Free bus service in DC proposed

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:You're going to love it when the buses are full of homeless people.

I've been on buses with homeless people and I'm ok with it.

not buses with homeless people. buses FULL of homeless people. they would become de facto homeless shelters.

Then maybe we need to do better with our homeless shelters if they're choosing a bus over the shelter.

But I also don't believe your hyperbole.

Have you visited DC public libraries lately?

Yes? With my kids. They're great.

And homeless people have a right to use them and buses. If you don't like homeless people using public services then maybe we could get them homes?

Build a shipping container camp with small rooms on the vacant land at RFK. Provide services on site, including skills building and security. But then no more living on the streets and no more camping in the parks!

And good bus service to the camp so they can get where they need? Plus services so the people at the camp can thrive and make their way out of it?

Make it so good that people don't choose the street over the camp, unlike the current roster of shelters.

The D.C. government hates homeless people. It would rather spend a gazillion dollars on bike lanes for rich white dudes from Ward 3 than spend a dollar on giving homeless people a place to sleep. They just want homeless people to go away.

Rich white dudes in ward 3 is not the typical bike rider in this city. It’s ward 1, 4 and 5 that are more likely to ride bikes.

LOL. Have you tried riding a bike in Brookland anywhere other than the MBT? I assume not, since you're still alive.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Tax receipts are about to fall off the table but, sure, let's create a new spending program.

How many times have you come crying wolf about that? It's as long as I can remember.

The city has been living in la la land for years now thanks to low interest rates that created a giant real estate bubble and, with it, send property taxes soaring, and thanks to Congress dumping a mountain of money on state and local governments. All of that is now coming to a crashing halt. You are free to be completely ignorant and assume tomorrow will be exactly the same as yesterday but I'd suggest maybe paying a little bit of attention to what's happening around you. Things are going to get ugly.

DC taxes on everyone are going way up, even people with modest incomes. Unlike the federal government, DC does not index its income tax brackets for inflation. People are getting raises because of inflation (though those pay raises rarely keep up with inflation so in real terms people's incomes are actually declining even if they get raises). But those pay increases are pushing people into higher tax brackets in DC because we have this incredibly stupid policy so everyone's tax bills are going up, even though their inflation adjusted pay is going down. The city says income taxes on individual Washingtonians will go up 16 percent this year because of inflation. DC's tax system is appallingly bad but people don't seem to care.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Tax receipts are about to fall off the table but, sure, let's create a new spending program.

How many times have you come crying wolf about that? It's as long as I can remember.

The city has been living in la la land for years now thanks to low interest rates that created a giant real estate bubble and, with it, send property taxes soaring, and thanks to Congress dumping a mountain of money on state and local governments. All of that is now coming to a crashing halt. You are free to be completely ignorant and assume tomorrow will be exactly the same as yesterday but I'd suggest maybe paying a little bit of attention to what's happening around you. Things are going to get ugly.

DC taxes on everyone are going way up, even people with modest incomes. Unlike the federal government, DC does not index its income tax brackets for inflation. People are getting raises because of inflation (though those pay raises rarely keep up with inflation so in real terms people's incomes are actually declining even if they get raises). But those pay increases are pushing people into higher tax brackets in DC because we have this incredibly stupid policy so everyone's tax bills are going up, even though their inflation adjusted pay is going down. The city says income taxes on individual Washingtonians will go up 16 percent this year because of inflation. DC's tax system is appallingly bad but people don't seem to care.

High, regressive income tax + low property tax = bad policy

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You're going to love it when the buses are full of homeless people.

I've been on buses with homeless people and I'm ok with it.

not buses with homeless people. buses FULL of homeless people. they would become de facto homeless shelters.

Then maybe we need to do better with our homeless shelters if they're choosing a bus over the shelter.

But I also don't believe your hyperbole.

Have you visited DC public libraries lately?

Yes? With my kids. They're great.

And homeless people have a right to use them and buses. If you don't like homeless people using public services then maybe we could get them homes?

Build a shipping container camp with small rooms on the vacant land at RFK. Provide services on site, including skills building and security. But then no more living on the streets and no more camping in the parks!

And good bus service to the camp so they can get where they need? Plus services so the people at the camp can thrive and make their way out of it?

Make it so good that people don't choose the street over the camp, unlike the current roster of shelters.

The D.C. government hates homeless people. It would rather spend a gazillion dollars on bike lanes for rich white dudes from Ward 3 than spend a dollar on giving homeless people a place to sleep. They just want homeless people to go away.

Rich white dudes in ward 3 is not the typical bike rider in this city. It’s ward 1, 4 and 5 that are more likely to ride bikes.

The people who wear lycra while riding bikes are not the people who use bike lanes. Get that into your pea brained sized head.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think a 100% taxpayer subsidized bus network will be more prone to service reductions and route cancellations.

Something that, oddly enough, never happens to the 100% taxpayer subsidized roads-for-cars network.

You’re comparing apples to oranges. Roads aren’t dynamic. Transit services are.

If you think roads aren't dynamic, try cancelling all road-related services for a while and see what happens. No snow clearance, no leaf collection, no filling potholes, no repaving, no fixing traffic signals, no repairing/replacing all of the road-related things that drivers destroy by crashing into them, no emergency response to crashes - just let the roads be.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Rich white dudes in ward 3 is not the typical bike rider in this city. It’s ward 1, 4 and 5 that are more likely to ride bikes.

The people who wear lycra while riding bikes are not the people who use bike lanes. Get that into your pea brained sized head.

Honestly, the reality is that almost everyone wears Lycra. All my jeans have Lycra. All my office pants and office shirts have Lycra. My socks have Lycra. Men's suits have Lycra. Plus, they keep telling us to wear hi-vis clothes when we bike or even walk. So this "Lycra/Spandex" obsession related to people on bikes is just weird. But I guess it sounds better than "people in team bike jerseys on expensive road bikes."

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Not collecting fares make the bus run faster, which makes it more convenient. Lots of people don't ride the bus because it's not convenient.

Bus improvement from not collecting fares will be marginal, as it is now. The problem is we have existing bus lanes in DC and more planned and they're virtually worthless because drivers insist on parking in them and our intrepid pols are too afraid to enforce the bus lanes. Simple as that. The bus lanes on 14th St NW are virtually worthless.

Not collecting fares won't change that.

Sure, do that too. What I'd like to see is priority signal timing for buses -- the bus always gets a green light. That would do a lot more for bus speed than bus lanes. But the point is the way you make buses attractive is you make them competitive in terms of speed with other choices. In cities that have tried getting rid of fares it has sped up buses significantly.

I’m all for speeding up the buses but priority signals - in the absence of dedicated bus lanes - is a recipe for traffic chaos. There are enough drivers running red lights as it is. Plenty of cars would self-identify as buses if it meant they could get through an intersection quicker.

The traffic light senses the bus coming and turns green. When the light is green, all traffic going in that direction can go. But unless you want to travel at the same speed as the bus, stopping at every stop, it's a one-time boost.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Rich white dudes in ward 3 is not the typical bike rider in this city. It’s ward 1, 4 and 5 that are more likely to ride bikes.

The people who wear lycra while riding bikes are not the people who use bike lanes. Get that into your pea brained sized head.

Honestly, the reality is that almost everyone wears Lycra. All my jeans have Lycra. All my office pants and office shirts have Lycra. My socks have Lycra. Men's suits have Lycra. Plus, they keep telling us to wear hi-vis clothes when we bike or even walk. So this "Lycra/Spandex" obsession related to people on bikes is just weird. But I guess it sounds better than "people in team bike jerseys on expensive road bikes."

In this context "Lycra" is a lazy shorthand.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Tax receipts are about to fall off the table but, sure, let's create a new spending program.

How many times have you come crying wolf about that? It's as long as I can remember.

The city has been living in la la land for years now thanks to low interest rates that created a giant real estate bubble and, with it, send property taxes soaring, and thanks to Congress dumping a mountain of money on state and local governments. All of that is now coming to a crashing halt. You are free to be completely ignorant and assume tomorrow will be exactly the same as yesterday but I'd suggest maybe paying a little bit of attention to what's happening around you. Things are going to get ugly.

But the city also has a massive budget surplus that it built up during those la la land years, and a much higher income tax base now than it did the last time interest rates were this high (which was only about 15 years ago anyway, it's not like you have to go back to the worst of the 1980s to compare how the city was doing with 7 percent mortgage rates). And this program costs $42 million out of a $14 billion city budget, so it's not going to be the thing that brings everything crashing down, anyway.

This is a great example of how the la la land thinking gets perpetuated, by using magical thinking and false information.

DC is not a “city” and it DOES NOT have a “massive surplus” of funds sitting around. It is massively in debt to the tune of $13 billion.

For contrast, Montgomery County, MD, which many believe to be acting fiscally irresponsibly has a debt of $5.5 billion. But it has a 30% larger population and vastly larger land area.

There was a budget surplus in 2020 thanks to Federal COVID relief $ and those funds were legislatively required to be spent on affordable housing. There is no special vault of money sitting around for the District to draw on. Furthermore, by all accounts future revenue estimates are based on irresponsible assumptions about commercial and residential property taxes.

????

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Tax receipts are about to fall off the table but, sure, let's create a new spending program.

How many times have you come crying wolf about that? It's as long as I can remember.

The city has been living in la la land for years now thanks to low interest rates that created a giant real estate bubble and, with it, send property taxes soaring, and thanks to Congress dumping a mountain of money on state and local governments. All of that is now coming to a crashing halt. You are free to be completely ignorant and assume tomorrow will be exactly the same as yesterday but I'd suggest maybe paying a little bit of attention to what's happening around you. Things are going to get ugly.

But the city also has a massive budget surplus that it built up during those la la land years, and a much higher income tax base now than it did the last time interest rates were this high (which was only about 15 years ago anyway, it's not like you have to go back to the worst of the 1980s to compare how the city was doing with 7 percent mortgage rates). And this program costs $42 million out of a $14 billion city budget, so it's not going to be the thing that brings everything crashing down, anyway.

This is a great example of how the la la land thinking gets perpetuated, by using magical thinking and false information.

DC is not a “city” and it DOES NOT have a “massive surplus” of funds sitting around. It is massively in debt to the tune of $13 billion.

For contrast, Montgomery County, MD, which many believe to be acting fiscally irresponsibly has a debt of $5.5 billion. But it has a 30% larger population and vastly larger land area.

There was a budget surplus in 2020 thanks to Federal COVID relief $ and those funds were legislatively required to be spent on affordable housing. There is no special vault of money sitting around for the District to draw on. Furthermore, by all accounts future revenue estimates are based on irresponsible assumptions about commercial and residential property taxes.

????

The “D” in DC stands for “District”. It is a federal district. Within DC there is a city called Washington. There also used to be a separate municipality called Georgetown.

Referring to a “city budget” is inaccurate and demonstrates that you don’t know what you are talking about.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Tax receipts are about to fall off the table but, sure, let's create a new spending program.

How many times have you come crying wolf about that? It's as long as I can remember.

The city has been living in la la land for years now thanks to low interest rates that created a giant real estate bubble and, with it, send property taxes soaring, and thanks to Congress dumping a mountain of money on state and local governments. All of that is now coming to a crashing halt. You are free to be completely ignorant and assume tomorrow will be exactly the same as yesterday but I'd suggest maybe paying a little bit of attention to what's happening around you. Things are going to get ugly.

But the city also has a massive budget surplus that it built up during those la la land years, and a much higher income tax base now than it did the last time interest rates were this high (which was only about 15 years ago anyway, it's not like you have to go back to the worst of the 1980s to compare how the city was doing with 7 percent mortgage rates). And this program costs $42 million out of a $14 billion city budget, so it's not going to be the thing that brings everything crashing down, anyway.

This is a great example of how the la la land thinking gets perpetuated, by using magical thinking and false information.

DC is not a “city” and it DOES NOT have a “massive surplus” of funds sitting around. It is massively in debt to the tune of $13 billion.

For contrast, Montgomery County, MD, which many believe to be acting fiscally irresponsibly has a debt of $5.5 billion. But it has a 30% larger population and vastly larger land area.

There was a budget surplus in 2020 thanks to Federal COVID relief $ and those funds were legislatively required to be spent on affordable housing. There is no special vault of money sitting around for the District to draw on. Furthermore, by all accounts future revenue estimates are based on irresponsible assumptions about commercial and residential property taxes.

????

The “D” in DC stands for “District”. It is a federal district. Within DC there is a city called Washington. There also used to be a separate municipality called Georgetown.

Referring to a “city budget” is inaccurate and demonstrates that you don’t know what you are talking about.

I'm notoriously pedantic and tendentious, and this is too much even for me.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Tax receipts are about to fall off the table but, sure, let's create a new spending program.

How many times have you come crying wolf about that? It's as long as I can remember.

The city has been living in la la land for years now thanks to low interest rates that created a giant real estate bubble and, with it, send property taxes soaring, and thanks to Congress dumping a mountain of money on state and local governments. All of that is now coming to a crashing halt. You are free to be completely ignorant and assume tomorrow will be exactly the same as yesterday but I'd suggest maybe paying a little bit of attention to what's happening around you. Things are going to get ugly.

But the city also has a massive budget surplus that it built up during those la la land years, and a much higher income tax base now than it did the last time interest rates were this high (which was only about 15 years ago anyway, it's not like you have to go back to the worst of the 1980s to compare how the city was doing with 7 percent mortgage rates). And this program costs $42 million out of a $14 billion city budget, so it's not going to be the thing that brings everything crashing down, anyway.

This is a great example of how the la la land thinking gets perpetuated, by using magical thinking and false information.

DC is not a “city” and it DOES NOT have a “massive surplus” of funds sitting around. It is massively in debt to the tune of $13 billion.

For contrast, Montgomery County, MD, which many believe to be acting fiscally irresponsibly has a debt of $5.5 billion. But it has a 30% larger population and vastly larger land area.

There was a budget surplus in 2020 thanks to Federal COVID relief $ and those funds were legislatively required to be spent on affordable housing. There is no special vault of money sitting around for the District to draw on. Furthermore, by all accounts future revenue estimates are based on irresponsible assumptions about commercial and residential property taxes.

????

The “D” in DC stands for “District”. It is a federal district. Within DC there is a city called Washington. There also used to be a separate municipality called Georgetown.

Referring to a “city budget” is inaccurate and demonstrates that you don’t know what you are talking about.

I'm notoriously pedantic and tendentious, and this is too much even for me.

I as well.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The “D” in DC stands for “District”. It is a federal district. Within DC there is a city called Washington. There also used to be a separate municipality called Georgetown.

There is nothing inside the District of Columbia that is called Washington. It's simply a colloquialism from before the District was formally created.

For your own.......information

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The “D” in DC stands for “District”. It is a federal district. Within DC there is a city called Washington. There also used to be a separate municipality called Georgetown.

There is nothing inside the District of Columbia that is called Washington. It's simply a colloquialism from before the District was formally created.

For your own.......information

Uh, you’re actually mistaken. The original city limits of “Washington” in the District of Columbia was Florida Avenue. At that time Georgetown was a separate municipality which later merged with Washington. The city of “Washington” eventually expanded to the whole District.

For your own……information.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The “D” in DC stands for “District”. It is a federal district. Within DC there is a city called Washington. There also used to be a separate municipality called Georgetown.

There is nothing inside the District of Columbia that is called Washington. It's simply a colloquialism from before the District was formally created.

For your own.......information

LOL. You couldn’t be more wrong.