A proposal - South Shore

Update I - Northwest Indiana and Beyond pondering a similar set of numbers, but leaning toward keeping the budgets close to what they are now. Who's paying for highways?

It seems that we've all been pondering the South Shore, environmentalism, commuter access, economic development, and such for a couple years now. I have a proposal, and it may seem naive to everyone who reads ... but I'm willing to offer something and see what we learn.

I was reading in the Chesterton Tribune that the South Shore has serviced roughly 3.5 million passengers (at least one ways as far as i can tell) and that will approach roughly 4 million by the end of the year. The 2010 budget calls for a whopping $38,400,000 in total expenses and only $18,800,000 is covered by the riders paying fares. In really rough figures this means the riders aren't paying to operate their own commuter rail. Oh, as an aside, I bet that budget could be dropped even more if riders knew the money was theirs.

I propose fares be increased to cover operating expenses to an average $9.79 immediately. I realize that due to supply and demand this means less people will be able to use the rail. But I also think that social service providers and communities that want to help should help the riders themselves not ask all taxpayers to do so. At $9.79 my calculations suggest that even with our depressed level of riders now all opearating expenses would be covered by the riders themselves. Now maybe they won't want quite so many employees or ultra-expensive insurance for the employees, since they are paying the entire expense.

Then I propose that we restructure our federal, state, and local dollars that are currently being used to pay for the riders who aren't paying enough ... to layout a ten year plan to bring a commuter leg into Lake County, into Porter County, and into LaPorte County. Since this will cost lots of money (like $500 million I'm guessing) LaPorte needs to rethink their decision not to take part in the RDA and join the RDA as the funding source for $3.5 million per year.

New money for expansion, fares for operating ... and who knows maybe privatize the whole thing in 2020?

Ok, tell me I'm crazy and don't know anything about politics or taxes or being a conservative. That's fine ... better a starting idea for the rest of you to kick around.