THE SUBSIDY ISSUE REDEFINED

The preceding papers made no mention of the portion of the population that is transit dependent - those people who rely on the existence of a decent transit system at a reasonable cost. A more rounded perspective on the issues is needed since public transit subsidies are a necessity to the maintenance of the urban organism. The choice for the present is not whether to subsidize public transportation but whether to have it at all. The answer is that it must be maintained for the transit dependent groups (i.e. urban poor, elderly, etc.), and it must be maintained at a price they can afford. The issue addressed here, and the one that most profitably could have been addressed in the previous papers, is how to design a subsidy program that will maximize the return on the investment.