Pressing additional buses into service so people can actually ride one is a different matter. The funding need should focus on that, not on fuel-price relief.

Since then government spending on health care has soared. But so has the share of uninsured, especially among the young. More spending on those already in the system, culminating in the prescription drug benefit addition to Medicare, too the place of something for everyone.

Our infrastructure is in the same boat.

Demographics, and the cost of health care and pensions, make it so, at all levels of government. There is no other outcome. The people are there. They are broke. And they are aging.

The time to put in place a better infrastructure was the past 35 years, with the whole baby boom in the labor force, two per families in intact families, and the highest labor force participation we'll ever see. We didn't. We partied instead.

Now we have debts to pay, senior benefits to pay, and fewer people to pay them. This country is going broke. The transit systems are being made by demographics and international finance.

However, I've provided a handy Spreadsheet o' Boondoggles ripe for th' cutting!

The money must be found for all three of them.

http://www.forgotten-ny.com

(currently down but hope to be back soon)

The above quote coming from the story in the Gainesville paper today..

The undisputable fact is that the huge increases in fuel costs are forcing agencies all across the nation to make serious service cuts.

I almost got into this argument of -at what point on the sliderule do costs exceed new fares but that's just a way to ignore the magnitude of the strain of the extra riders.

If we are to have a real time choice other than more wars for more oil it will be a massive increase in mass transit. Good for the economy,the environment and national defense.

"The authority’s old-fashioned diesel buses get about 2.5 miles per gallon, Mr. LaBouff said. The current fleet of 825 hybrid buses gets 3.2 miles per gallon (the buses thrive on stop-and-go traffic, since the braking action charges the batteries). The authority expects the lithium-ion hybrids to get about 3.5 miles per gallon."

Nice catch! We're going to change the photo.

We've either got this photo depicting local bus service in the average American city circa 2013:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/ejazasi/253032421/

Or one from Syracuse.

So, if you have that--all other things aside--it takes 17.6 people turning in their 30mpg cars for the bus to equal the amount of fuel used or 7.5 on a hybrid bus. I could see why all routes averaged you might have some problems always fitting 17.5, especially outside of big cities. I also hope you're wrong on that 1.7mpg figure which seems really low--not that 4 seems high but you can see how much of a difference it makes on gallons per 100 miles.

That certainly plays a role, and it will get worse. Which is why back when I thought there was some hope for public services sand benefits, I argued that mass transit was better off relying on fares to the extent possible and not entirely on subsidies, as the Kheel Plan would require.

A bendy bus will get about 1.7mpg, and the best new hybrid might get close to 4mpg. It's easy to see why the diesel increases are hitting them hard.

Not for you, not as long as the debts and pensions get paid. There is no real mandate for transit agencies to provide transit service.

"The problem with your analysis is that riders are a burden to most bus systems. They lose money every time someone boards."

Only if they increase service. Most transit in small areas runs empty, and actually burns more fuel per passenger mile as a result. Filling those seats ought to really help, especially during off peak periods. The rise in off-peak ridership is the only positive financial story for NY's MTA in the past 15 years.

If they really are adding passengers, and those passengers are paying, that ought to be enough to cover the rising cost of fuel. And very few transit systems have the kind of debt that has been foisted upon NY's MTA.

The cost of pensions and retiree health care are another matter. The more people lose health insurance, the more the health care industry will try to shift costs to public employees, who are generally entitled to unlimited health services at an unlimited cost. And all those investment losses increase the cost of pensions.

For instance: Let's say a bus gets 8 miles to a gallon (I hope this isn't too far off). Gas now costs an extra $2 per gallon. So, on each 8-mile run, the bus would need only two more customers paying $1 each to make up the difference.

What's wrong with my analysis?