External costs and subsidies
for different passenger- transport modes (cents per vehicle mile, except
last row is cents per passenger mile)
[Numbers in brackets are my best estimates]
| COST ITEM | GASOLINE AUTO | ELECTRIC AUTO | TRANSIT BUS |
LIGHT RAIL | HEAVY RAIL |
| Air pollution | 0.8 to 13 [2.0] | 1.5 | 5.4 to 123 [20.0] | 5* | 5* |
| Oil use, water pollution | 0.3 to 1.5 [0.8] | 0 . 4 | 1.5 to 8.7 [4.0] | r | r |
| Noise | 0.01 to 2.0 [0.2] | 0.1 5 | 0.5 to 10.0 [2.0] | r | r |
| Congestion | 4.0 | 4 . 0 | 8.0 | not estimated | not estimated |
| Accidents | 2.5 | 2 . 6 | 3 .5 | 2 * | 2* |
| Marginal highway and service costs | 0 . 1 | 0 . 1 | 1 . 5 | 0 | 0 |
| Unpriced parking | 0 to 8 [0] | 0 to 8 [0] | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| In
efficient highway user taxes and fees, meant to cover highway costs |
- 2 . 7 | 0 | 0 (exempt from fuel taxes) | 0 | 0 |
| Government
subsidy: Operating costs minus fares Operating + rolling-stock costs minus fare Total operating + capital costs minus fare * * |
0
0 0 |
0
0 0 |
33
9 [ 39 8 ] 4 6 5 |
685
1 , 13 7 2 , 8 0 0 |
372
797 1 , 177 |
| Extra private costs relative to gas auto | 0 | 0 to 16 [8] | see subsidy | see subsidy | see subsidy |
| Total cents per vehicle-mile | 5 to 28.4 [6.9] | 8.8 to 24.8 [16.8] | 359 to 620 [437] | 694 to 2,809 | 381 to 1,186 |
| Passengers per vehicle | assume 1.0 | assume 1.0 | 10.9 (avg.) | 25.7 (avg.) | 22.3 (avg.) |
| Total cents per passenger- m i l e --------> | 5 to 28.4 [6.9] | 8.8 to 24.8 [16.8] | 33 to 57 [40] | 27 to 109 | 17 to 53 |
* Data are not available
for these numbers, which are estimated based on my studied
judgment.
* * Note that, because
the official statistics do not report passenger fare payments by individual
transit mode, it is not possible to calculate the actual government subsidy
for each mode. I have assumed that ratio of fare payments to operating expenses
is the same for all modes.
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