To compare apples to apples, these costs need to be included in the overhead charges for highway use in detail, and that cost divided by the number of people who use the facilities, so that the real cost of use per boarding is seen. It should then be incumbent upon the governments involved to be certain that the governments pick up no more cost per boarding for highways/roads than for other forms of transportation. The user's portion can rightly be apportioned through the fuel taxes paid, which not only is regulated by the mileage the individual drives but also by the fuel efficiency of each vehicle. This should be a flat fee per gallon regardless of user.

If we are to have equitable forms of transport of all types, the costs of providing the services have to be equalized to the extent of being truthful with everybody about the real costs of providing each form of transport. Europe and other areas do this much better than we in the United States; that's partly why their fuel costs are so high compared to ours and why they have such superior public transport in most cases.

Both highway and air transportation incur huge ongoing costs to the taxpayer that are basically invisible to most people because individuals don't directly pay the real line-item costs of these methods. Rail and bus services have to explain and justify every single penny spent—why not air, river, and highway/road services as well? All are equally basic utilities/services, not much different than potable water, electricity, telephone and natural gas.

There is one problem in the article: your question, "Why do voters continue to approve new taxes for construction?" We Oregonians NEVER approved light rail. Light rail was defeated at the ballot box three times, twice in Oregon and once in Washington. As a result, some of the money for it came from a source many of us consider to have been illegal. While Oregon law originally stipulated that funds collected from the state gasoline tax were specifically to be used on roads, this has been subverted. I my opinion, we have some very arrogant people in power who ignore both the law and the electorate.

As economists, you might be interested to know about the following example of an effort to control our government. A ballot measure, placed by initiative petition, would have required government to compensate landowners when a government action reduces the value of the owner's property. Those on the receiving end of "takings," as they are called locally, spent considerable money fighting the ballot measure. The measure passed in spite of their effort, but the Oregon Supreme Court tossed it out on a technicality.

Good article. Thanks again, and thank you St. Louis Fed!

Our city (Ottawa, Ontario, Canada) followed your advice 15 years ago and created an express bus system, complete with bus-only lanes. The system worked well for about seven years. Our population growth outstripped the capacity of this system. However, our system does fit your economic criteria. There are several problems with your observations and conclusions.

First: There are so many buses in our downtown core that one has difficulty finding their right bus after work. The primary downtown bus lane during rush hours has about 85 buses all lined up, and when they stop to pick up passengers, it is damned near impossible to catch your own designated bus. I end up missing my bus at least three times each day due to the volume of vehicles moving bumper to bumper.  During bad weather, it is difficult to tell the route number for each bus that passes by. All urban routes descend on the same downtown corridor. There are at least 35 routes which converge in our city core, and each bus for each route runs every 10 minutes or so. We look like Brazil at rush hour.

Second: The economics for volume passengers are not there for buses. For example, 10 buses require 10 drivers. That could be replaced by one train with one driver. In fact, the mess is so profound that although the city is growing, bus patronage has leveled out and the carryings have even declined. Surveys revealed that people are fed up with this. Our city is now planning an urban rail system.

Third: The fumes from these buses stink and are excessive. Many folks, including myself, have serious allergic reactions to the pollution.

Fourth: Trains may be costly in the short run, but once the system is in place and once the city grows, the utilization rates will climb dramatically. In many instances, it may be cheaper for transport to lead development than to have transport follow development. I believe that you Americans use this thinking when you plan your highways.

Five: What do you want your city to look like in the future? There are only so many cherries in the pie. How many roads can you construct through your city before the community becomes ugly. I love Chicago, for example. Its transit systems move volumes of people and, as a result, their city is one of the nicest in the United States. Florida is an example of a state where poor transit planning has had a terrible impact on the quality of many communities. I had to travel to Orlando last year. It took two hours to reach the downtown area from the airport due to extreme congestion. With a rail transit system, the journey would have taken about 15 minutes. I will never go to that city again, and I informed my accounting body that they should not plan any more conferences in that place again. I will not holiday or attend any meetings in Orlando after my experience.

In conclusion, I believe you left out some very important considerations. I am a professional accountant and an economist and I would appreciate if you would add these factors, described in points one to five above, the next time you conduct an analysis. They are real and important issues. Hopefully, one day upper middle class analysts will realize that public transit is not just for the lower classes and the poor.