I like Terrell's idea of making mass transit free. This is surely cost effective if we can expand transit to allow people to get out of owning cars.
The average MN resident spends about $8K per year on transportation (after tax) and that doesn't include the general fund and property taxes that fund roads too. Surely, subsidizing mass transit enough to get a significant people from needing cars would be less costly than the $8K per person drain. It would also reduce congestion for real. See the UofM for the effect of free transit (the U system) and deeply discounted (MetroTransit's U-Pass). Both have great rates of ridership.
Not to mention this would make housing more affordable regionally since we could use the money were saving on transportation toward that end. (Right now we are spending about the same on housing as we are on transportation)
Nick Frank
North Loop, Minneapolis
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