alt Hacker NewsHow is it misleading? Taking the total cost to operate and dividing by the number of rides tells you what it costs per ride.
I’d be more interested to know how so many people are paying less than $1 for a mini trip when the fare is closer to $3.
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toufka • today at 4:41 AM
Subsidies for public goods create economic multiples. It’s not plainly obvious that it’s bad to subsidize a trip by $10. And compared to what? How much is interstate infrastructure subsidized per trip? Or airline infrastructure?
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hiddencost • today at 5:46 AM
They're discarding the cost per mile to a driver. If you add that back (and especially if you add externalities back) driving is more expensive.
Because it makes in implicit comparison with a hypothetical transportation mode with zero dollars of government subsidy.
The automobile analogue to fares is gas taxes, so the first crack at a true comparison is to compare the Caltrans budget to gas tax receipts.