benefit the community it serves, which it generally does.

    • @azimir@lemmy.ml
      5•10 months ago

      I want to know when the cars on the roads will have to turn a profit on a per-trip basis. People seem to demand that public transit be profitable for some insane reason, but in general never ask the cars pay their own way around town.

      Both the roads and mass transit are services, just like the post office and the military. They’re costs of having civilization, not some kind of business enterprise the government is undertaking.

        • NaibofTabrEnglish
          3•10 months ago

          Heh, well, if the petroleum industry and the development of automobiles ends up destroying the environment, then the cost-benefit analysis would seem to be moot.

        • @azimir@lemmy.ml
          1•10 months ago

          That I don’t know, but I assume there’s at least a few models doing that calculation. It’s hard to be accurate as your impact scale goes outward, but I can assure you it’s not going to look good for gas powered cars on the global scale calculations. They’re really hard on the planet and the people around them.

      • NaibofTabrEnglish
        2•10 months ago

        Both the roads and mass transit are services, just like the post office and the military. They’re costs of having civilization, not some kind of business enterprise the government is undertaking.

        Kind of depends on how you look at it… If you consider that the government’s ultimate goal is to grow the economy so that it can collect more tax revenue, then the entire country is the government’s enterprise. Improving the enterprise’s infrastructure would seem like an obviously beneficial expenditure.

        It’s more abstract, but the real question is whether spending more tax money on mass transit would benefit society more than if the money were spent on something else.