Author: taxpayer

RTA prefers parking to transit

Whoops! Update from Sick Transit– RTA can tax only fee offstreet parking, and would have to eliminate its sales tax to do so.  Still might not be a bad move…

Earlier post was:

Yes, the RTA has authority to impose and collect a parking tax, per 70 ILCS 3615/4.03 . As one commenter stated at Sick Transit Chicago, RTA chose “a service meltdown over exercising the authority it does have” to tax parking.

I don’t consider a parking tax the best way to fund transit, as its economic objectives could be more efficiently obtained thru a land tax. But it’s better than a sales tax, and it’s already authorized. If RTA’s main purpose were to support and improve public transportation, this would have been done.

New national database on real estate taxation?

The Lincoln Institute says they’ve started a program to have George Washington University build a national database of real estate tax information.  There’s a bit of information on GWU’s site, indicating  that

a data collection team is compiling and classifying a wide range of material that characterizes property tax structures and processes in all fifty states to produce a “Compendium of State Property Tax Regimes.” The compendium will be available as a data set, and researchers will be able to perform simple queries through an interactive web site.

Lincoln’s 2007-8 program document is behind here but you’ll need to register, or use bugmenot.

How transit can fund itself

It’s simply a matter of retrieving some of the benefits that transit creates.  I have (finally!) put together estimates of land value and transit funding desires, to show how a land value tax for transit might work.   It looks as if a typical homeowner, for $290/year, could get all her transit paid for– not just the subsidy, but the fares, too.  Other options are cheaper.  Details here.

Why can't CTA maintain buses?

Earlier I wrote about how Pace maintenance seems much more competent than cta’s. Since June, five cta buses have broken down while I was aboard. Two were the small Optima buses, none more than a year old, and three were articulateds that I think are about three years old. Pretty clearly, cta is either unable to maintain their buses, or perhaps unable (or unwilling?) to figure out how to purchase equipment that will hold up.

Today’s breakdown was the first that happened right on Lake Shore Drive. The driver managed to pull over safely, invited everyone to get off, and waited to flag down a follower. The condition of buses was discussed. He, not I, pointed out that Pace buses don’t break down.

So I repeat my proposal: Let Pace take over one cta bus garage.

Homeland Security trumps responsibility

Ever heard of the “Support Anti-Terrorism by Fostering Effective Technologies Act of 2002?”  Known as the “SAFETY Act” (Can’t they even keep their acronyms clean?)  it limits liability for “almost every conceivable technology” related to homeland security.  According to Washington Lawyer Brian E. Finch, even transit [August ’07 Metro Magazine, page 24]  and amusement park security guards can be protected from liability under this act.

Feel safer now?

Magicians protect intellectual property without law

Magicians’ secrets really can’t be effectively copyrighted or patented, and trade secret law is of limited use, so how have professional magicians been able to keep most of their best tricks pretty much secret from the public? It’s by a set of strongly-enforced “common norms” among the profession, which allows “sharing” among those in the trade, but prohibits revealing more than trivial secrets. Violators are punished by expulsion from magicians’ organizations, and other techniques which make it difficult to continue working in the field.

From Jacob Loshin’s Secrets Revealed: How Magicians Protect Intellectual Property Without Law (pdf), via boingboing.

New data on supporting transit thru a land value tax

The previous post notes that the value of taxable land in the Chicago metro area exceeds $1 trillion. Therefore, if we want to get an extra $200 million for transit, we can do it with a land tax rate of 0.02%, meaning $40/year for the owner of a $200,000 lot. Another option is to raise $2 billion/year, use some for transit and some for roads and parking, so that people who don’t ride transit will still see direct benefit. This would cost our typical homeowner $400/year, likely deductible from federal taxable income and partly credited on state income tax. Renters, at least in theory, will pay none of this tax; it will fall on owners of the land on which their rented quarters are located.

A proper analysis of this would compile current transit funding sources and uses, and show how funds will be freed up, and taxpayers unburdened. In addition, it would use information compiled by Richard W. England, from a study by others of Washington, DC, which estimates a drop in job growth of 2.08% for every 1 percentage point increase in the sales tax rate. Applied to the Chicago area, this means that the existing and proposed transit sales tax will reduce, by 9,422, the number of jobs which would otherwise be in the metropolitan area ten years from now. [These figures are calculated in a simple spreadsheet which I would post here, if I could figure out how to post it, and will send to anyone interested.]