Time to Shut the Money-Loser Down "It would cost significantly less to give every daily round-trip rider a new Toyota Prius every single year for those 30 years." More below. Back when Maddogsson was in about 7th grade he wanted to do a project on how much money TriMet, and Max saved in both costs, and pollution. He was shocked to find that the system only collected about 20% of daily costs at the fare box, and the pollution created per passenger was about the same amount as the average Chevy Suburban with the average number of riders (1.6 at the time, since it is now 1.7 the Suburban would almost certainly now win that calculation, it was very close back then). While it was outside the scope of his project we also calculated how much money MAX needed to be setting aside on a per passenger basis to be ready for the Complete Recapitalization costs at the end of the 40 year capital lifespan. I no longer remember the amount but it was breathtakingly large, something like $40-50 per rider per trip.
Since the federal government mostly pays for this up front cost, to would only make sense for the fare to calculate in this amount. Sadly by not doing this TriMet loses the time value of money. The problem, of course, is no one would ride for anywhere near the real fare cost where the fare paid for 100% of operating costs, maintenance, and capital cost. If I remember correctly Maddogsson determined that the system could provide a low cost auto (I don't remember the brand but probably a small Hyundai), and more than 10,000 miles worth of gasoline for the operating costs, and maintenance costs of the MAX line for each commuter. We also determined that if this happened it would only add an additional 2.3 autos onto the roadways per 100 existing autos (during the commute it would have added 7.4 autos per 100). From these numbers we decided that transit does nothing to reduce traffic congestion, since it has removed billions of dollars from roadbuilding but does not remove auto passengers. Those billions added back into the roadway system would have reduced congestion even with the marginally greater number of auto passengers, and autos on the roadways.
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