(Source: StreetsBlog)
We want mass transit in American cities, right? Right. So how are we going to pay for it?
Today on the Streetsblog Network, Yonah Freemark at The Transport Politic suggests looking across the Atlantic for some answers to that question, taking New York’s MTA and Paris’s RATP as examples of the differing approaches in the U.S. and in Europe. His detailed analysis of the funding of the Parisian transit authority, which relies in large part on payroll taxes and to a much greater extent than the MTA on government subsidies, leads him to a couple of conclusions, among them:
So, on the surface level, [the Parisian transit authority] appears to be funded much like the MTA, with funds coming from dedicated taxes and from government subsidies. There are two important differences, however: one, revenue from the taxes that pay for transportation in Paris are less likely to vary significantly during economic downturns; two, the government subsidies are designed to compensate when tax revenue falls short.
Click here to read the entire article.
Source: Seattle Times
Air France Cargo picked up the keys Thursday for the first of a new breed of big, modern twin-engine cargo jets: the 777 freighter.
As French airline officials, Boeing executives and guests sipped Champagne and milled around the airplane at Paine Field, the second 777 freighter in the same colors took off on a test flight. It will be delivered next week.
But the celebratory air in Everett was marred by the widening global economic downturn. In an interview, Pierre Vellay, Air France executive vice president for fleet development, said the air-transport business is “in very bad shape.”
To read the entire article, click here.
