As a taxpayer, you should become acquainted with how much the latest light rail project your city is planning to build will cost. A good first start would be to review my list of the capital costs of recent rail projects in the United States and Canada .

The publictransport book of the month is: Bird on Fire: Lessons From the World's Least Sustainable City by Andrew Ross. While spending (too) little time on transportation, Bird is overall a very fascinating look at how Phoenix, Arizona has become the sprawling mess it is today. Imagine a city in the desert where water is cheaper than in Seattle and where nuclear energy counts as "renewable". Overall, his point that in order to have a sustainable future EVERYONE, from the poorest of the poor to the richest of the rich, has to lead a sustainable life is well-taken. Bringing your renewable shopping bag to Whole Foods is meaningless if a poor service worker has to spend his or her meager earnings on a polluting gas guzzler due to a non-functioning transit system. Read my full review of Bird on Fire .

Every so often a well-meaning member of the public with no knowledge of transit makes a suggestion that sounds good on its face but is really a disaster waiting to happen. San Francisco is currently in the process of deciding whether to allow low-income youth to ride for free. As I explain in the accompanying article, offering free fares in this manner will have terrible consequences . What kind of consequences? Begin with severe overcrowding of buses - if you have to pay nothing to ride, then why not ride all day? Continue with rowdy behavior and vandalism that has had the effect in places that have tried this of driving other passengers away. Before this is implemented, the San Francisco Bay Metropolitan Transportation Commission should interview Austin, Denver, Trenton, and especially Broward County in Florida to find out their experiences with free public transit. Loyal Muni riders, prepare for even more harassment from truant children than you experience currently.

Have you ever wondered what happens when a bus driver calls in sick or goes on vacation? After all, the bus still needs to be driven. The answer is: an extra board driver takes over. Learn more about extra board drivers .