The operative word in your comment is “run”. While it is true many container ports and airports are privately run, the question is, were they built with private money? I do not know of any major airport in the world that was built with private, not government money. I do not know of any air traffic control system in the world that was not built and is not supported by government aid. Nor do I know of any container ports that were built without government aid of some sort (subsidies, tax breaks, etc.) for the facilities themselves or are not aided by government paid coast guards and port and channel dredging (Army Corps of Engineers anyone?). And even if they were (which I doubt), they would be useless without the government paid for roads that are used to move their cargoes from the port facilities to their final destinations. And what about the people who work at these facilities and without which nothing would move? Are you telling me that they don’t use some sort of government subsidized transportation (roads and transit) to get to their jobs?

Roads, airports and container facilities can be privatized but I doubt there any trips by people, goods or the people who move them that do not utilize some sort of government supported or subsidized transportation, be it sidewalks, roads, highways, buses, trains, airplanes or ships.

Let’s look at the major forms of transportation:

Air Travel: Airports built, expanded and maintained using local, state and federal tax dollars. The air traffic control system and the TSA paid for by federal (tax) money.

Rail Freight: The land the tracks are on was given to the railroads by local, state and federal governments in the 19th and 20th centuries, along with large sections of land on either side of the tracks that the railroads were free to use or sell as they saw fit. Imagine how much it would cost the railroads if they had to pay back the cost of all of the land they were given. There is also government paid over/underpasses and grade crossings to enable more efficient movement of trains as well as the government paid for roads to and from rail facilities.

Shipping: Useless without port facilities usually paid for by state and local governments as well as government paid for roads to move goods to and from the ports. Also supported by government paid Navy, Coast Guard and lighthouse facilities as well as Army Corps of Engineers dredged ports and shipping channels.

Roads: Gas (user) taxes and tolls don’t even begin to approach the actual cost of road and highways, let alone the indirect costs of traffic, pollution, injuries and deaths. There are not only the building costs, but maintenance, cleaning and patrolling which over the lifetime of the road cost more than the initial construction costs. Check the budget of cities, counties and states and they will all have budgets for roads that are not paid for by gas taxes but by general funds. If gas taxes paid for all of the costs of roads you wouldn’t need tolls or bond issues.

If you eliminated all of the various types of subsidies every type of transportation receives in this country all types of travel would soon grind to a halt.

So again, if no other mode of travel exists without some form of government subsidy why should transit be held to a different standard and be forced to pay for itself?

We don’t earmark the sales tax on tennis balls to build tennis courts.
We don’t earmark the sales tax on restaurant meals to build restaurants.

Somehow, people got the idea that the sales tax on gasoline was special,
probably because all taxes on gasoline are lumped together in the total price.

Even if you include the sales tax on gasoline, we don’t get all our road funding
from gas taxes. In many counties, we have transportation sales taxes that
devote a half cent or more of the tax on *everything* toward transportation
projects. Buy a scarf, you’re funding transportation.

Then we have transportation bonds, which don’t have a specific tax to pay for them.
There’s no tax fairy to pay for those, they’re paid back out of other revenues, not
gas taxes.

Bottom line is that transportation in general, and roads in particualr, are not fully funded
by the gas tax, with or without the sales tax on gasoline.

And this is before you start to consider other related expenses, such as traffic cops.

Remember, the farebox recovery of most roads (barring bridges and tollways) is zero.
The tax on the gas you buy in Oakland doesn’t go to the nearby streets.

The gas tax for many years was put into the General Fund to pay for prison guards and
welfare checks. Prop 42 slowed this practice, and forthcoming Prop 1A wants to ensure that gas taxes used for non-transportation purposes in an emergency get paid back into the transportation fund. [It would get tedious to get into Prop 87's plan to tax oil production in California, or the handling of excise taxes versus sales taxes. ]

Flat fares, many people to help answer questions and keep the system clean and safe, passes for frequent riders; even for *gasp* tourists. You can actually understand the recorded announcements of upcoming station names and other CTA info. Brilliant!

Chicago wants people out of their cars, not polluting the environment and that’s what they get. Their system covers a massive amount of ground, is simple to use, though not simple to cheat (seen anyone jump a wall, or pass through an open door into BART? I have many times). All of the fare cards are now tranferrable to the entire bus and lightrail system as well. Free, comprehensive maps abound. Bikes are encouraged greatly (nice and flat, Chicago). A couple lines run 24 hours too. It’s almost like they’re thinking in that city.

Lower the fare and more people will ride. Period. Though the fares are lower, the increase in ridership, and reduction of cheats, will make up for what’s lost.

I’m not a spokesperson for Chicago, but after you visit, you know that we in California do not always live on the cutting edge. Even the mayor of SF is starting to adopt a lot of the programs Chicago has in place. Check out Chicago. It truly is one of the greatest cities in this country. http://www.transitchicago.com

BART has historically achieved a farebox ratio of about 50%, which is excellent for the San Francisco Bay Area. BART beats Caltrain, Muni, VTA, and most of the bus operators in this regard.

Though I’m not a fan of monthly passes, because this pricing arrangement results in lower fares for frequent riders even though this group is less price-sensitive and in higher fares for occasional riders even though this group is more price-sensitive, a flat fare is not a prerequisite for a monthly pass. Caltrain has six fare zones and thus offers six different monthly pass prices. BART could sell monthly passes keyed to a specific trip value, and send you to the “Add Fare” machine if you happened to take a trip that exceeded the trip value you had chosen.