Commentaries on our County Government from

The Libertarian Party of Duval County

The Autonomous Downtown Shuttle

Basic Facts

The “Autonomous Downtown Shuttle” has now been operating on a 3.5-mile route of Bay street for just over two months. It is part of a plan costing $400 million that will include San Marco, Brooklyn. Riverside, plus replacing the Monorail over the Skyway Jacksonville Today. Regular fares are $1.75, students pay $0.75 and those over 65 go free Fares. It is designed to drive itself, but for its initial test, a driver is on board to correct any unexpected problems.

Our Opinion

Another Waist Full Project

Duval Libertarians believe that this is yet another one of many wasteful projects imposed on Duval and federal taxpayers. We don’t have to create a financial model on a spreadsheet to know that. We have seen the history of many of these federally subsidized transportation boondoggles.

Our own Skyway is a perfect example of that. It was built with federal money, with its operation and maintenance paid by the county. And its ridership is so pathetic, that we would have discontinued it years ago, if it were not because federal law requires us to refund the construction cost.

And the 800 miles California passenger railroad from Los Angeles to San Francisco, originally projected to cost $33 billion, $7 billions of it from the Feds, is now estimated to cost a total of $88 to 128 billion, when finished. So, the state stopped its construction, after 16 years of building only 119 miles of it because it could not afford to pay for it. Cato.

One can argue that this happened because of the incompetence of California politicians and the high cost of building anything there due to its stringent construction regulations. But the federal bureaucrats did not take that into account in granting California the money. And this shows just how totally ineffective is the federal decision making process for granting construction project money.

These things happen because the politicians who lobby for them have no skin in the game and only care about getting credit for the projects from the voters. And the taxes to pay for them are spread among millions of taxpayers, where for each, their share of those taxes is not large enough to be worth lobbying against increase due to wasteful spending. Plus, when people pay taxes very few know how much of their money goes to which project.

But the waste of tax payer money gets much worse when state or local projects are partially paid with federal money, for these reasons:

Congress passes laws appropriating money to the states for transportation projects, like trains, buses or airports. It then leaves it to the federal bureaucracy to accept applications for that money from the state or local governments, within some limits and standards. The state or local governments then apply for that money for their projects.

But the federal bureaucrats have no stake in the success of these projects or in minimizing their cost. Their job is to meet the standards set by Congress, a group of people that know very little or nothing about transportation infrastructure, the needs of the applicants or the cost of the projects for which the money will be applied.

And what state or local politician would not want some free money for a project that they will get credit for bringing home? So, they gather support from the businesses likely to get the contracts to influence the members of the City Council (or Legislature) to appropriate the local portion of the money and apply for the federal portion.

And they do not consider whether the value of the services provided by a project exceeds its cost. If this issue is addressed, it is done by employees of the same people in the government that have an interest in using this money. No wonder that the great majority of these projects cost more than what was originally estimated. And by the time we know about the higher actual cost, there is no longer public interest about the project. But the politicians can campaign during the next election about how they brought federal money to our county to build this bridge or get those new autonomous buses.

Grandiose statements by Major Deegan, like the Autonomous Downtown Shuttle is “a groundbreaking initiative that positions Jacksonville as a national leader in autonomous mass transit”, are just political rhetoric.

There Is a Better Way:

Remove all restrictive licenses (such as those for taxis) from private transportation services. Restrictive means anything that goes beyond requiring insurance to pay for damages done to riders, pedestrians, people in other vehicles, and those vehicles, due to accidents, incompetence or negligence on the part of the transportation company or its employees.

And it means not having regulations, special taxes to some or subsidies to others or any barriers to competition, such as licenses requiring special training in the trade to work in any transportation business. The businesses already have the incentive to hire people who are competent in their job.

This will assure competition among transportation businesses, which incentivizes them to keep costs and prices down to and innovate.

The private transportation providers will:

• Have the incentive to prioritize safety to keep down the insurance cost.
• Choose the routes that get the most riders to maximize profits, which also maximizes the number of people that benefit from its services.

This works because the people providing the transporting service have a profit incentive to do it, and to do it right. They will make sure to find the most effective transportation vehicles for the job, good employees to operate them, and the routes with the most riders.

Politicians and government employees do not have those incentives. And this applies to all the services currently being done by a government that could be done by private businesses, such as the air traffic control system and the long distance passenger railroads.

If there are people so poor that they cannot afford a ticket to ride to work, to a clinic or other critical places, they can be approved to get an appropriate number of tickets purchased from the private transportation service by the county, after it confirms their condition.

Private transportation requires no initial investment from the federal state or the county, will pay the usual business taxes, and will just have a minimal ongoing cost of buying tickets for those who cannot afford to pay to be transported to a critical place.

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The Libertarian Party of Duval County is an Affiliate of the Libertarian Party of Florida

Other libertarian publications that we recommend: Reason, Cato, Libertarian Institute.