Paying for public transportation : the optimal, the actual, and the possible

Passenger transportation poses challenges to American cities in the form of air pollution, traffic congestion, auto collisions, and barriers to mobility. Public transit has the potential to be part of a solution to these urban problems, yet transit agencies across the country clamor for more resources. Transit finance in the U.S. is heterogeneous, and rarely approached with a comprehensive view of transit's social benefits. This thesis suggests a framework for a more rational magnitude and incidence of public transit funding based on a more comprehensive view of transit's social benefits. I take up the case of the Chicago metropolitan region and quantify the transit system's major emissions, safety, congestion, and mobility benefits. Next, I survey and highlight current practices in transit finance from other cities in North America and Western Europe. Finally, I assess the size, structure, and distribution of burden of Chicago's current transit funding status quo against theoretical and practical principles of transit funding and offer a range of financing alternatives to solve the current fiscal crisis in Chicago.

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Urban Studies and Planning.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2007

Author dc:creator

• Antos, Justin David

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• P. Christopher Zegras.

• Urban Studies and Planning.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/40101

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/40101