Very good. Working in transportation I find it so hard to get people to focus on the nuts and bolts of transportation versus the ideological causes attached.
Thanks, Sean! Have you found anything that resonates with people? The catalyst for this piece was the news out of New York, but the theme has been long gestating as I've observed incredibly stupid conversations about this stuff, including here in Texas.
Things that consistently resonate enough to change minds or policy ... not really. I've been around transportation planning for about 15 years, both in advocacy and professionally. You can almost always get your allies out, but winning the day is tough. It seems the only way to move forward is to consistently win enough small battles, and those wins are often very context sensitive. Big themes that might win - congestion, access, environment, quality of life, safety, cost - can resonate but they all hit the iceberg of "improving this generally will slow down cars". There are exceptions - Paris, Montreal, Copenhagen, NYC congestion relief zone - where big things happen fast and consistently. But that these moves are the exception suggests something fundamental I think.
Great piece on the tradeoffs between various choices. One of the best was: "$1 billion per year—the MTA could build forty-one miles of new subway lines, expanding access to transit deserts while enabling the construction of more than 167,000 new homes near sixty-four new stations." If this option versus free buses was put before voters, I think I know which one would win handily.
You mention BART but despite those investment's BART may have to shut down some routes. According to the NYTimes: "In January 2020, BART stations had an average of 388,910 exits on weekdays. This past January, that figure was 170,543, less than half of the pre-pandemic ridership. The agency now faces an ongoing $400 million annual structural deficit.
A glaring culprit has been the slow recovery of San Francisco’s downtown. About a third of office space remains vacant, and the offices that are leased do not tend to fill up five days a week. Despite the return-to-office urging of some politicians and employers, remote work culture in the tech-centric Bay Area has firmly taken hold."
Admittedly, SF is unique but there is a case to be made, that even the safety improvements and the extra fares cannot make up for a structural deficit that is happening because of the work is changing, particularly as WFH becomes a larger and larger part of how people work rather than going to an office.
Yes, that’s right. I highlighted the BART example specifically because it shows that pricing can have non-pecuniary benefits: in this case, a huge decrease in crime and maintenance costs. Of course, lower crime and maintenance costs save money, but they have the added benefit of improving the system, which could incentivize more people to ride. That is unlikely to fix the structural problems BART is facing, but it’s valuable to see that causal connection. Incidentally, prosecuting fare evasion was part of how Bill Bratton brought down crime on NYC’s subways before Giuliani elevated him to NYPD. Thanks for the comment, Jeffrey (and apologies for the delayed response)!
One of the worst examples of "everything bagelism" I've seen in transit is the current SEPTA Key fare cards in the Philly region. Someone had the idea that they could also be a way to provide prepaid debit cards to folks who can't afford a bank account, so the cards are all Mastercard-branded and have to expire every 3 years per MC's terms of service, rather than lasting 10 years for a Chicago Ventra card or 7 for OMNY. Not to mention SEPTA having to pay the extra merchant services fees, handling cash deposit accounts, and probably being subject to more oversight like needing KYC info than other similar systems.
This is an essay that I wanted to write, but this is much better than my version would have been. One point that I would like to see you develop that's relevant to the current essay: transit trips and car trips as economic substitutes. I have elsewhere called this a "coffee and tea problem."
Thanks, Jon—and you're too hard on yourself! Yes, in the context of New York, congestion pricing shows your point to indeed to be the case. But also in that context, I think it would be a mistake to think that buses are substitutes for cars. Anyone who can already afford a car is unlikely to be enticed by a much slower bus, especially when the bus is already cheap.
This is the case for me in Austin; there's a bus stop a block from my house, but the bus comes every 30 minutes (in theory), the bus stop has zero shade, the bus sits in the same traffic that every car does, still has to stop several times, and doesn't actually stop anywhere near where I usually go downtown. This is more typical of transit, I think, than the situation in NY.
No, I’m not being too hard on myself. I have varied interests and it would be impossible for me to write at a high level on all of these varied interests. That’s why it’s especially satisfying to read Substack because there are people who are writing about things that I care about that I do not have the time to write about myself, or at least to give the topic the attention that it merits.
You raise an interesting point about cars and buses, but not directly to my argument. You note that cars and buses have very different characteristics, but my point is that many car trips and many bus trips are substitute goods. Or at least I need to make this distinction clear if I have not already done so. We need to make a car trip and a bus trip as qualitatively similar as possible in order facilitate a substitution effect. Of course, there are limits to the possible qualitatively similar characteristics between buses and cars. For people who desire isolation in a pod, a bus is not substitute. If travelers want on-demand departure, we can only offer frequency as a close consolation.
The greater Seattle area has a large homeless population, partly because housing is so regulated that there's a shortage and it's expensive. Some years ago local buses had what they called a "ride-free-zone" through downtown Seattle. Especially in winter, the homeless, which included those who were drunk and diseased, would ride the buses back and forth most of the day though downtown Seattle because the buses were warm and dry and free. One time on a bus, a mangy drunk lost his balance and fell on me. The "ride-free-zone" was finally ended after many years, many complaints and many problems. Now the Puget Sound area (includes Seattle) is not enforcing fares on its light rail system, which has been a complete disaster in so many ways, including cost overruns of many times its original budget. We do have lots of metered parking. Uber could be a nice option, but it's so regulated that it costs more than it needs to. I love Waymo, which I've used in Austin, but it hasn't been approved in Seattle yet, and who knows when it would reach outlying areas.
Thanks for the comment, Maryallene. It seems that cities and transit agencies have to continually learn these lessons, despite all the evidence. One unappreciated consequence is that lousy transit encourages people to drive or use cars more, which further saps riders from systems, which only makes traffic and transit worse.
I think conflating parking with transit fees is a bit of an unnecessary mix. Raising revenue from transit fees is a regressive tax, and disincentive to public transport, which has significant positive spillover. Recent research on Chicago actually showed that all transit should be de facto free (and if roads are underpriced, transit fares should be negative!). What ultimately matters is the relative pricing between transit and other forms of transport.
I agree about the need to build good and quick transit - but the revenue for it should come from road/parking pricing (as these activities have large negative externalities) and other taxes.
This is gold.
Ha, thanks, Kathryn!
Very good. Working in transportation I find it so hard to get people to focus on the nuts and bolts of transportation versus the ideological causes attached.
Thanks, Sean! Have you found anything that resonates with people? The catalyst for this piece was the news out of New York, but the theme has been long gestating as I've observed incredibly stupid conversations about this stuff, including here in Texas.
Things that consistently resonate enough to change minds or policy ... not really. I've been around transportation planning for about 15 years, both in advocacy and professionally. You can almost always get your allies out, but winning the day is tough. It seems the only way to move forward is to consistently win enough small battles, and those wins are often very context sensitive. Big themes that might win - congestion, access, environment, quality of life, safety, cost - can resonate but they all hit the iceberg of "improving this generally will slow down cars". There are exceptions - Paris, Montreal, Copenhagen, NYC congestion relief zone - where big things happen fast and consistently. But that these moves are the exception suggests something fundamental I think.
Great piece on the tradeoffs between various choices. One of the best was: "$1 billion per year—the MTA could build forty-one miles of new subway lines, expanding access to transit deserts while enabling the construction of more than 167,000 new homes near sixty-four new stations." If this option versus free buses was put before voters, I think I know which one would win handily.
Thanks, Donovan! I think the Marron Institute has done NYC a great service by putting out a credible alternative that really raises the stakes.
You mention BART but despite those investment's BART may have to shut down some routes. According to the NYTimes: "In January 2020, BART stations had an average of 388,910 exits on weekdays. This past January, that figure was 170,543, less than half of the pre-pandemic ridership. The agency now faces an ongoing $400 million annual structural deficit.
A glaring culprit has been the slow recovery of San Francisco’s downtown. About a third of office space remains vacant, and the offices that are leased do not tend to fill up five days a week. Despite the return-to-office urging of some politicians and employers, remote work culture in the tech-centric Bay Area has firmly taken hold."
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/10/us/bart-bay-area-san-francisco-transit.html
Admittedly, SF is unique but there is a case to be made, that even the safety improvements and the extra fares cannot make up for a structural deficit that is happening because of the work is changing, particularly as WFH becomes a larger and larger part of how people work rather than going to an office.
Yes, that’s right. I highlighted the BART example specifically because it shows that pricing can have non-pecuniary benefits: in this case, a huge decrease in crime and maintenance costs. Of course, lower crime and maintenance costs save money, but they have the added benefit of improving the system, which could incentivize more people to ride. That is unlikely to fix the structural problems BART is facing, but it’s valuable to see that causal connection. Incidentally, prosecuting fare evasion was part of how Bill Bratton brought down crime on NYC’s subways before Giuliani elevated him to NYPD. Thanks for the comment, Jeffrey (and apologies for the delayed response)!
One of the worst examples of "everything bagelism" I've seen in transit is the current SEPTA Key fare cards in the Philly region. Someone had the idea that they could also be a way to provide prepaid debit cards to folks who can't afford a bank account, so the cards are all Mastercard-branded and have to expire every 3 years per MC's terms of service, rather than lasting 10 years for a Chicago Ventra card or 7 for OMNY. Not to mention SEPTA having to pay the extra merchant services fees, handling cash deposit accounts, and probably being subject to more oversight like needing KYC info than other similar systems.
Yikes. Good intentions, not well-thought through, lead to sub-par results. Thanks for the comment, Erin!
This is an essay that I wanted to write, but this is much better than my version would have been. One point that I would like to see you develop that's relevant to the current essay: transit trips and car trips as economic substitutes. I have elsewhere called this a "coffee and tea problem."
https://bnjd.substack.com/i/135270868/the-coffee-and-tea-problem
Thanks, Jon—and you're too hard on yourself! Yes, in the context of New York, congestion pricing shows your point to indeed to be the case. But also in that context, I think it would be a mistake to think that buses are substitutes for cars. Anyone who can already afford a car is unlikely to be enticed by a much slower bus, especially when the bus is already cheap.
This is the case for me in Austin; there's a bus stop a block from my house, but the bus comes every 30 minutes (in theory), the bus stop has zero shade, the bus sits in the same traffic that every car does, still has to stop several times, and doesn't actually stop anywhere near where I usually go downtown. This is more typical of transit, I think, than the situation in NY.
No, I’m not being too hard on myself. I have varied interests and it would be impossible for me to write at a high level on all of these varied interests. That’s why it’s especially satisfying to read Substack because there are people who are writing about things that I care about that I do not have the time to write about myself, or at least to give the topic the attention that it merits.
You raise an interesting point about cars and buses, but not directly to my argument. You note that cars and buses have very different characteristics, but my point is that many car trips and many bus trips are substitute goods. Or at least I need to make this distinction clear if I have not already done so. We need to make a car trip and a bus trip as qualitatively similar as possible in order facilitate a substitution effect. Of course, there are limits to the possible qualitatively similar characteristics between buses and cars. For people who desire isolation in a pod, a bus is not substitute. If travelers want on-demand departure, we can only offer frequency as a close consolation.
The greater Seattle area has a large homeless population, partly because housing is so regulated that there's a shortage and it's expensive. Some years ago local buses had what they called a "ride-free-zone" through downtown Seattle. Especially in winter, the homeless, which included those who were drunk and diseased, would ride the buses back and forth most of the day though downtown Seattle because the buses were warm and dry and free. One time on a bus, a mangy drunk lost his balance and fell on me. The "ride-free-zone" was finally ended after many years, many complaints and many problems. Now the Puget Sound area (includes Seattle) is not enforcing fares on its light rail system, which has been a complete disaster in so many ways, including cost overruns of many times its original budget. We do have lots of metered parking. Uber could be a nice option, but it's so regulated that it costs more than it needs to. I love Waymo, which I've used in Austin, but it hasn't been approved in Seattle yet, and who knows when it would reach outlying areas.
Thanks for the comment, Maryallene. It seems that cities and transit agencies have to continually learn these lessons, despite all the evidence. One unappreciated consequence is that lousy transit encourages people to drive or use cars more, which further saps riders from systems, which only makes traffic and transit worse.
this is so good
Thanks, Scott!
I think conflating parking with transit fees is a bit of an unnecessary mix. Raising revenue from transit fees is a regressive tax, and disincentive to public transport, which has significant positive spillover. Recent research on Chicago actually showed that all transit should be de facto free (and if roads are underpriced, transit fares should be negative!). What ultimately matters is the relative pricing between transit and other forms of transport.
I agree about the need to build good and quick transit - but the revenue for it should come from road/parking pricing (as these activities have large negative externalities) and other taxes.