THE BOOK--Playing The Percentages In Baseball

I’m not sure about the economics of this issue, but on my one visit to Safeco, the public bus situation was terrible.  In order to get to the park on time, my 6-year old son and I had to abandon our bus (which was gridlocked in traffic a mile or so north of the park) and hoof it along the streets (which was not entirely bad, though, as I bumped into a fellow Navy officer headed to the park, and had a nice conversation with him).

After the game, I was utterly unable to figure out where to pick up a bus headed back uptown (no signs that I could see, and not one word was uttered at the game about public transportation, unlike how it is done at Fenway), and the few buses that did approach the park were swarmed and filled so quickly that we had no chance to get on one, even if we could have known where it was headed.  We ended up hoofing it a mile or so back towards downtown, along streets with no sidewalks, under dark overpasses and past lots of homeless folks.  Pretty unsatisfactory.  Maybe with a private company some of these issues will be fixed…

Sounds like some people would prefer basic bus service for 3$, premium bus service for 20$, and super-premium cab service for whatever-it-costs.

I don’t understand why there is legislation required here that biases against public transportation.

There will be no “fixing”, Greg - the private bus company that bid on the rights to the charter quoted the Mariners double the previous subsidy price and planned on raising the per passenger fee to $5 per person.  The Mariners told them to take a hike.

Essentially, the law forbade Metro from offering a service to the public, which gave Starline a chance to make a take-it-or-leave-it offer to the M’s.  They chose to leave it, understandably so, and now the team has no special transportation options for fans. 

I realize you didn’t have a great experience, but I’ve taken the Metro to a hundred or more games at Safeco, and it’s been great.

I don’t know the economics here, either, but if I were a non-baseball fan, I wouldn’t want my tax dollars going to support bus fares for baseball fans.  That assumes, of course, in your example that the true cost of the Metro bus ride is more than $3 and the public picks up the cost not paid by the passengers. 

If the total cost--and I haven’t thought much about what is the proper measure for total cost, whether it be marginal cost or something else--is closer to $3, then I might have more sympathy for the situation.  And I also realize there is some benefit to non-passengers (e.g., less traffic on the streets) that would be difficult to quantify.

But I would like to know more about Metro’s true costs before condemning the application of the rule in this instance.

What’s the real unsubsidized cost of a metro bus ride? It has to be far more than $3. Why should hard working people subsidize sports fans’ transportation?

For starters, the metro bus authority operates tax free. Already that’s a huge advantage, and an invisible cost to the community.

Who’s fault is it that there is only one bus company around to compete for the work? The government has granted itself a monopoly on the work for years.

You know who subsidized the Metro charter? The Seattle Mariners. 

The Metro is a monopoly in the same way that the USPS is a monopoly.  Are you also in favor of getting rid of the postal service and letting market forces determine who gets mail? I’m sure those rural folks who no longer can receive packages won’t mind, since tax payers shouldn’t be subsidizing their desire to read Woman’s Health magazine, right?

Come on.  This isn’t rocket science - the KC Metro could provide the service to the city for a lower cost than a private charter because of the already established infrastructure.  Do you think that we should dismantle public trnasit because it’s unfair to cab drivers who can’t compete with subsidized bus fares?

Come on. I can think of several reasons why it’s in the public interest to have rural mail service--the government needs to be able to contact its citizens and have citizens contact the government. I’m not sure there’s an an analogous reason for providing cheap transportation for baseball fans (maybe traffic congestion during gametimes is a problem, I don’t know, but even if so, it may be more appropriate for the Mariners to bear that cost than taxpayers).  And even if a government can do something cheaper, that doesn’t mean it should--but this probably isn’t a forum for a discussion on the proper function of government.

That said, I really don’t mind as long as all the costs (including, as Brian points out, lost tax revenue) really are passed on to the Mariners or their fans.

7 - Hizouse: So is there a reason to provide public transit to get people to their jobs in the central business district?  Major corporations in Seattle receive a federal subsidy via public transit that brings their employees to them.  As a result, they can pay lower salaries since their employees have reduced transportation costs.  Should these businesses not be picking up this cost?

Try putting yourselves in the private operator’s shoes.  It’s hard to compete head-to-head when public transit agencies get their buses virtually for free because the state and federal governments pay for them.  If I was the private operator, I’d be pissed that my tax dollars were being used to subsidize my competition!

The Mariners were getting off cheap by paying Metro $100K for the subsidized Metro buses.  And they balked at paying $300K to hire a private operator run the service.  This is an organization that can afford to pay $161,000,000 for its starting lineup, but they won’t shell out an additional $200K to maintain the shuttle service?  Maybe this IS a revenue generating ploy by the Mariners to force you to drive into the City and pay their exhorbitant parking rates.