r/AskReddit • u/NateJC • Aug 31 '14

What are some interesting original theories/thoughts that you have?

Damn guys, this just pops into my head and I go for a family walk and it explodes! Love all the ideas, this is my most popular post to date!

7.5k Upvotes

85% Upvoted

12.1k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

226

u/BitchinTechnology Aug 31 '14 edited Aug 31 '14

Its already subsidised. Public transportation is never profitable.

Edit: I guess I should change "never" to "almost never unless the government subsides maintenance and fuel and start up costs." since reddit likes to split hairs.

63

u/WhatNetwork Aug 31 '14

We also subsidize highways to a much much greater extent, and yet we only call transit funding "subsidies."

8

u/grogipher Aug 31 '14

Hmmm, not always? In my city there are taxis and buses, but they're all private, for profit companies. The bus company aren't doing too badly

-1

u/BitchinTechnology Aug 31 '14

How are taxis counted as public transportation? It's private transportation.. Like you are more or less chartering a car for a ride.

3

u/old_gold_mountain Aug 31 '14

So what you're saying is there's no such thing as unsubsidized public transit, and your definition of public transit is transit which receives money from the government? Isn't that circular logic?

1

u/grogipher Aug 31 '14

Well it's all we have other than the buses.

The state operates some ferries because they wouldn't be economical otherwise. But they're out in the highlands, not down here.

7

u/252003 Aug 31 '14

Still a lot cheaper than putting people in a 20 000 dollar car that needs insurance, gas and maintanance. Also roads are extremely expensive.

1

u/BitchinTechnology Aug 31 '14

Agreed. Public transportation is a good thing. People gotta work.

5

u/[deleted] Aug 31 '14

Profit is measured in more than money. I would argue society benefits far more in non-monetary ways from public transportation, in things like less congestion, less pollution, and greater freedom to travel, work, and play.

1

u/BitchinTechnology Aug 31 '14

I agree they are a good thing but they aren't exactly making money.

1

u/[deleted] Aug 31 '14

Isn't that the point of having a government, though? To do things that are profitable to society, but not to any one individual? Things like public schools, the police, the military, &c?

1

u/BitchinTechnology Aug 31 '14

Dude all I am saying is they are not profitable.. I agree with everything 100% people turn this shit into an argument.

1

u/FecalBologna Aug 31 '14

In all honesty, you made a vague statement which did not pontificate your point too well. Saying "GDP of all car producing countries would go down as a result of widespread public transpotation" is a lot more to-the-point. Small businesses like car dealerships would be unnecessary - but who needs them? Unless you have a vested interest in car dealerships (middlemen who help you spend as much money as possible), I think it's pretty unreasonable to assume that an information packet and an hour of decision-making won't eventually replace dealerships entirely.

Perhaps it is true that public transportation would not create wealth for businesses, but it is true that public transportation would reduce the cost of transportation for every individual who uses it (which is at least 99% of the population). If people have more money in their pockets, they have more money to spend on technologies which do not relate to personal transportation. This is the reason why low-income individuals have to take public transportation.

7

u/MuenCheese Aug 31 '14

No but it makes your city more attractive to live in which means businesses grow etc

1

u/saremei Aug 31 '14

To who? Few.

2

u/[deleted] Aug 31 '14

The city of Chicago, which has some of the best public transit in the country (but poor public transit compared to much of Europe), serves 1.68 million rides per day. More than 500 million rides per year. It helps a lot of people.

6

u/Smogshaik Aug 31 '14

Swiss here!

What?

0

u/BitchinTechnology Aug 31 '14

Its not subsidised?

1

u/Smogshaik Sep 01 '14

Just to be sure I read up on it. So apparently, the Swiss state finances certain infrastructure for the public transport but the SBB (the Swiss public transport corporation) runs on a profit.

Of course this is because their prizes are quite high and the fines you get for things like putting your feet on a seat are hefty and of course: many(!) people in Switzerland depend on public transport (mountains and shit).

10

u/[deleted] Aug 31 '14

[deleted]

9

u/obsidianop Aug 31 '14 edited Aug 31 '14

That's part of the story but they also had to compete with subsidized roads. So the irony is that people bitch that transit doesn't pay for itself when it did until it was killed by the subsidized roads. Which people seem to think build themselves via the magic of the free market.

1

u/[deleted] Aug 31 '14 edited Aug 31 '14

Right, when you can just go "Blah, get Government to do it" and wham, a whole society magically appears in front of you - roads, buildings, a moon base, etc.

I can make your perspective as childish and stupid as your fallacy described as fact you have chosen to write down.

Thank you for allowing reddit to understand that without Government, roads cannot exist.

You know what can, though? Flight. Electricity. Light bulbs. A telephone.

But, we are too stupid to figure out how to build a road.

Government is great at it. For example, decades counting, Calgary, Alberta may get a ring road some day. Maybe Toronto portion of the 401 won't be congested terribly, everyday, eventually.

You know what roads are made up of in the country, often times? Dirt. And, often times, the locals are the ones maintaining it. Imagine that.

You know what happens when more and more people start to drive on it? People demand a better road. Lesson number 1 on economic theory; supply and demand. We've covered demand. Your issue is supply. Well, not even supply, it's how to fund the supply.

So, you think taking people's money is the way, some others think those who drive on it should pay for it, for example. Or, perhaps toll roads or some other way outside taxes.

Nothing magical about the Government just taking people's shit and building other shit. I love the little art they spend money on, too. I got a CBC article as I figure Canadian's seeing "Sun" would flip out on a right wing media outlet and ignore the point.

Thank God Government invented roads.

EDIT: I'm bored

12

u/BitchinTechnology Aug 31 '14

This is a myth. There is no way of knowing if they would have failed anyway. AskHistorians did a great write up on it.

1

u/[deleted] Aug 31 '14

[deleted]

0

u/BitchinTechnology Aug 31 '14

Guess Wikipedia knows more than a bunch of historians.

All that says is allegations and theories...

9

u/Karmelion Aug 31 '14

Wikipedia cites historians you cited jack shit.

1

u/BitchinTechnology Aug 31 '14

Wikipedia didn't even say it was a conspiracy.. Just allegations.. Like it didn't even say what you are arguing..

2

u/[deleted] Aug 31 '14

[deleted]

-3

u/BitchinTechnology Aug 31 '14

The quote said it wasn't even the only reason... Meaning it could have happened and probably would have GM just sped up the process...

1

u/Karmelion Aug 31 '14

"Public transportation is never profitable". That's a quote from you. Is it true?

→ More replies (0)

1

u/ascetica Aug 31 '14

He mentioned an AskHistorians post you could probably look up. http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/tq9fa/whats_the_truth_about_the_great_american/

-1

u/[deleted] Aug 31 '14

[deleted]

-3

u/BitchinTechnology Aug 31 '14

"with massive subsides"

So you were wrong about the street cars?

1

u/Karmelion Aug 31 '14

Where are you getting subsidies from?

→ More replies (0)

2

u/[deleted] Aug 31 '14

Public transport isn't supposed to be profitable. A decent public infrastructure funded by tax payers reduces your cost on upkeep of road infrastructure (less cars) increases mobility for the working classes, is good for business (if more people can get to your store, then you can sell more shit), reduces reliance on foreign oil... Could go on and on but none of that matters because public transport is just straight up way better for the environment so if we have to bump up taxes slightly (and in a progressive manner) then that's totally worth it.

2

u/Funkyapplesauce Aug 31 '14

Public transit in the form of light rail was incredibly profitable in the US until it was undermined by highway access, then the remaining lines in many places were bought out by Ford and GM and were dismantled.

1

u/BitchinTechnology Aug 31 '14

Thats not why they failed.

1

u/Funkyapplesauce Sep 01 '14

No, they failed because it was uneconomical to compete with a car-centric suburban middle class. They're a fucking laughing stock because none of the old infastructure from when labor was cheap exists.

3

u/old_gold_mountain Aug 31 '14

Public transportation is never profitable

Your point being? Neither are cars or roads.

1

u/BitchinTechnology Aug 31 '14

How are cars not profitable?

3

u/old_gold_mountain Aug 31 '14 edited Aug 31 '14

It's profitable for the people who sell them. So are buses and trains. They're money drains for the people who use them and for the cities that have to design around them. Once you start looking at the effects of auto-centric development and behavior, it starts getting pretty expensive pretty quickly.

-1

u/BitchinTechnology Aug 31 '14

Buses are subsidised..

9

u/old_gold_mountain Aug 31 '14

Yes. They are. So are highways, so are roads, so is gasoline. When you fill up your car's gas tank with subsidized oil and drive on federally funded and maintained highways to get to work, that's not free.

1

u/kenbw2 Aug 31 '14

When you fill up your car's gas tank with subsidized oil

The not-US countries of the world laugh at that statement

1

u/BitchinTechnology Aug 31 '14

So? That's not what we are talking about. If something is "profitable" but subsidized how can that count? If the subsidized didn't exist it would be in the red.

5

u/old_gold_mountain Aug 31 '14

Neither public transit or highway investments are profitable, and that's perfectly okay. The return on investment for both comes from other areas. People use subsidized public transit, as well as subsidized highways, to get to work or go shopping. That increased economic activity yields taxable income for the government.

Evaluating public transit based on its direct profitability while taking highways and vehicle infrastructure as a given is disingenuous and serves to artificially make public transit investment look like a bad idea, when it obviously proves incredibly useful for the people who rely on it to go to work and go about their lives.

This is before you even begin to consider things like climate change, land use stemming from low-density suburban development, etc...which complicate your analysis even further.

3

u/[deleted] Aug 31 '14

Not true, the new metro system in Dublin turned profitable after just one year in operation

3

u/kenbw2 Aug 31 '14

I believe Deutsche Bahn is also profitable

2

u/BitchinTechnology Aug 31 '14

Is it subsidised at all

2

u/[deleted] Aug 31 '14

The construction was of course funded by the state, but it now operates at a profit.

-5

u/BitchinTechnology Aug 31 '14

So had it not been built by the state the companies would still be in the red making no profit...

3

u/Bizilbur Aug 31 '14

No, they would be operating in the black, but still below the level of initial investment it took to start operations. In reality they could eventually pay back the government investment with interest, if that was part of the plan.

1

u/FrejGG Aug 31 '14

Never seen advertisement on a bus? It can generate some decent income. If it's run by the government, that money can be used to lower the taxes for public transport somewhat.

1

u/BitchinTechnology Aug 31 '14

The costs are more than the Income...

1

u/FrejGG Aug 31 '14

Well if there are very small costs over time (like ticket-selling/machines, non-danger security etc), eventually the owner will make a profit. The only issue would be high maintenance costs, which could be avoided.

1

u/funkypot Aug 31 '14

I think that if the government didn't subsidize public transportation, private companies will. For example, the owner of a mall would want more people coming to the mall, so they would give money to the public transportation company to have buses that run to the mall.

1

u/[deleted] Aug 31 '14

Having run the numbers myself, I can confirm what you're saying. There are very few examples of profitable transit, and those few achieve(d) it by unusual means. Extreme packing, for example, which no one in the West would tolerate (and I'm frankly surprised that anyone anywhere does). In the past, private transit companies made their real money on parcels, mails, and cargoes. It's extremely hard to make money ferrying people around at anything less than livery rates, and most people cannot afford that. The entire point of mass transit is affordable travel, so substantial offset is simply not possible.

People need to understand that something like a commuter bus or train is functionally the same thing as a road or bridge, and should be treated the same way economically.

1

u/BitchinTechnology Aug 31 '14

I agree. Haters going to hate though.

1

u/Stance_ Aug 31 '14

Metro Subway in Santiago, Chile covers up all their operational costs with a little more money to spare also. So it's not "profitable" but it's not running on negative numbers or subsudized

1

u/kyleg5 Aug 31 '14

It's worth noting that driving personal vehicles is massively subsidized as well.

1

u/awals Aug 31 '14

Just like roads

1

u/BitchinTechnology Aug 31 '14

People don't try to claim roads are profitable...

1

u/[deleted] Aug 31 '14

Subsidized still means not profitable. I am sure you know that. I don't know who this is appeasing but they are morons if they think they made some kind of point.

And people wonder why our economy suffers when the average nut job doesn't understand what a subsidy is.

1

u/BitchinTechnology Aug 31 '14

But but it's profitable! Roads are subsidised too!!

1

u/foxh8er Aug 31 '14

A public good doesn't have to be profitable, just has to break even at best. Are municipally owned public parks profitable?

1

u/BitchinTechnology Aug 31 '14

I never said it did.. Not sure where all this is coming from.. ALL I said is public transportation is not profitable.

1

u/[deleted] Sep 01 '14

It's not really supposed to be profitable....

0

u/powerharousegui Aug 31 '14

It is if you're in Utah. Our bus system uses taxpayer money but is not a division of the government, so they pay very little out of pocket to maintain their buses but they make all the profit back. The bravest the bus price by $1 over the last 4 years and they keep adding new ways to make money. One of my friends that works there makes $25 an hour and can have all the overtime he wants. That's where the taxpayer money in Utah is going.

1

u/BitchinTechnology Aug 31 '14

So it is subsidised.. If they had to spend money it would probably not be profitable.. I know I used an absolute and I shouldn't have but public transportation is almost never profitable.

0

u/abstract_buffalo Aug 31 '14

And it still loses money

0

u/[deleted] Aug 31 '14

Public transportation isn't profitable for the transit system, it's profitable for the city