There will be a line to the airport that has a Stapleton stop. The Stapleton stop is at Quebec and I-70. So the Rapids could create some kind of bus/shuttle service on game days from the Stapleton stop, up Quebec, into the stadium. There will also be a line to the north metro area with a stop in Commerce City. It looks close to 56th ave and Colorado or something. A similar shuttle set up could be created.
Two things ... you tell me a place where public transportation is implemented entirely by private money. Second thing regarding RTD's monopoly ... I believe by law RTD needs to contract out a set % of thier business to other transit agencies ... in Boulder I believe that applies to the SKIP for example.
No one ever sees a bus in LA, because they can't go under 55 mph without blowing up! (Sorry, just trying to cheer myself up.) Quango
quan·go NOUN: pl. quan·gos An organization or agency that is financed by a government but that acts independently of it. ETYMOLOGY: qua(si) n(on-)g(overnmental) o(rganization) http://education.yahoo.com/reference/dictionary/entry/quango or QUANGO Quasi-Autonomous Non-Governmental Organization http://www.acronymfinder.com/ I got it off a Radiohead : Hail to the Thief poster. Thought it was appropriate for current governmental climate. Also, it sounds cool and starts with a Q!
Wait, so the government is helping a company to monopolize a market? And then should get involved more than their tax money handouts by market regulations? That'll encourage business for sure. Right. Sounds like the government is creating its own demons and then trying to patch them up with bandaids, then. Or, the government could just stay out completely rather than regulating the industry to hell... Why should monopolies like the US Postal Service and power companies like Xcel Energy or even RTD be allowed to exist, by virtue that all competition is illegal while Bell and MicroSoft don't and get taken down?
Leave it to folks on BigSoccer -- fans of the single-entity MLS -- to have an argument about monopolistic business control.
You're thinking of RTD as a for profit company and shouldn't. It is a Quango, as Quango pointed out. It's purpose is to serve the people of Denver. Transportation like this, on this scale, is not something a private company would want to compete on, because it is not profitable. However, just because it is not profitable does not mean it is not good or does not serve a purpose. There are costs and benefits associated with public transport beyond the dollars and cents it costs to build and run.
What makes a specific industry, like transportation, either potentially profitable or otherwise? Why can't telecommunications, health care or any product be "not for profit"? Aren't they all simply supplying a service, be it a bus ride, cell phone rates or gasoline? Who determines which industries can't be profitable, and thus, shouldn't be privatized and on what basis? For me, there is no difference. Any producer could, with proper government concurrence, serve all the constituents of its region (i.e. the "public good"), if it receives tax payer money and its competition is outlawed. Under such conditions, its no wonder the industry won't be profitable - it doesn't need to be! They've already got the government taking the money out of people's pockets for them! Seems to me, FastTracks will not serve ALL the people of Denver. It will only directly serve the people who ride on it. So why must everyone pay for the service they won't be receiving?
I don't know how to answer the first part of your question, maybe someone else can. The only thing I can think of is that public transportation is subsidised because it takes some burden off other modes of transport, highways and roads, which the government pays for. As for who gets the benefit of fastracks, you can say only the people who ride light rail will benefit from it. First of all you don't know if you will ever be in a position to ride it in the future. When BART (another large rail transit project) was built in the Bay Area there were a lot of people against it. However, now that it is there the people in outlying communities can't imagine life without it. It has become the easiest and fastest way into SF. Those same people against it now ride and enjoy it. Second of all there are other benefits you don't see. Such as reduced cars on the road, reduced polution from cars, opening new areas to positive development. People who still drive along fastracks corridors will benefit from having the other people on the train because there are less cars to compete with on the road. As the metro area grows by another million people this will become a greater benefit. As you get more cars off the road you have lowered car emmissions. As new areas develop around Union Station you have more housing and entertainment possibilities. You never know how fastracks will benefit you until you see it working and enjoy it.
Public Transportation needs to be subsidized because if it wasn't the cost of infastructure startup would make a ride from Boulder to Denver like $10 and no boy would use it and thus it would never be profitable. The only difference between RTD being a non-profit company and a goverment run agency, is that by being a non-profit company, they are required to be more effcient. If you can somehow stop viewing RTD as a company like an airline ... you'd see that it's not a whole lot different than C-Dot.
Other things funded with tax dollars that don't serve ALL the people of Denver: Denver International Airport Invesco Field at Mile High Coors Field Denver Center for the Performing Arts Denver Museum of Art The Denver Zoo Parks and Open Space I-70 I-25 [...] Of course it would be silly to suggest that none of the above don't contribute to the overall quality of life in Denver or aren't necessary for economic prosperity. Should we also cut funding to City and County hospitals for emergency care of uninsured individuals? After all, most of Denver has health insurance. If your chief argument against FasTracks is that it doesn't deserve public funding because EVERYONE won't be using it, that's about the most narrow-midned thing I've heard in the past few weeks regarding local public policy. Perhaps you'd rather we revert to an agrarian society where everyone is responsible to be self-sufficient, exchanging goods and services not by money but by trade. Then you'd only have to complain about Big Railroad wanting to lay tracks across your farm.
More or less, that sounds about right, yes. Yes, they are all nice amenitites, but the ends don't necessarily justify the ends. Really, why must any person be forced by the government to pay for a service they don't recieve? Where do you draw the line? Who is arbitrarily deciding where our money is going? Seems to me its the government, not citizens. Just because something is nice, pretty, may create jobs or increase the city's profile doesn't mean the government ought to start pumping up the tax rates to pay for all of it and seizing property while outlawing competition. Otherwise, my agrarian society sounds much more pleasant than the totalitarian one that could lead to. And there are purely privately funded museums, sports stadiums, parks and highways, though rare and scarce. It hardly seems absurd to me that the apparent lack of specific examples in this cateogory stems from the governments involvement with public money.
So I must ask ... should only adults with children pay for taxes for schools? Should only people that drive pay for roads? Should only fire victums pay for fire service? Who pays for the jails - because the people using them don't have jobs anymore? Should victims of crime have to pay service fees for the police? And you have yet to point out a mass transit system that is paid for by a private company.
The Fire Department, Police Department and jails serve a single common interest to everyone: protection. So everyone is a recipient of their service. Yes, but most college folk tend to go ultra-liberal. I went the other way. Isn't E-470 privately owned? And can't airline companies be called mass transit?
Highways being at capacity is what congestion is. Building the highway does not cause that. People using it does. This is an important difference. Building a highway doesn't magically cause it be congested. You could build some new freeways in Pittsburgh or Buffalo and they won't fill up. In fact, those cities have little if any problems with congestion. They're also shrinking metro areas. The traffic problems Denver is encountering are good things; their a sign of a vibrant metro with a growing economy. It's a good problem to face. The trick is not to choke off that growth with regulations and taxes. You could build a ton of highways, LRT, BRT, and such and simply do nothing more than burden the citizens with capital expenditures that are difficult to meet or drawing resources away from other activities that would be better suited toward keeping the area growing and healthy. Also, keep in mind that just as the highways were expensive, speculative ventures when built, so it something like LRT. It will take time to build up the infrastructure on some of these lines to reflect the added capacity on these corridors. Just as some point you could drive out of Denver on a freeway and see little if any activity built up centered around the freeway.
yes. yes. and at that for the roads they drive on. kinda. The cost of these services is really quite little. Same with the courts. They can be convered on a voluntary basis. Other things can exist such as private police forces (used to have them in San Fran, IIRC). I know it's tough to picture because it's not what we grew up with and I'm not the best at trying to explain these things. I'd be more than happy to share with you some of this. But the poor guy who started this thread looking to discuss the Denver LRT issue would probably be happier if we took that Libertarian discussion elsewhere.
I've been looking to move. Boise, Denver and Salt Lake are the last 3 choices (I've got days where I'm ready to just role a die to choose). One of the things important to me is that a community is looking toward the future with their transporation plans. I've been geeky enough to read some government agency stuff about planning for Denver Metro, Castle Rock, Boulder, Ft. Collins, etc. So I remember some of the issues a bit. I wasn't on top of things though and didn't know about the initiative. I see in the Post that it passed. What will these new lines be doing? What were people on the streets saying about it not that it passed?
Between Boise, Salt Lake or Denver, I'd definitely go with Denver. But I am quite biased in that respect.