[sustran] Re: [sustran] What is the “economic value” of the city transport system?

[Wendell Cox]

Dear  Eric...

An interesting theoretical point. Actually, attempts have been made to do
just that (advise public transport policy makers of the benefits of reform
and re-engineering), and some of the most intense efforts have been made in
Boston. Result --- what drives public transport decision making in North
America is special interests --- politics. The minute you tread on the
special interests that control public transport, the appetite for reform
goes away. In the US, this may have to do with our special interest inclined
political system, but similar things go on in Canada.

Wendell Cox

----- Original Message -----
From: <eric.britton at ecoplan.org>
To: <utsg at mailbase.ac.uk>; <sustran-discuss at jca.ax.apc.org>;
<alt-transp at flora.org>
Sent: Monday, January 24, 2000 3:11 AM
Subject: [sustran] What is the “economic value” of the city transport
system?


> Dear Colleagues,
>
> Do any of you have access to a source which has tried to put credible
> numbers to the following?
>
> What is the “economic value” of the city transport system, i.e., the money
> price that one might put on it measured in terms of what people actually
> pay, one way or another, for this part of their daily lives? Per day?
Year?
> Single city? A nation as a whole?
>
> Clearly that number would vary wildly depending on what one decides to try
> to include and the values chosen for each input (e.g., what externalities
> does on try to capture? what about the value of time in transit?). I can
> think of a number of different ways of cutting it to make the calculation,
> but no sense in my trotting all that out here since most of you know far
> more about it than I do. Moreover, I have seen such numbers here and the
in
> the past, but none which has stuck in my mind.
>
> My interest in doing this?  Well, suppose one took a team to Boston,
Prague
> or Lagos, sat down with the mayor or dictator of the moment, and showed
her
> how she could reengineer the regional system to get a lot more throughput
> per economic unit, whether in terms of the city’s contribution or from a
> more global perspective (which, incidentally, should be her platform for
> reelection).
>
> And if these numbers already exist, how come no one is making proper use
of
> them?
>
> Regards,
>
> eric britton
>