Grand River Transit

[chutten]

I don't think that's how a fare level should be determined. I think that fare box recovery ratio is a poor way to set fares. We should instead set fares at a level likely to be able to compete with driving.

Edit: I think we've talked about this before here. People have linked to articles suggesting there are good reasons to ask transit users to pay some amount of their cost, so they feel ownership over the system and so on.

Wow, but it's hard to search the forum usefully. The search page gives you threads, but no useful post-by-post view to see if the terms you're looking for happen in the threads you've found.

Anyway, yes, we did talk about it. Here's my calculations and the surrounding conversation is quite clearly being echoed here.

[jamincan]

I don't think that's how a fare level should be determined. I think that fare box recovery ratio is a poor way to set fares. We should instead set fares at a level likely to be able to compete with driving.

Edit: I think we've talked about this before here. People have linked to articles suggesting there are good reasons to ask transit users to pay some amount of their cost, so they feel ownership over the system and so on.

Wow, but it's hard to search the forum usefully. The search page gives you threads, but no useful post-by-post view to see if the terms you're looking for happen in the threads you've found.

Anyway, yes, we did talk about it. Here's my calculations and the surrounding conversation is quite clearly being echoed here.

If you select "Display Results by Post" or something along those lines, it will break the threads apart into individual posts containing the search terms in the results.

[JoeKW]

If there's one thing I learned here it's that Canard is vastly underestimating the cost of his drive to work.  

[Canard]

[timc]

If there's one thing I learned here it's that Canard is vastly underestimating the cost of his drive to work.  

Quiet you. We don't want to open that discussion again. :-)

[Canard]

Why not? Are you saying it's costing me more than $6.50 to drive 40 km? It's not. There's just nothing more to it than that, I'm afraid.

[JoeKW]

Well it's certainly more than $2.16! It's hard to come up with a good estimate for the Prius so I don't want to use the CRA's 54c/km number but you're not accounting for depreciation and maintenance costs at all. As an example, if you need new tires every 40,000km and your tires cost you $1000 that's an additional 2.5c/km or $1 per 40KM.

I'm not going to attempt to estimate the per KM depreciation of a Prius though... that's out of my wheelhouse.

[Canard]

I have tracked every single cent spent on my car, since it was purchased, with spritmonitor.de. Lifetime (nearly 200,000km) cost per km: $0.08, all in. Fuel, maintenance, tires, repair, insurance, you name it. 40 km daily commute = $3.20. Or, like I said, about a buck above the $2.12 or whatever I posted earlier.

[Canard]

This is so dumb. This thread is about buses. Leave me alone...

[JoeKW]

You forgot depreciation

Also, I think this conversation relates heavily to buses.  You said it yourself, you drive because it's cheaper than taking the bus (which is probably still true) and you, like most people, heavily underestimate the actual cost of driving.

If we can't even get Canard to do the math right, what hope is there for the rest of us... I propose making public transport free.

[ijmorlan]

You forgot depreciation

Also, I think this conversation relates heavily to buses.  You said it yourself, you drive because it's cheaper than taking the bus (which is probably still true) and you, like most people, heavily underestimate the actual cost of driving.

If we can't even get Canard to do the math right, what hope is there for the rest of us... I propose making public transport free.

I fear to jump in on this discussion, but I think Canard is looking at the marginal cost of using the car for driving to work, which is quite different from the total cost of the car. If we assume that he needs to keep the car for purposes unrelated to driving to work, then this is a perfectly reasonable way of evaluating the cost of driving to work. One can only eliminate depreciation, insurance, etc., by eliminating the car entirely. I can't say if anybody is making any other estimation errors but marginal vs. total cost is a pretty big difference that is very relevant.

Re: making public transport free, this idea should be taken much more seriously than it is. I don't know of any jurisdictions in which local roads are tolled so I don't see why local transit service necessarily needs to have a fee attached to it.

[Markster]

If there's one thing I learned here it's that Canard is vastly underestimating the cost of his drive to work.  

Quiet you. We don't want to open that discussion again. :-)

This is so dumb. This thread is about buses. Leave me alone...

Yeah, I am inclined to agree with these posts.

We can put an end to the discussion of the costs of driving, and I am giving that the stamp of moderator approval. If you want to continue it, please take it to another thread.

[rangersfan]

I don't know if I have posted this before but a couple of years ago we traveled to Iceland. The second largest urban area or 4th largest city Akureyria the northern end of Iceland has free public transportation throughout the city.

Akureyri's population is less than 20k and is near the Arctic Circle and they have free public transportation I don't see how it couldn't be possible elsewhere.

[Canard]

Perhaps it has to do with the way it scales? i.e., in a town of 20k, you might only need a couple of "Bus-Plus" sized buses. But in Waterloo Region there are hundreds of big buses, with a huge depot, etc. and maybe the cost of maintenance doesn't scale linearly with the population like that? (I don't know, I'm just throwing it out there)

(I loved Iceland, too!)

I know I said the KC Streetcar was free, but I should have mentioned that only the new Streetcar line is free - their bus and BRT system still has a fare.

[panamaniac]

As one who drives everywhere and never takes the bus, I find the idea of cost being a factor in the "car or bus" decision a bit surprising, at least in a K-W context.  I one can afford the car, one drives, no?  At least in the vast majority of cases.  I suppose if one had to pay for parking at work, etc, it might lead to some shift.