Re: Re: The destruction of St. Stephen’s Green

@Fergal wrote:

Why should it have to break even in operational terms? Almost no public transport in the entire world covers its operational costs. The DART doesn’t, .

The Dart did make a profit operationally until an election promise of extending Dart to Greystones was implemented post 1996

@Fergal wrote:

the London Underground doesn’t,

Excluding fleet replacement for rolling stock built pre 1960 LUL turns a profit; the wider TfL loses money however most of that is due to running buses in Greying suburbs reminiscant of most of the proposed route for metro.

@Fergal wrote:

and the New York Subway doesn’t come within an asses roar of covering even half its operating costs.

Funny that a google search for New York Subway subvention or operating subsidy doesn’t reveal a figure beyond the overall ‘mass transit subsidy’ of $770m p.a.

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=990CE0DF173DF93BA25756C0A963958260

That is a total subvention of $38.50 per citizen per year for all forms of transit combined; on that basis to extrapolate these figures the total subsidy in New York for commuter rail, subway and bus totals $38.5m total assuming a population of 1m people i.e. Dublin / North Kildare / South Meath North Wickla.

You point to build it and they will ocme at a time when global purchasing managers indexes are averaging 35 or a 30% decline in year on year output. The financing costs on this project at government bond rates would be €200m per year assuming that it even broke even.

You propose a subvention of 5.19 times the overall subvention per citizen in New York for all transit networks inluding subway, commuter rail and bus just to build a single line.

If that’s what passes for viability I’m glad I pay my tax elsewhere