https://trimet.org/budget/pdf/2026-adopted-budget.pdf
Tax revenue was $555mm
https://trimet.org/about/pdf/trimetridership.pdf
~122,300,000 rides (originating + boarding)
So about $4.53 per ride.
The Portland metro is ~2.5mm people, so about $222/resident/yr.
Portland metro area residents pay on average about sixty cents per day to subsidize TriMet.
Roughly 1/43rd the average cost of ownership for a new car in Oregon.
https://info.oregon.aaa.com/how-much-does-it-really-cost-to-...
Assuming an average fare of 2.47$ per to make the math even, that's 6.00$/ride total cost.
When a company / government gets the cost per mile to run a fleet of autonomous EV's down to ~60cents/mile or so, which is a plausible enough number, then a lot of those transit rides are going to look real silly from a cost effectiveness POV.
Yes. If the government were able to provide transit more cheaply in the future by using new vehicles then the transit that the government provides would be cheaper than it is today.
And the meaning of the truism you so adoitly picked up on is that at reasonable projections trimet and similar public transit will be uncompetitive in price (and service) relative to self driving EVs. Ergo it is correct to deprioritize their funding.
This of course is in refutation to the various points made up the thread that self driving EVs are not cost competitive and glorified taxis -- not viable public transit for the masses.