06-01-2017, 07:18 PM
(06-01-2017, 06:13 PM)danbrotherston Wrote: If you took that same 250 dollar per household tax bill and instead invested it in enhanced service rather than free transit, would that gain more ridership? There's a good chance it would.
I do agree that it would gain substantial ridership. $250 would provide a 50% increase in the regional transit budget; the free-transit-equivalent (see below) $150 would add about 30% to the transit budget. There doesn't appear to be a lot of appetite for increasing the transit budget, though. (The free-transit is a whole different beast, and might also be unacceptable.)
NOTE: Free transit would cost about $150/household, not $250. My apologies for sloppy math in the earlier post. ($32M passenger revenue vs $54M regional subsidy.
I didn't see any data how these numbers will be impacted by the LRT when it starts operating.