There was a time in the distant past when bus systems and rail systems were privately owned and could operate at a profit. The cost of labor, government regulations, equipment, and right-of-way has driven most of these out of business. The privately owned Greyhound Bus service has to operate on a for-profit basis. For this reason, it recently dropped a number of county bus stops, one of which was Lompoc, because they did not generate enough revenue. Amtrak rail is heavily subsidized by the taxpayers. So the transportation that we see around us is public transportation and socialism at work.
Santa Barbara County has MTD, COLT, SMAT, Breeze, SMOOTH, Amtrak, and Coastal Express bus systems that are all social transportation services in that they do not pay for themselves.
To pay for them, money is taken from our gas taxes that are paid for by car drivers and given to the state and federal government. They then give the taxes back to local state, county, and city governments as TDA transportation funds to subsidize people who do not have cars or cannot get licenses for cars because they are illegal aliens.
The government only requires that the bus riders pay 20 percent of the cost of the ride. The remaining 80 percent is financed by the federal gas taxes and other Measure D-type sales taxes, state sales taxes, and general funds.
Two examples of this process at work are the North County Breeze and COLT bus systems in Lompoc.
The Breeze bus experiment was started on “a trial basis” between Lompoc and Santa Maria, as a result of a threat of a lawsuit by social activists who claimed “an unmet transportation need.”
Last year, the Breeze cost $556,995 to operate, and collected $82,470 from riders. These buses are, by my estimation, empty 90 percent of the time. Is this a good financial investment of our tax dollars? Not that anyone can see. But our elected representatives on SBCAG think so. The misguided city and county representatives have recently extended this “experiment” to Solvang. The taxpayers are going to be screwed again by these dimwitted representatives.
The Lompoc City COLT bus system, which is, by my estimation, 80 percent empty, is also subsidized by our TDA taxes to the tune of 80 percent. The system is costing Lompoc more than $2,331,000 per year. The fare box brings in about six to 12 percent of cost. The difference is made up by Measure D funds and other state taxes.
Similar rider-cost situations are present in the Santa Barbara MTD and the Santa Maria SMAT bus systems. Bus systems are not profitable ventures. They are only sustainable by very large tax subsidies. A survey of all the buses in the county by this writer shows that they are empty from 50 to 80 percent of the time.
The big problem is not enough people are using them. For this reason, no more funds should be spent on more transportation until there is more demand for it.
Is enough money being spent on county transportation? We believe that it is.
The people who manage our road funds are the county supervisors and the city councilpersons on SBCAG. They need to hear from us taxpayers about the way they are proposing to use our tax dollars for the new Measure A, 30-year, gigantic tax increase.
Cars are basic to our economy and transportation needs. We need to put any future funds into major road improvements for cars. This is our most urgent “unmet transportation need.” Cars pay for buses, and buses need good roads on which to travel—even if the buses are unused. m
Justin M. Ruhge is a Lompoc resident and member of Concerned Taxpayers, I.N.C. Contact him through the executive editor at rmiller@ santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Mar 12-19, 2009.
Thank you General Motors for sponsoring this article.
Now, let’s drop the propaganda and get to the facts.
1. Roads, bridges and tunnels are not profitable either. It costs every single American taxpayer thousands upon thousands of dollars each year to build and maintain our car infrastructure.
2. Parking spaces also take up huge areas of land, making housing more expensive.
3. Car insurance also costs every houshold couple of thousands dollars each year depending on number and type of vehicles.
The argument that public transit is more expensive than cars is just brainless and evil corporate propaganda.