Pretty Amazing

[Kahta]

I was reading about Amtrak-- I never realized how low their ridership numbers are. Compare the downeaster to the Maine Turnpike...


http://www.maineturnpike.com/About-the-MTA/Southern-Toll-Plaza-Replacement.aspx

16 million vehicles per year through the York Toll Plaza. Fully self-funded. Basically the economic lifeline of Maine. Compare that with the downeaster....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Downeaster#Ridership

500,000 riders a year and it's considered to be a "success"-- only half of the revenue comes from riders.

 

[Matthew]

I'm trying to figure out how you think these two things are comparable. The Downeaster is a long distance passenger train which passes through three states. Amtrak tends to run those rather inefficiently. Too much staffing, only five round trips a day, and it's at the whim of the various freight and commuter traffic along the way. Speaking of which, shouldn't you include the profitability of the Pan Am Railways company whose tracks these are outside of MBTA territory?

The "Maine turnpike" only exists inside Maine and doesn't extend to Boston (in name). I'm glad to hear it's self-sufficient on tolls though.

 

[jass]

I'm trying to figure out how you think these two things are comparable. The Downeaster is a long distance passenger train which passes through three states. Amtrak tends to run those rather inefficiently. Too much staffing, only five round trips a day, and it's at the whim of the various freight and commuter traffic along the way. Speaking of which, shouldn't you include the profitability of the Pan Am Railways company whose tracks these are outside of MBTA territory?

The "Maine turnpike" only exists inside Maine and doesn't extend to Boston (in name). I'm glad to hear it's self-sufficient on tolls though.

Yeah, hes comparing apples to grenades.


What to compare apples to oranges at least?

Greyhound vs amtrak.

Or a single track vs a single highway lane.


Comparing a service to infrastructure makes no sense on any level.

 

[Commuting Boston Student]

Hey Kahta, Amtrak gets 479,000 riders a year at Back Bay Station alone.

At least pretend you're trying to give Amtrak a fair shake and run that number up against the number of cars through the Allston-Brighton Plaza.

 

[Kahta]

The analogy goes for downeaster vs I-95.... I should have been more clear.

At least pretend you're trying to give Amtrak a fair shake and run that number up against the number of cars through the Allston-Brighton Plaza.

479,000 passengers a year is about 1,300 a day. The MassPike west of the allston tolls does about 130,000 a day.

http://mhd.ms2soft.com/tcds/tsearch.asp?loc=Mhd&mod=

 

[Lurker]

Still not a fair comparison. You'd need to track vehicles making the same trip from origin to final destination as Amtrak trains and have a passenger count.

 

[datadyne007]

Wtf... Comparing the volume of 8 highway lanes to a train that caries a limited volume on a few tracks makes no sense.

 

[Lrfox]

In addition to what's already been said, the toll may help the Turnpike break even, but you're forgetting that literally every other public roadway in Maine (as is the case in most other states) is heavily subsidized and average car ownership for U.S. citizens is still in the ballpark of $9,000 per year or $.60 per mile.

 

[massmotorist]

User fees (tolls, excise tax, registration and licensing fees) and taxes (gas taxes) paid by drivers exceed the cost of maintaining roadways significantly. I don't recall the numbers exactly, but it's in the realm of 120 billion paid by drivers to 90 billion spent on roads.

The dialogue about Amtrak becomes silly because it's forced to run lots of unprofitable routes unsuitable for rail travel as well as routes on corridors that are ideal for it. If they shut down the useless routes and beefed up the good ones, we'd all be much better off.

 

[Matthew]

User fees (tolls, excise tax, registration and licensing fees) and taxes (gas taxes) paid by drivers exceed the cost of maintaining roadways significantly. I don't recall the numbers exactly, but it's in the realm of 120 billion paid by drivers to 90 billion spent on roads.

That's simply incorrect. User fees do not pay for the cost of roadways. That's one of the reasons why Congress has had to inject several dozen billion dollars into the Highway Trust Fund lately.

Here's a great report for you to check out: Do Roads Pay For Themselves?

Highways do not—and, except for brief periods in our nation’s history—never have paid for themselves through the taxes that
highway advocates label “user fees.” Yet highway advocates continue to suggest they do in an attempt to secure preferential access to scarce public resources and to shape how those resources are spent. To have a meaningful national debate over transportation policy—particularly at
a time of tight public budgets—it is important to get past the myths and address the real, difficult choices America must make for the 21
st century.

...

Since 1947, the amount of money spent on highways, roads and streets has exceeded the amount raised through gasoline taxes and other
so-called “user fees” by $600 billion (2005 dollars), representing a massive
transfer of general government funds to highways.

Agreed about Amtrak though. Since it's a political animal, it is subject to a lot of Congressional meddling. And unfriendly, incompetent FRA regulation.

 

[massmotorist]

That PIRG report's revenue estimates are wrong. The report is based upon FHWA's Highway Statistics. Highway Statistics relies on state-reported data that doesn't account for many motorists' user fees as revenue streams. That's not FHWA's fault. States don't report data correctly. Many states don't directly dedicate fees to road work. Or they're not classifed as user fees per se.

But fees on motorists are fees on motorists. Whether it flows through the state's general fund or goes straight to the DOT is a distinction without a difference.

Let me give an example. FHWA statistics list $760m in highway user fees in MA in 2010, including motor vehicle taxes, gas taxes, and toll revenue.

Last year Massachusetts collected $660m in gas tax and $350m in tolls. Who knows why those statistics are off. But that's just the beginning.

Registry fees are $500m, and those aren't counted. In Massachusetts motor vehicle property taxes are called "excise taxes". They aren't, but that's what we've always called them. That's over $600m.

So the PIRG report uses data for Massachusetts that says there's only $760m in state-based revenue, but there's actually at least $2.1 billion. And I'm being conservative and not counting traffic tickets ($60m+), service plaza rental fees, and lots of other things.

None of this is to say anything about the efficacy of transit. Not trying to make any broader point here. But let's work from the same facts. Roads pay for themselves through user fees.

 

[davem]

None of this is to say anything about the efficacy of transit. Not trying to make any broader point here. But let's work from the same facts. Roads pay for themselves through user fees.

Can you please explain then why our roads are in deplorable condition? If the roads are covering their expenses through user fees, then please explain how we have structurally deficient bridges, tunnels, and more craters than the moon on the average road.

 

[massmotorist]

Can you please explain then why our roads are in deplorable condition? If the roads are covering their expenses through user fees, then please explain how we have structurally deficient bridges, tunnels, and more craters than the moon on the average road.

Insufficient revenue. The user fees cover expenses; because the fees have been too low the expenditures have been too low. Set properly, user fees will raise enough revenue to properly maintain the roads. The gas tax needs to go up and be indexed to inflation going forward.

 

[Lurker]

If the price of gas increases with inflation why does the tax on it need to be increased with inflation? That's an increase on a increase.

 

[davem]

Instead of trying to prove massmotorist wrong, I'm going in a different direction here. How does Germany fund its infrastructure? Their highways are sterling, they have the ICE everywhere, and I can't recall driving over a bad street any time I've been there outside of the still bombed-out parts of Potsdam.

Why is ALL of our infrastructure in such deplorable condition? Not enough taxes? Country too large to efficiently manage? Too large a system with too few resources due to sprawl and inefficient uses of land? Aliens?!?

 

[omaja]

Insufficient revenue. The user fees cover expenses; because the fees have been too low the expenditures have been too low. Set properly, user fees will raise enough revenue to properly maintain the roads. The gas tax needs to go up and be indexed to inflation going forward.

Since maintenance is an operating expense, insufficient revenue from user fees to cover adequate maintenance means the users are not covering all expenses.

If the price of gas increases with inflation why does the tax on it need to be increased with inflation? That's an increase on a increase.

It's more like leveling the playing field. Current federal tax on gasoline has been fixed at 18.4 cents/gallon since 1993; it would be 27 cents/gallon if indexed to inflation. So as a percentage of cost/gallon, the federal gas tax has fallen by half while the percentage kept by oil companies has risen by that much. Combine the fixed revenue/unit with increasingly fuel efficient vehicles and weak demand due to the economy and there's no way to ensure revenues keep pace with expenses.

 

[massmotorist]

If the price of gas increases with inflation why does the tax on it need to be increased with inflation? That's an increase on a increase.

Like tobacco and alcohol, the gas tax is an excise tax. That is, it is a fixed cost per unit (in this case, per gallon). There is no sales tax on gas in Massachusetts.

Our gas excise tax is 21 cents per gallon, and has not changed since around 1990. It's lost over 40% of its value since then.

 

[massmotorist]

Instead of trying to prove massmotorist wrong, I'm going in a different direction here. How does Germany fund its infrastructure? Their highways are sterling, they have the ICE everywhere, and I can't recall driving over a bad street any time I've been there outside of the still bombed-out parts of Potsdam.

Why is ALL of our infrastructure in such deplorable condition? Not enough taxes? Country too large to efficiently manage? Too large a system with too few resources due to sprawl and inefficient uses of land? Aliens?!?

It's 100% because we don't have enough taxes, and because our dysfunctional political culture doesn't allow us to raise them even when it's necessary.

Other countries don't seem to have this problem, at least not to the extent we do.

 

[Matthew]

But fees on motorists are fees on motorists. Whether it flows through the state's general fund or goes straight to the DOT is a distinction without a difference.

Are you saying that if someone goes to the gasoline station convenience store to buy something while filling up, those sales taxes are "fees on motorists?"

Last year Massachusetts collected $660m in gas tax and $350m in tolls. Who knows why those statistics are off. But that's just the beginning.

Registry fees are $500m, and those aren't counted. In Massachusetts motor vehicle property taxes are called "excise taxes". They aren't, but that's what we've always called them. That's over $600m.

So the PIRG report uses data for Massachusetts that says there's only $760m in state-based revenue, but there's actually at least $2.1 billion. And I'm being conservative and not counting traffic tickets ($60m+), service plaza rental fees, and lots of other things.

You're quoting a report which has this to say:

In FY 2011, MassDOT had to borrow $145 million to cover operating costs. In other words, MassDOT dipped into future funding to pay today’s bills.

Also

On the road and bridge side, MassDOT also faces a chasm between needs and revenues. According to MassDOT, the five year cost to bring the system up to standards and meet high priority needs is $6.17 billion, while the amount of funding projected to be available over the same time frame is $2.5 billion.

and

In FY 2011, nearly 75 percent of CTF revenues ($1.06 billion, including all gas tax revenues and Registry fees) were spent on debt service.

I think the discrepancy with FHWA is due to different ways of grouping things. Now, the report I cited was covering the overall highway picture from Interstates down. But let's look at Massachusetts more closely.

The T4MA report has a nice diagram showing the inputs: $660 million state gas tax, $500 million registry fees, $302 million from sales tax, $350 from tolls, and $10 million from other. Generally speaking, most people consider "user fees" to be gas tax and tolls. But let's add registry fees for argument's sake. I cannot imagine any reasonable way that sales taxes or property taxes are user fees. That puts us at just about $1.52 billion in "user fees" for our purposes.

Of that, $1.06 billion goes to debt service, $360 million goes to Mass Pike and Tobin bridge, $151 million goes to MassDOT operation. Then some goes to other things like MBTA, RTAs, and snow/ice removal.

$1.52 billion revenues, $1.57 billion expenditures. And that hasn't yet accounted for things like Chapter 90 Road Funding thru Cherry Sheets, which amounted to a $200 million subsidy most recently, and $155 million in the previous year.

 

[massmotorist]

Since maintenance is an operating expense, insufficient revenue from user fees to cover adequate maintenance means the users are not covering all expenses.

An expense is something that is actually incurred. We're covering expenses.

They aren't enough to keep the roads in good repair. That's a separate issue. They'd be perfectly capable of doing so with a barely noticeable increase in the gas tax (say, ten cents).

RMV fees, tolls, federal funds, and gas taxes are automatically deposited into a transportation fund through which MassDOT is funded. Motor vehicle taxes go directly to the municipalities.