Comment 14684

By g. (anonymous) | Posted November 29, 2007 at 01:07:22

a different way of looking at the transit problem is that the HSR is in the business of selling bus rides. as such if they want to sell more trips, it is contrary to reason to increase the cost. if an airline is losing money and has lots of empty planes it doesn't increase the cost, it has a seat sale. if a grocery store isn't selling many peppers they lower the price.

does anyone have the numbers on the current capacity of the entire HSR system in terms of a percentage being utilized on a daily basis? the airlines keep track of what percentage of seats they sell, does the HSR?
There are huge economies of scale involved in public transit. the cost of owning and operating a bus on a route that services 100 people a day as opposed to 1000 a day, that is perhaps 4 people on a bus as opposed to 40 are, aside from fuel, relatively similar. thus, to a certain threshold, which is where the capacity numbers come in, the cheaper the transit fare, the more people who buy transit, the cheaper transit can be. for some transit is a necessity but for many others it is a choice, be it based on economics, convenience or ethics, and the higher the price of a bus ride the further they will look towards alternatives.

By the way, i support a cap on the police buget to pay for transit fare reductions. they seem to be the only ones who can get buget increases regularly and without justification.

if anyone has the numbers about HSR capacity and could post them to this site i am sure it would be interesting reading for many.

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