What do the numbers look like if you include the cost of cars? Trains are paid for by the transit authority, but cars are not. Regardless, someone still pays.
That's a good question, but you also have to take into account that passengers also pay transit fares, which can sometimes cost as much as a car. I expect that mass transit would still be significantly cheaper for most people though, if there was a proper mass transit network in place.
Despite being a huge fan of public transit, I actually think the efficiency numbers would probably still come out in favor of cars, in America, in the near term. Our country has been car focused for a hundred years and the assumption of car travel is baked into the way our cities (and especially suburbs) are designed. There would need to be years of shifting urban planning before mass transit really won everywhere.
Amtrak is long haul, not "mass transit network", outside of the NE corridor which is a very special case in Amtrak.
Having a cheap enough car and expensive enough transit bill to exceed it is an extreme statistical outlier. I saw this as an owner of a cheap car and an expensive commuter rail pass.
>but you also have to take into account that passengers also pay transit fares
But that's part of why he excluded expenditures covered by the gas tax on the road comparison, you'd want to add that back in if you are adding in fares.
While that isn't a good question, it isn't always valid. Once someone has a car, most of the costs are already sunk. You pay for the car and insurance even when it is sitting at home. The variable costs of a car are very low, so when comparing a car you already have to transit the incremental costs of taking the car are tiny. Transit looks even worse when you have a family and notice that the variable costs of taking the car don't change why the costs of transit go up per family member.
The only time your question matters is if/when the transit system is useful enough that someone can actually consider selling a car. I sold my car to ride the bus to work. However the one week my wife's car was in the shop convinced us that we won't be doing without a car anytime soon. (We often take trips that are 5 minutes by car that were 55 minutes by bus! Then there is the annoyance of the one time we missed the bus)
