But if you just take the $130 benefit away from a worker who's earning $40,000, that's a 4% pay cut, and there are consequences for retention and productivity to that decision.

While admittedly merely anecdotal, my observations of passengers when I do use public transit certainly don't indicate public transit is a cure for obesity.

Well, maybe instead of relying on your own self-reinforcing prejudices you should read some studies.

I read your blog. You seem to me (and I allow for the possibility that my inference is wrong) to hold the opinion that it’s bad for a private party to use its own money to offer “cupcakes” in support of private transit (i.e., employer-paid parking), but good for a public party to use tax dollars to offer “cupcakes” in support of public transit (i.e., fare-free bus rides). If Ann Arbor is so against cupcakes, its DDA shouldn't have built a bakery downtown in the form of a new parking garage with hundreds of theretofore non-existent spaces.

Well, yes, it's bad for anyone, public, or private, to give incentives to drive because private cars are bad, for all the reasons I've stated. That includes the Ann Arbor parking garage. And I don't know if donkeys even eat cupcakes, which is why I talked about sugar lumps instead.

In any case, if a person gets killed by a car, they're just as dead whether the driver was acting on the incentive of a "public party" or a private one.

And attibuting long commutes and obesity to private transit? Oh, please. For the majority of the country that does not live in densely populated urban areas, public transit lengthens, not shortens, commutes. While admittedly merely anecdotal, my observations of passengers when I do use public transit certainly don't indicate public transit is a cure for obesity.

I read your blog. You seem to me (and I allow for the possibility that my inference is wrong) to hold the opinion that it’s bad for a private party to use its own money to offer “cupcakes” in support of private transit (i.e., employer-paid parking), but good for a public party to use tax dollars to offer “cupcakes” in support of public transit (i.e., fare-free bus rides). If Ann Arbor is so against cupcakes, its DDA shouldn't have built a bakery downtown in the form of a new parking garage with hundreds of theretofore non-existent spaces.

In the case of the Ann Arbor employer, "adjust(ing) other things so that the overall compensation remains unchanged..." won't do a thing to achieve the stated goal of cost-cutting.

This is a cheese-and-chalk comparison anyhow. Ann Arbor, MI is not New York. It's barely even a neghborhood in New York. What is economically feasible in New York is fiscal suicide in Ann Arbor.

While their exists in this country a 5% in rabid favor of all things communal (at least to the extent that they can convince legislative bodies to force unwilling majorities to foot the bill), the majority desires private over communal arrangements in nearly everything--certainly in housing and transportation--and chooses thus when economically feasible.

Mass transit developed in other countries in response to conditions that didn't, and don't, exist in most of the US. The push to re-create such a system, certainly in Ann Arbor, is a solution in search of a problem.

Economics is the art of allocating scarce resources--in this instance, capital--among competing interests.

Government is the science of telling people the economic choices they make are "wrong", and that intelligent choices are the sole province of people whose paychecks are funded by tax dollars.

If it's your job, those are decisions that you have to make. The cost of finding another job may be greater to the employee than a $130 parking bill if they continue to drive alone, a $65 bill if they carpool, or a bus bass if they take transit, or whatever arrangements people come up with. They can be quite creative when given the choice of paying for a parking space, instead of their employer deciding that they will pay collectively out of their potential salaries. (Too airy?)

If "private" transport is subsidized by the public, doesn't that make it just as public as "public" transport?

Government is (supposed to be) BY THE PEOPLE. Given a fixed level of transportation dollars sufficient to subsidize private transit or public transit, but not both, a society of means overwhelmingly chooses private.

You assume that they're adequately informed about all the consequences of "private transit": unwalkable neighborhoods, carnage, obesity, asthma, global warming, other kinds of pollution, oil wars, resource depletion, long commutes. Even a lot of sustainable transportation advocates have trouble keeping all of these in mind at the same time.

In any case, I thought that Shore's addition of the cupcake to the carrot-stick metaphor was brilliant, and completely rescued the metaphor and made it relevant again. How can you motivate a donkey with carrots if there's a guy with sugar lumps luring it off course?

Government is (supposed to be) BY THE PEOPLE. Given a fixed level of transportation dollars sufficient to subsidize private transit or public transit, but not both, a society of means overwhelmingly chooses private.

The most common criterion among nations with high rates of public transit use is a high population density. The best the US can hope for is high public transit use in large cities--approximately 400,000+--something that is in place already. Ann Arbor doesn't fit the bill--it's the most PC city in Michigan, trying to force an uneconomic (for them) system in place for ideological reasons.

In US cities with high public transit usage, the common denominator is unaffordable (not merely expensive) parking for the masses. While not inexpensive, $130 a month doesn't fit that bill, either.

Unless and until most commercial deliveries can be accomplished by rail (a spur on every block), the physical infrastructure to support rail is prohibitively expensive and unnecessarily duplicative in all but densely populated urban areas.

When public transit makes economic sense, you don't need either carrots or sticks.

What this exercise has really taught me is that there is a vicious spiral when you pay for employee parking. Many of these employees live really far away so using the bus really isn't an option and the Park and Ride works but isn't ideal. One wonders if this org never paid for employee parking if people who applied for the jobs would try to find ways to work closer. But since Ann Arbor is relatively affluent, I am not sure it's reasonable to believe that everyone could afford to live here.

That being said, I think that providing free employee parking at the employers expense is an old model that is slowly changing. But that transition is going to be painful and for awhile is going to cause some people to be inconvenienced. But I have to say, for most people that's what it is: an inconvenience. I wish we lived in a less entitled society where it was the norm to give up a little for the sake of others (or the planet or the community) because I also see that people feel like they should be guaranteed a parking space right next to where they work even if they work in a downtown urban setting. This is the reality of people's perception, and it will take time to change those perceptions. But I do see the shift happening, little by little.

Transit fares cover only about 28 cents of every dollar of transit spending.

Except in parts of New Jersey, where they cover 104 cents of every dollar.

In contrast, governments DO have to spend massive amounts of money on huge incentives for people to use transit, just to achieve very low levels of ridership.

Actually, they don't. They just have to not spend massive amounts of money subsidizing private car use. But thanks for playing, Garyg!

Fortunately, governments don't have to spend massive amounts of money on huge incentives for people to own and drive cars for driving to be an affordable and practical alternative to transit. That's why driving is the overwhelmingly dominant form of transportation in virtually all wealthy democracies.

In contrast, governments DO have to spend massive amounts of money on huge incentives for people to use transit, just to achieve very low levels of ridership. Without those huge government incentives, transit ridership would be even lower.

If the organization cuts out benefits that some fraction of the workforce finds essential, probably some workers will get demotivated and some others will look for work elsewhere.

That's easy to fix: adjust other things so that the overall compensation remains unchanged. The most straightforward is if they get the cost of the parking in the form of cash, which could be spent on parking or something else.

Given the economic times, this organization is looking at ways to cut costs, and providing $130/month for each employee for a parking space is starting to look like a lot of money.

If the organization cuts out benefits that some fraction of the workforce finds essential, probably some workers will get demotivated and some others will look for work elsewhere. That costs the organization money, probably more than the $130 a month parking bill. If it's your organization, those are decisions that you have to make.

Few people will choose transit where driving is an affordable and practical alternative.

No, few people will choose transit when the government spends massive amounts of money on huge incentives for them to own and drive private cars. Not the same thing.

Nations with high rates of transit use have two things in common: high gas prices and high-quality rail service, including high-speed rail, conventional rail, suburban rail, and light rail.

No. The only nations with high rates of transit use are those that are either too poor for mass ownership of private automobiles or too constrained by geography for mass use of private automobiles. Few people will choose transit where driving is an affordable and practical alternative.

So what if I could use the toilet at home in the morning before I left the house.

Which makes me think that instead of "Let's improve human behavior with carrots and sticks" we should stick to practical and economic terms. It's not about changing any one person's behavior. It's about closing actual budget deficits and raising our surface transportation to some measure of efficiency. People can decide for themselves if they're feeling "discouraged" from driving or rather "liberated" from traffic. I don't care if anyone feels guilty or not, I just want to have safer, cleaner streets and transit that works.

In other words: what Lucy said.