The US has a huge and relatively efficient mass transit system that's nationwide. It's called air travel.
$400 to travel from LA to vegas is insane. I would consider $100 to be too much.
Where I am there are a few light rail lines that are underused and ran huge cost overruns, one of them loses over $100 for every rider, think about that.
I was a little off, they're losing $400-700 per passenger. LOL. In the best of times they lost $20 every time a rider hopped on. Just think about it, it would be cheaper to fly helicopters all over picking people up and dropping them off than operating a failing rail line.
But Northstar’s numbers remain stark: Ridership in May was 1,158, a low point this year that recovered slightly in August, according to the most recent figures available. But it’s far cry from the nearly 57,000 passengers in January, before the outbreak.
From a budget perspective, the council estimates the subsidy per passenger is $62.95 so far this year, which includes a CARES Act infusion from the federal government.
Even before the pandemic, the subsidy for Northstar was among the highest in the Metro Transit system at $19.39 per passenger in 2019.
“Northstar, even on its best days, was under duress, and now it’s close to bleeding out,” said Anoka County Commissioner Matt Look. He says the average passenger subsidy in August was about $794, but Metro Transit says it was about $445 including help from the federal government.
Either way, Look and others in Anoka County are questioning Northstar’s future, especially with the advent of telecommuting and an uptick in downtown Minneapolis crime.
