This study, Federal Subsidies to Passenger Transportation produced by the USDOT and the U.S. Bureau of Transportation Statistics in 2004, lays out the figures directly. All the positive numbers in the bar chart are how much of your tax money it takes to provide 1000 miles of passenger transportation. The lone negative subsidy is how much more you pay to drive 1000 miles than it actually costs. That's right; you get charged extra for your drive to work to offset some free-loader's ride to work.
"Progressers" hate automobiles and want everybody to ride trains. But as you can see, the only way that's going to happen is to soak taxpayers for at least a nickel a mile.
This study was updated by the Heritage Foundation using the exact same data from Table 3 in the study for 2002. Their review, Federal Transportation Programs Shortchange Motorists found that the federal transportation program actually made a "profit" from motorists because they paid more in user fees and taxes (mostly the 18.3 cent per gallon federal fuel tax/user fee) than they received in subsidies for roads. Approximately 20 percent of fees and taxes paid into the highway trust fund by motorists were diverted to the Transit Account within the Highway Trust Fund to subsidize transit.
Passenger rail is the most heavily subsidized form of transportation there is. The feds may pickup a portion of the initial cost, but federal funds are strictly prohibited from being used for operating expenses. That means Cincinnatians will get stuck for the rest of the bills forever.
City leaders promise to implement passenger rail whether you like it or not. Issue 9 will give you a chance to vote yes or no on it. Vote YES ON ISSUE 9.