RT37 – Jeff Brown and Joel Mendez – Paying for Public Transport

This is the fifteenth episode in Researching Transit’s Handbook of Public Transport Research Series. Links to the book can be found at the end of the notes. In this episode Professor Graham Currie talks to Professor Jeff Brown and Dr Joel Mendez about funding public transport. Professor Brown is from the College of Social Sciences & Public Policy at Florida State University. He is Department Chair, Associate Dean for Strategic Initiatives and the Interim Associate Dean for Research at the Department of Urban & Regional Planning. Dr Mendez is Assistant Professor at the University of Kansas’ Urban Planning Program. The episode starts with a brief discussion of Professor Brown’s background in transportation finance and policy, planning history, and public transport. He talks about how he got into research and early work with Donald Shoup on using unlimited transit passes to help reduce parking demand at universities. Professor Brown also discusses his research on streetcars and the influences on US cities to invest in this mode. Professor Currie then talks to Dr Joel Mendez about his background and research about equity and public transport, including recent work about a zero fare policy in Kansas. This is followed by a discussion about the eleventh chapter of the Handbook of Public Transport Research: Paying for public transport, which was authored by Dr Mendez, Professor James Wood, Assistant Professor Dristi Neog and Professor Brown. The chapter includes material about the benefits and cost of public transport, transit subsidies, and the challenges of providing sufficient resources to support operations and capital improvements. Dr Mendez, Professor Brown and Professor Currie discuss how paying for public transport is linked to its purpose, and how there are often many benefits of providing transit that accrue to non-users. This is part of the reason that many US services are supported by local sales taxes or other revenue streams, instead of just passenger fares. They discuss systems, such as the U-Pass, where a university makes a bulk payment to an operator in return for all students receiving free or subsidised travel. Payroll taxes, intergovernmental grants and transit funding through the US highway trust fund are also covered in the episode. Professor Brown emphasises the importance of having diverse funding sources. This might involve non-traditional forms of financing, which Dr Mendez discusses towards the end of the episode. They could also include joint development, revenue and cost sharing agreements, and other ways of capturing the property value benefits that occur when transit services are provided. Find out more about: This research in Chapter 11 of the Handbook of Public Transport Research, available for purchase from the publisher’s website: https://www.e-elgar.com/shop/gbp/handbook-of-public-transport-research-9781788978651.html. Professor Jeff Brown and his work at https://coss.fsu.edu/durp/faculty/jeff-brown/; and Dr Mendez and his work at https://kupa.ku.edu/joel-mendez Have feedback? Find us on twitter and Instagram @transitpodcast or using #researchingtransit Music from this episode is from https://www.purple-planet.com