The local asshats are at it again, slamming Capital Metro for supposedly running empty buses.
See here and here and here for reasons why suburbanites always think buses are empty (they’re wrong – most Capital Metro buses are carrying a substantial number of passengers).
As regards farebox recovery (in short, the amount of cost covered by passenger fare), the asshats are ‘right’ – Capital Metro’s number is low. As I used to keep telling them when they’d come for their quarterly report to our commission, if you run programs like the free rides on Ozone Action Days and the free rides for UT students at night (E-bus) and don’t account for them separately, you leave yourself open for getting hammered on an extremely low farebox recovery ratio. And by “account for them separately” I don’t mean “after the local libertarians get the media to claim you’re wasting your money”; I mean “go as far as transferring 10% of your funds to the Clean Air Force and them have them contract with you for the Ozone Action Day rides just like you do with UT for the UT Shuttle”.
Of course they didn’t listen. Capital Metro operates in the same center-city echo-chamber that most of the bicycle advocates I work with live in. My role on the UTC, while it lasted, was largely an effort to smash out of that box and get them to realize that there’s a world out there past the intersection of 183 and Mopac, and it’s got more voters in it every day.
By the way, the “farebox recovery ratio” for the private automobile is about as low as Capital Metro’s artificially low number given above. As the last few days have hopefully shown, especially as you get close to the center-city, most major roads aren’t paid for out of the gas tax (or tolls) – they’re paid for with bonds which have to be floated every few years by the city and county and are repaid with property and sales taxes. Ironically, much of the strongest opposition to the local toll road plan comes from the same group hammering Capital Metro here. Guess what, folks? A toll paid when you drive on a particular road brings you UP to the level that the transit passenger is ALREADY AT. Gas taxes don’t even come close to paying your bills.
