03-23-2017, 11:47 AM
The one thing that I wonder about is, when council decides that GRT needs a 50% cost recovery ratio, could (in support of fares) the feds decide that direct funding had to be counted on the rider portion of those equations? Say, provide GRT with 5% of its annual costs, but require this to be placed on the rider side of targets? I feel like part of the risk of direct funding is that a council will take it and add it to the council side of the ledger, and use it, effectively, to lower the amount that property tax funds transit, while not changing how much transit fares fund transit, which translates into having "transit funding" support cars, by way of being redistributed across the tax base, the largest share of which is drivers, while doing nothing to improve service or lower transit costs to users.