(11-09-2015, 04:51 PM)SammyOES Wrote: And again, the cost of land/construction isn't necessarily being subsidized by the city. It's often being born by the developer and ultimately the home owners on that street. And given that a home owner is paying more in property tax than someone that doesn't use a street like that - its not obvious how much of the increased maintenance cost is an actual subsidy.
Municipalities in Ontario have been making it clear for a while now that the development charges they are allowed to charge do not actually cover the capital cost associated with new developments. I have read that development charges cover half, three quarters, whatever. But, no, the development charges born by the developer and home purchasers do not cover the whole thing- the rest of the capital cost is an initial subsidy by existing ratepayers.
That's the first thing.
Second, when you say "...given that a home owner is paying more in property tax than someone that doesn't use a street like that..." that doesn't make sense. Our property taxes are not based on the infrastructure we consume and the resources we use (in Waterloo Region, neither are our utilities). They are based exclusively on the market value of our property. On BuildingScout's hypothetical cul-de-sac, there may be eight houses sharing sixty metres of road that is of no use to anyone else at all (since it doesn't connect to anywhere else). The residents of those houses will be completely car-dependent and may inflict many times more wear and tear on our roads than someone living in a condo downtown. But, if that condo and one of those eight cul-de-sac homes are assessed at the same value, both pay exactly the same amount to maintain our roads. I don't think it's hard to see the cross-subsidy there.
And, to tie it back somewhat to the topic of this thread, that cross-subsidy will be a lot more significant than the few dollars a transit user's trip might be subsidized, especially taking into account that the transit user might be saving the municipality some costs by not putting another private vehicle on the road.