Case study Colorado: "Free" transit only highlights systemic transportation inequities
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For those who do the math, "free" transit days only serve to daylight the hundreds of dollars in subsidies that backstop every public transit ride—wouldn't the money be better spent just giving it to transit-needy in the form of vouchers? Jon Calara opines in Coloradopolitics.com.
“Free” rides don’t improve ridership because RTD is already nearly free, 95% government subsidized. Said differently, a $5.50 “all day” ticket actually costs $110 in expenses, with taxpayers picking up the difference.
Imagine if, instead of charging $5.50, RTD offered its riders $103.50 (one less dollar than the real cost) not to ride the bus. Who wouldn’t take that deal? And RTD would save money in the process!
Instead of “free” fares on Transit Equity Day, RTD should charge full fare without subsidies, the full $110, and educate the transit dependent how little service they get for the money spent in their name.
Like most transit agencies formed and funded under the “war on poverty,” RTD’s mission was to serve those who couldn’t afford a car. The mission was never to disproportionately tax the poor, via sales tax, to subsidize white suburbanites who have cars but wish to avoid paying for parking at Nuggets games.
If there is such a thing as systemic racism, governments like Colorado’s Regional Transportation District are the greatest oppressors. They build systems designed to guarantee people with money are free to go places where the least among us can’t follow.
Without mobility to bring you where you need to be, when you need to be there, you will forever be a second-class citizen. You won’t have the opportunities for employment, housing and education someone with the most run-down car will have. You’ll be forced to live and work on a bus route, and you better have your family, friends, medical care and churches on that route, too.
Don’t believe me? Go a month without a car.
If RTD’s elected board of directors weren’t the racists they are, if they weren’t beholden to crony business interests, if they cared more for the transit dependent they were entrusted to serve than their own empire-building, they would immediately take their 95% tax subsidy and give it directly to the transit-dependent poor in the form of mobility vouchers.
Read the whole thing here.
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