Tuesday, May 25, 2010

St Louis Mass Transit - as expensive as a car

I did a rough estimate of Mass transit expenditures in Metro St. Louis a little while ago.
This evening I decided to go back and get the real numbers:

2009 Total Costs of service (including depreciation but excluding capex):  287,000,000
2009 Ridership:  50,000,000
Cost per ride:  $5.76
Cost per mile (assuming 10 mile trip average):   $0.58 per mile, less or more depending upon your assumptions. Roughly the same cost per mile as the $0.43 AAA estimates is the total, all in cost of small car ownership per mile including depreciation.

Oh, and this is before the agency pushed through a large new tax increase this spring.

Now Missouri is not known for its grossly inflated government or profligate civil service so I would guess these are below average numbers.  In a real 'blue state' the numbers must be truly terrifying. Our government is clearly out of control to the extent of pointlessness.  The liberal state is headed for a crash of epic proportions.

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