[mission9]

Federal attempts to increase the transit base always contemplate local tax increases. Mass transit demands taxes because it is an income transfer system, not a people mover.

[screaminsunshine]

Eventually half the country will work for the IRS and the other half will be avoiding them at this rate.

[Wuli]

The Tri-county area does not have a population density (residents per square mile) to support commuter rail transport, and no matter what the traffic conditions are that same population density at some sort of peak-leisure-time would not fill enough trains on weekends to compensate for too little use by commuters during the week.

For rail use to be even modestly effective, population density is the key.

Even the U.S. Northeast, with a population density much greater than anywhere in Florida, does not truly support commuter rail transport with the price of tickets for its two largest commuter rail lines (Metro North with trains into and out of Manhattan from counties north of Manhattan and from Connecticut; and the Long Island Railroad) with fare revenue supporting 50% or less of the actual costs of operations. The next largest northeast commuter rail line, New Jersey Transit nets about 43 cents of every dollar of operating costs from fare revenue. It does have one of its lines, the Northeast Corridor Line - Trenton to Manhattan - that it breaks even on. What that “good news” tells you is that the net of 43 cents of each dollar of operating costs from fare revenue is actually much less than 43 cents on all its lines but one.

There is in fact not a single commuter rail system in the United States that even just gets its operating costs paid by fare revenues, much less any portion from fare revenue to help cover its long term capital commitments. Not one.

It is not completely the case of “old” technology. It is also the nature of any fixed-route system. Automobiles, buses and planes all have multiple options that one set of each can be employed to make, in terms of starting point and ending point and exact route between. A train and its cars can ONLY operate on the fixed route, or set of fixed routes dedicated to it.

Having fewer options on how a train’s infrastructure (capital equipment, which includes its rolling stock) can be used, more than any form of transportation, and not offering real competition with air flight, the greater the length of the trip, it is highly dependent on having a ready-and-willing population directly along its path, of a sufficient population density (people per square mile), and/or auxiliary systems of “feeder lines”, to make it truly useful to enough people to provide a reasonable income from fare revenues. The fact is, on an organic economic basis - strictly economics - NONE do.