Quote:
Originally Posted by Truenorth00
The entire purpose of public transit....
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Let's pick that up for discussion.
The design intent of the PPR is to get public interest benefits, and revenue generation, pointed in the same direction. The conventional model for financing transit, using taxation and passenger fares, always has the tax-paying/fare-paying public pulling in the opposite direction from need to generate revenue for public transit operations. The result is that public transit is typically under-funded in the conventional model.
Here are the relevant excerpts from the PPR white paper, with the target segments in bold:
For transit stakeholders, PPR describes a self-financing development strategy for metropolitan-scale passenger railway systems and extensions, with zero dependence upon public debt or taxes. Public interest benefits, including low fares, excellent service, and environmental advantages are positive externalities relative to the business of optimizing real property value. In this context, PPR describes a functional incentive structure for private-sector financing of metropolitan rail systems under one or more of the following circumstances:- Persistent fiscal constraints impeding public-sector development of essential services;
- Economic culture favouring open competitive commercial development of essential services;
- Fragmentation of a metropolitan region into numerous jurisdictions and layers of authority.
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2.2 Public Interest as External Emergent Effects
2.2.1 Private Interest and Public Interest
Any plan for private commercial development of essential services brings forward to public discussion the inevitable tension between private- interest optimization and public-interest optimization. Many stakeholders take a principled stance against “important transportation assets being operated primarily to boost private profit rather than best advance public needs”. And also on strategic grounds, many parties prioritizing the general public interest will understandably take steps to prevent “the ability of private-sector actors to hold projects hostage and demand increased subsidies or other concessions from government”
In this framework, complex public-interest outcomes that derive from the PPR are emergent positive externalities relative to the simple business purpose of increasing property earnings through attractive privately-owned public spaces. In the whole-region scenario of a PPR development, the cumulative set of narrow purposes directed to enhancing the income and asset values of the properties adjacent to each autonomous station resolve into a bottom-up approach to applied regional transportation economics
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Its method of revenue collection is innovative but relatively straightforward: marginal increases to property value are captured through an algorithm in the voluntary consortium agreement managed by the station investors themselves. Public interest protection is inherent within the business systems architecture itself, and is not merely dependent upon brittle contractual and political promises.
This PPR remains to be validated in a tangible metropolitan railway project. Nevertheless, it's essential logic is straightforward.
The point here is that Truenorth00's comment is correct, but we don't inadvertently neglect the purpose of public transit. Rather the PPR represents a deliberate turning of the purpose of public transit on its head. The PPR is designed as the rationale for a real property value optimization project, and the method to achieve this purpose is to run excellent and affordable public transit amongst about 50 localities. Anyone who ignores the part about the positive external effects makes the same mistake as those who ignore negative externalities in their views of development. Pollution and resource waste are important. Affordable and safe transit are important.
In the PPR approach, the owners/developers involved in stations never have a reason to underfund the rail system, since it is precisely what generates the increment over base value which they share in.
Joseph Potvin
Director General | Directeur général
Moose Consortium (Mobility Ottawa-Outaouais: Systems & Enterprises) |
www.letsgomoose.com
Consortium Moose (Mobilité Outaouais-Ottawa: Systèmes & Enterprises) |
www.onyvamoose.com
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