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[EARLY ACCESS] The Trap of “Profitable” Transit Routes
🕑 Added 2024-08-05 21:58:42 +0000 UTCWe talk about why profitable transit routes aren't the only routes a transit system needs. Enjoy!
![[EARLY ACCESS] The Trap of “Profitable” Transit Routes](https://img10.patrefans.com/storage/4/nm/xy/563145-019e6f6a-350f-7a6f-a045-c39eb234367f.jpg)
Comments
Reece Martin
Oh for sure, in some sense transportation really can create something out of nothing.
Christopher Beattie
One of the questions of "profitable" is, as you mentioned, looking at the store and not at the specific product. Let's take a line that might not be making a profit and thus incurs a small cost. What's the alternative? More cars on the street, degrading the road infrastructure and resulting in far more costs to maintain the roads? Not to mention the increased costs of traffic police to patrol the streets (think of NYC where there is a strict speed limit and a don't block the block law that needs to be enforced). Each element of transit impacts every other element. Finally, we get to the matter of the alternative being nothing? While we don't want to throw profitability out the window, there is a moral aspect that people lose sight of when all they think of is profits and losses from a myopic perspective. Congestion pricing in lower Manhattan is a prime example here, as it hurts the people who protect the city the most.
