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14 comments on The Value of Mass Transit

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wcargill67 on December 16, 2005 - 1:49pm Permalink | Subthread | Comments top
THose estimates of economic impact sure seem high to me. $650m per day? And if the $250 billion annual number is right, then NYC counts for around 2% of GDP?

Maybe that's actually true, but two quibbles. First, with TOD's calculation, perhaps the mid-point of the estimate should be used, so say $500m, and used on business days since the weekends and holidays are certainly lower. Call it 250 days. Still that's a big number: $125 billion, and still about 1% of US GDP.

Second, using the estimate by the plaintiff in this case is probably specious, given their self-interest in over-stating their impact. (Sounds almost like OPEC members estimating their own reserves in the 1980s).

W.

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Glenn on December 17, 2005 - 7:42pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
W.

  1. Fair enough on the high end of the estimate - I should have said "estimated to be up to". I have found no other estimates of the economic impact of a strike.

  2. Actually the city's economy is estimated to be more like $500 billion. That would mean that mass transit helps create economic activity that is "estimated to be up to" half of NYC's economy.

Here's the Wikipedia quote on the size of NYC's economy:

NYC serves as an enormous engine for the global economy, with an estimated Gross Metropolitan Product of nearly $500 billion, and is home to more Fortune 500 companies than any other place in the United States. New York City's estimated gross metropolitan product of US$488.8 billion in 2003 was the largest of any city in the U.S. and the sixth largest if compared to any U.S. State. If it were a nation, the city would have the 16th highest gross domestic product in the world, exceeding that of Belgium ($387 billion), and the second highest per capita GDP in the world, at about $59,000/head, about $7,000/head lower than Luxembourg.
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