Laurels and Lances

Streetcar battle about to heat up

2007-10-24T02:49:00.000-04:00

Fresno CA - An effort by Fresno Mayor Alan Autry to bring streetcars to the streets of Fresno for redevelopment reasons is about to get ugly.

Fresno City Council voted on Tuesday, October 23rd not to invest city time or money into the idea. The Mayor, of course, plans to veto the City Council's decision and move forward with a study of having streetcars in Fresno.

From what I can see so far in this, it is just another legacy line that Mayor Autry wants. He's so desperate for this streetcar line that he has bypassed the City Council and submitted his proposal for funding of the study to the Council of Fresno County Governments directly.

Of course, when the Mayor presented the plan to the Council of Governments, the impression was made that everyone was "on board" with the idea. To the contrary, many are not.

While the City Council voted to scrap the streetcar study, there may not be enough votes to override the Mayor's pending veto but that doesn't mean that the Mayor won the battle. The Council of Governments is going to review the funding request again based on the new evidence of the Mayor's staff misrepresenting the support for the streetcar study. The Mayor may not have the funding to do the study for his legacy line if the Council of Governments decides to revoke the funding.

This really doesn't surprise me. It happens all the time. A similar thing happened in Pittsburgh with the North Shore Connector last year. The transit system lied through their teeth saying everyone wanted the useless rail line under the river to obtain the funding. The FTA came close to revoking the funding once they found out that the line was not wanted by anyone except the transit system and a handful of politicians.

The people of Fresno need to keep up on this and do the research to learn that the Mayor's streetcar line will do nothing but cost them money. It won't revitalize the city nor will it solve any other problem. All it will do is give the Mayor a legacy line which will have a brass plaque somewhere along the route with his name on it as being instrumental in building the line.

Cincinnati ready to bet it all

2007-10-19T02:14:00.000-04:00

Cincinnati OH - Cincinnati City Council is all set to hop on the streetcar bandwagon but has already had a power failure. The City Council, eager to show how business will support their plan, found out that businesses aren't quite as eager to participate as they had hoped.

Chris Bortz, a member of council, stated earlier that Duke Energy could pay to build the power grid needed for the city's streetcar plan but Duke Energy quickly put a stop to that idea. Duke Energy stated that it would not be the "sole funder" of the power infrastructure.

Not deterred, Bortz spinned Duke's refusal to go along as insignificant. He stated that "even without Duke, the streetcar line is such a good investment that other companies will put up money to make it happen."

Excuse me while I stifle a laugh.

While Bortz may find support from other businesses as he claims, that support will primarily be symbolic, not financial. The City Council wants private business to pick up the tab for about a third of the cost of the proposed $102 million dollar boondoggle. That proposed cost will surely be $200 million or more by the time all is said and done. Businesses, while supportive, have their own worries and making sure the city can build a streetcar line isn't one of them.

What is even more worrisome about the project is that the city is jumping on the streetcar bandwagon while already facing a $29 million dollar deficit without the project. Taxpayers of Cincinnati, hold onto your wallets as your about to get rolled big time if this streetcar idea isn't stopped now.

The streetcar line is being proposed strictly for developmental reasons. A virtual guarantee of financial failure. Taxpayers will be picking up the tab for decades to come for a project that won't even come close to doing what it is being promised.

Development will not occur unless the taxpayers are forced to fund tax breaks, sweetheart deals, grants and low interest loans (which are rarely ever paid back). This will cost hundreds of millions more on top of the cost to build and operate the streetcar line.

What is going to happen if this unneeded streetcar idea moves forward is this. Businesses will not even come close to contributing a third of the cost. If the city is lucky, they might get 5 to 8 percent from the private sector. Taxpayers will have to pick up the rest of the tab. Development will not happen for decades and then only on the backs of the taxpayers. Ridership will come nowhere close to projections and at the proposed 50 cent fare, a year's worth of farebox revenue will barely make a dent in the cost to operate the line for a week.

I give the Cincinnati City Council a big Lance for going out of their way to find new ways to spend money while already facing a huge deficit. The streetcar line is unneeded and the city clearly can't afford the luxury.

MTA drops the signal on cell phones

2007-10-13T07:12:00.000-04:00

New York City NY - The New York MTA is about to drop the connection when it comes to connecting up the subways and stations to allow calls.

The MTA entered into an agreement with a new start up company to connect the subways and stations to allow riders to use their cell phones. The problem is that the company, Transit Wireless, has no track record and the deal shows many of the signs of being too good to be true.

What I see happening here is that the MTA has set itself up to be screwed. They allowed the awarding of the contract without initially requiring that Transit Wireless was properly funded and bonded. After some pushing by city council, the MTA is now requiring Transit Wireless to get funding and bonding by its major contractors.

The deal the MTA entered into is supposed to cost the MTA absolutely nothing and it has the possibility of earning the MTA a little bit of cash. I doubt that will be the case. The deal has already cost the MTA money. Conveniently, the money spent to investigate, write up the specs and bid the contract are ignored. Money will continue to be spent to monitor performance once the wireless network in in place as well as additional indirect costs.

Personally I think the MTA rushed this cell phone plan through. Bit on the first bid and ran with it. That move may turn around to bite them back.

Additionally related to the upcoming wired subway network, New York City Council is urging the MTA to have "quiet" cars where riders could go to get away from their fellow travellers who insist on yakking away on their phones. It won't be officially enforced but enforced by the fellow passengers. Yeah, that will work well. It's just like passengers stopping other passengers from committing vandalism and littering.

I sense problems ahead in the MTA's rush to wire up the subway system given what I have seen so far. This plan really should have had more time to properly investigate as well as properly choose a provider that at least had a track record of delivering what they promise.

UTA doing the old "Bait & Switch"

2007-10-10T00:03:00.000-04:00

Salt Lake County UT - Yesterday I posted a quote from John Inglish, general manager for the Utah Transit Authority. The quote was simply "What's wrong with this picture?" regarding the transit tax repeal effort that is happening in Charlotte NC.

Today, it looks like Mr. Inglish may be facing his own fight to keep a voter approved transit tax. The Utah Transit Authority (UTA) is now trying to change the terms of the voter approved tax from a 30 year tax to a 50 year tax, with the possibility of it becoming a never ending tax. This without voter approval.

Needless to say, politicians in Salt Lake County are quite angry over this move by the UTA because it wasn't what the UTA said the tax would be. I'm more than sure the voters aren't happy about this either.

What happened was that the UTA misrepresented the original sales tax proposal to make it more palatable to the politicians and the public in order to secure funding to build, what else, a light rail line. Now that the tax was approved, the UTA has decided to change the terms so that it can pick the pockets of the public for another $5.5 billion dollars if it goes to 50 years and much more if it becomes a tax that never goes away.

The sales tax was approved to help fund building the line. That was what the UTA represented the tax as. Now it says that once the line is built, they need the tax to continue so they can operate it, basically a tax that will never go away. Technically, that additional operating funding should require another vote when the time comes to actually operate the line but the UTA decided to play dirty and change the rules after the tax to build the line was approved so that they wouldn't have to face the taxpayers at the polls.

That is exactly the kind of arrogance that led to the transit tax repeal effort that is currently happening in Charlotte, Mr. Inglish. To hell with the taxpayers who foot the bill for the spendthrift transit systems. If the UTA doesn't watch itself, Mr. Inglish will find himself in the middle of a tax repeal effort squarely directed at his transit system.

I do question why these same politicians that are mad about the bait and switch that the UTA is attempting didn't question how the UTA was going to pay to operate the line once built. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to understand that it would cost money to operate the line and the UTA would be begging for money to run it. Perhaps they did ask and were too confused with the answer as the UTA tap danced around the question. It wouldn't be the first time a TA baffled the public and politicians with bullshit because they couldn't dazzle them with brilliance.

While I generally am not in favor of transit tax repeals, as I mentioned in an earlier blog entry on Charlotte, I am changing my mind. The transit systems need to understand that they aren't getting free money and need to be responsible. Tricks like the UTA is trying to pull show the total lack of understanding of where the money really comes from. If the residents start fighting back by pursuing a tax recall, it might start waking some of these arrogant transit systems up when their revenue source dries up.

In the UTA's case, they obviously couldn't sell the rail line with the true costs to the public. So they lied. That tells me that they really didn't need the rail line in the first place. If the rail line was so desperately needed as the UTA claims, it would have sold itself to the public even with a never-ending sales tax to fund it. Having to pretty up the figures in order to trim billions off the cost of the rail line for public consumption says a lot about how the UTA perceives the taxpayer.

The UTA earns a Lance for the bait and switch tax move they are pulling on the taxpayers who were generous enough to approve the original tax that the UTA wanted. To try and change the terms after the fact without voter approval to grab more money may end up costing them much more than they think if a tax repeal effort happens and is successful.

Transit leaders getting worried

2007-10-09T04:13:00.000-04:00

Charlotte NC - The American Public Transit Association (APTA) is holding its annual meeting in Charlotte this week. While not officially on the agenda, the transit tax repeal effort going on in the host city is squarely at the forefront of discussions at the meeting among transportation agency leaders from across the country.

Why? They are getting worried that the repeal effort could become a national trend.

These officials should worry. For decades, public transit has come up with new ways to squander public money. Led and urged on by APTA, which is nothing more than a Washington DC lobby group, transit systems across America have abandoned the concept of providing service and jumped on the numerous unneeded transit project bandwagons that ply the nation.

APTA president, Bill Millar stated that he can't recall any transit tax repeal vote like what is happening in Charlotte. Well Bill, get used to it as it will be happening more often as time goes on.

Many people are tired of the waste that generated from transit systems. Beside the waste generated from the TA's who have lost focus on what they are there for, cities use the transit systems more or less as prostitutes to further their goals such as development. APTA often acts as the pimp by pushing for rail or other unneeded transit projects that do little to serve the public and everything to waste money.

"What's wrong with this picture?" asked John Inglish, general manager for the Utah Transit Authority. What's wrong John is this; Charlotte's transit system can't afford to run what it has now, has lost focus on the basics of providing service and hasn't been a good steward of the taxpayer's money that it already receives.

The tax was originally passed for the system to help fund the operation of the rail line. Before the first rail was laid, CATS was already aggressively planning more rail lines. The original rail line needed to prove itself first before people were willing to pay even more for additional rail lines. CATS couldn't grasp that simple concept and thus the tax repeal effort was born.

Perhaps if the people of more cities across the nation adopted efforts to slap down their spendthrift transit systems and force them to fix what they already have in place before building more, public transit could become a viable option for many people again.

Clearly the APTA way of expensive transit projects isn't working well towards getting butts in seats. Its methods have helped push many transit systems over the brink yet the TA's continue to blindly follow.

Transit Tax Opponents Touch A Nerve

2007-10-02T04:26:00.000-04:00

Charlotte NC - While I still believe that repealing the transit tax in Charlotte will ultimately hurt public transit more than it will help it, I am leaning more and more towards siding with the tax opponents based on many recent events.

The focus of the transit tax repeal effort is focused on the light rail line in Charlotte. An expensive line that many believe isn't being built for transportation but for developmental reasons and I completely agree. A commentary piece in the Charlotte Observer by two Mecklensburg County commissioners helps back that point up as well as shows the rabid response they received from the pro-rail crowd for opposing the line. Mecklensburg County commissioners Karen Bently (R) and Dan Bishop (R) penned the piece that appeared in the paper, primarily in response to another commentary piece in the paper by Observer columnist, Fannie Flono.

Flono calls for a "serious debate" without the exaggerations. Exaggerations such as that the line is being built for development rather than transportation is one of them. Ms. Flono, that is the point. I don't believe that you want a "serious debate" as when a well documented fact is presented to you it is brushed off as an exaggeration and you claim "What's next? The mass transit tax is a conspiracy to steal our babies?"

The simple fact of the matter is that the Charlotte line is being built for development purposes. It has been stated as such in many news reports as well as in public meeting that development is the main focus of the line. Moving people is just a side benefit and therefore it isn't placed where it should be for moving the most people.

The Commissioners bring up an important fact in response to the pro-tax critics. That fact is that the transit plan has been hijacked. It isn't focused on improving public transit. The plan is really a development plan but needs to have a rail line to help the development goals move forward and to get the rail line, you have to classify it as a transportation plan.

"The first aim of transportation spending should be improving transportation, not creating lifestyle choices." A good quote by the Commissioners. That is exactly what is being done with rail under Charlotte's transportation plan. I would also go a bit further and add that the plan also is designed to displace the poor so that they are forced to move elsewhere and become another community's problem. That is also another well documented fact of light rail placement when done for developmental purposes.

The commentary I made in this Laurels & Lances article states it well: "What is often overlooked in these deals are that the poorest residents, the same ones that the politicians claim they want to help, will be displaced. The poorest residents will be pushed out so development can occur. This little fact is one of the most glossed over items of revitalization efforts in any city. The politicians and pro-side activist groups will end up getting the residents all excited about having their neighborhood and life quality improving so that none of them will question anything until they get a court order to move out so a developer can build a condo. Rather than actually improve the lives of its residents through proper education and proper investment in the community, cities opt for unneeded capital projects which ultimately force the "problem" out of their area and into another area."

In addition, CATS can't afford the luxury of a rail line that hauls a few percent of the population while sucking down more than half of the budget needed to run the entire system. The transit tax will help there but only to a point as the tax will not generate enough money to even remotely offset the losses generated by the rail line. CATS also needs to work towards fixing what it already has in place rather than rushing out to plan many more rail lines, with city leaders who steering the proposed lines towards areas they want to redevelop.

The more I learn of the Charlotte transit tax fiasco, the more I favor the efforts of those that wish to repeal it. CATS hasn't learned much at all over the negative response nor have many of the politicians. Perhaps losing a precious revenue source might be the only way to wake them up.

The push is on for streetcars in Tacoma

2007-09-27T04:24:00.000-04:00

Tacoma WA - The push is on once again for streetcars to ply the streets in Tacoma. The Tacoma Daily Index has a story on one of the activists pushing to saddle the city and its taxpayers with the expensive toy. Now that the city is once again considering the plan, the activists are coming out of the woodwork.

Tacoma resident (at least he's a current resident unlike the Kansas City meddler) Morgan Alexander has been leading the charge at the grassroots level to bring back streetcar. The article on him stood out to me based on a quote from Alexander which was: "I guess it's just one of those ideas you either get right away, or you don't get at all."

Based on the rhetoric Alexander uses for his support of bringing streetcars back, I don't think he gets it.

Alexander of course uses the standard boilerplate argument that developers will flock to Tacoma. What Alexander won't tell you is that it can take decades to get developers in and then the vast majority will only come after hundreds of millions in tax concessions and other taxpayer funded sweetheart deals are offered up.

The line is clearly being considered strictly for development with transportation secondary. Alexander so much as states this in the last part of the article. "The advantage of a streetcar over a bus is that it's a real visible, physical improvement and investment in the city that developers will build around. Plus, they are just fun. I think it's key for the City of Tacoma because there's really not a lot the city can do to really impact economic development itself. The current model is to have developers and business owners do it. I think it's a great way for the City itself to build a community, and the system be a visible outgrowth of the city's spirit."

Alexander also won't tell you that the local transit system, the Spokane Transit Authority, will suffer. Where does he think some of the funding to run the streetcar will come from? That's right, a swap of funds from the STA to the city or non-profit entity set up by the city to run the operation. More than likely, the STA will be stuck running it while the city coughs up only a small portion of the true operational costs. That ultimately translates to fare hikes and route cuts down the road.

The STA is a rather well run system and I even honored them with the MOD Award on January 12, 2007 for their back to basics approach to public transit. Tossing in a streetcar will throw that agency into a tail spin. Even though the STA is well run, they still are on a precarious perch financially and don't need a fiscal black hole sucking down the money needed to run the entire bus system.

His explanation of how this streetcar line will be financed is confusing to say the least. It does involve the "tax everything" philosophy however. While he admits that the private sector must be involved in helping to finance the building of the line, he doesn't relate the fact that it will be hard to obtain the private funding and that offsetting taxpayer funded tax incentives to the private entity will need to be done.

Of course, the obligatory trip to the Holy See of the streetcar movement, Portland Oregon, was done and the city tossed up as an example of how great Tacoma could be if they only listen and build the streetcar line. Again, Alexander fails to state how many billions of dollars Portland truly spent on their rail lines through making taxpayer funded sweetheart deals that will cost taxpayers for decades to come.

Alexander also goes on about how much public support there is for a streetcar line in Tacoma. Of course there is. When the question is worded in such a manner that it paints the streetcar as the saviour of the city, people will say they support it. I've seen the same thing in Pittsburgh. The North Shore Connector, when originally brought up, was widely supported by the general public in various polls until the cost of the project was discovered in addition to the fare hikes and service cuts. People then realized that the system couldn't afford it but it was too late to stop the project.

While I am the first to admit that a streetcar is nice, I also realize that it is expensive and doesn't do what proponents such as Alexander claim it will do. What Alexander is doing is literally akin to the old snake-oil salesman of the past. Selling a product based on totally false claims. Development, solving traffic problems, cleaning the air, etc. are all dubious claims that are routinely used to promote rail.

Tacoma really needs to rethink the streetcar plan. It won't do what they think it will and will ultimately end up making the city much more expensive to live in due to all the increased taxes that will either directly or indirectly be needed to pay for the building and operation of a rail line that really isn't needed. For once at least I can't use the argument that they need to fix what they have in terms of the STA since that agency is one of the shining stars in the otherwise bleak cosmos of public transit these days but they still don't need the fiscal black hole known as a streetcar.

There's Snow Worries at OCTranspo

2007-09-18T04:21:00.000-04:00

Ottawa ON - After a mess in 2005 with heavy snows stranding many buses, OCTranspo has been looking for snow tires to place on the buses. To date, they haven't found any.

What happened in that city, especially with the articulated buses, happens everywhere there is snow. Ottawa is acting like this is the first time ever that buses had problems in the snow. Here are a few options.

In Pittsburgh, with it's hills and every type of weather imaginable, they used sanders for decades to help buses get around in the snow. With the advent of low floor buses, sanders can't be used any longer as there is no place for the sand hoppers and sander apparatus. Chains are also an option but only for a short period as they break and can chew up the wheel wells of the buses.

One other option OCTranspo might look into is keeping a decent set of tires on their buses rather than baloney skins. A set of tires that actually have some tread can do wonders for getting a bus moving in bad weather. These tires aren't called snow tires but regular tires that aren't worn out.

Given some of the problems OCTranspo has during winter with its buses, it really makes me question the quality of the tires they use as well as even question if the drivers know how to drive in the snow. Again, in Pittsburgh, buses traverse hills in snow on a routine basis without special snow tires. They do this by having a decent set of regular tires as well as drivers that know how to drive in the snow.

As far as articulated buses go, of course they will have more problems in snow, especially those articulated buses that use a pusher turntable with the engine in the rear. The answer there not to send them out on routes that aren't clear in bad weather. OCTranspo is expecting the articulated buses to behave exactly as a standard bus and that's like expecting an 18-wheeler to behave exactly like a small Chevy S-10 pickup.

Then there is ice. The ice that forms under the snow on the road surface. No snow tire will help there unless they are studded. Studded tires are much more noisy than regular snow tires which are noisier than regular tires. If I recall, in the 2005 fiasco in Ottawa, there was plenty of ice in addition to the deep snow.

OCTranspo really needs to refocus its efforts from trying to find a new way to spend money by getting snow tires to making sure the tires that are on the buses to start with are good, drivers are trained properly and the city gets out and plows and salts the roads. Snow tires wouldn't have helped very much at all with the 2005 mess and chances are they won't really help much in the future. In heavy snows, few things move and buses are one of the things that usually don't move except on snow routes that are primary roads that get attention first.

Discounted fares and the transit funding deficit

2007-09-16T04:39:00.000-04:00

Pittsburgh PA - It's been a while since I had the available time to comment on various activities that effect the transit industry. When I came across this story regarding how discounted fares are effecting my local system, I made a little time to say something on it.

The primary issue in many of the reduced fares in every transit system is that it fails to generate revenue. Say that again RDC? OK, in simple terms, reduced fares should actually increase the bottom line. That's why stores have sales. It generates additional money. In transit circles, those sales are in the form of reduced fares. Some reduced fares have become unfunded mandates such as those dealing with disabled and senior fares and lose money since they are dictated price controls. Others, such as monthly passes actually do generate more income in the long run than not having them since more people buy them and that helps cement the use of transit so they can get their money's worth out of the pass.

The big issue in Pittsburgh however are the student fares for college students. Colleges and universities are contracting with the Port Authority (PAT) to provide free transportation for the students. That sounds fine and dandy until you realize that the colleges and universities aren't willing to pay anything except a small fraction of the actual cost of providing the transit service for their students.

What wasn't covered in this story is that the local Pittsburgh colleges and universities are whining and complaining about the proposed cost increase to provide free transit service for their students. They don't want to pay more and actually want to pay even less. This situation has been going on for a few years now in Pittsburgh but is coming to a head finally due to PAT's finances.

Part of the problem with providing college students free rides lies with PAT in failing to initially charge the colleges and universities a realistic rate. Now that the low price to these institutions has become precedent, they are balking at a proposed increase in the contract price. At the same time however, it is not PAT's responsibility to absorb 80% of the college student's transportation costs just so the college or university can use free transit as a selling point to get more students to attend their institution.

To be honest, I think the college students should be paying just as I have to pay. I'm tired of hearing about the "poor college student" who has little money but still has enough of money to go out to bars and clubs to party when not in class. I'm also tired of hearing many of the college students claim that free transit to students is a "right". I brought this subject up once several years ago on another forum and was bombarded with e-mails from college students trying to make the case that free transit for college students was a right under the US Constitution. Ah, that entitlement mentality brought to you by the Liberals and preached in the pathetic public school system rears its ugly head once again.

If these colleges and universities want to provide free transit for their students then they need to start coughing up the money to pay for it. Yes, educational costs are high but so is the price to provide transit service. It is not the transit system's responsibility to absorb the the bulk of the cost of providing student transportation (80% in PAT's case), it is the colleges and universities that need to absorb that cost since they are the ones that want and benefit from it.

The bottom line here is that between the mandated discount/free fares and the student transportation free ride, transit systems across the country are taking a big hit that they can't afford. In PAT's case, a hit of $30 million which is the vast bulk of the deficit. Colleges and universities need to cough up the money if they want the free ride for their students to continue. As the cost to provide transit service continues to climb, transit systems can't afford the luxury of providing free service just so the colleges and universities can use the perk to help boost their enrollment.

Routes should serve public, not politicians

2007-08-29T05:37:00.000-04:00

San Jose CA - In an editorial from The Mercury News, editors have said things I have been saying for years: Transit service should serve the public, not politicians.

The writers of the editorial appear somewhat surprised that transit service today is political. Sadly, that is exactly what it has become and one reason I have spoken out often about taking the politics out of transit. The political issues with transit have done little except to increase the cost of providing service and have done much to push transit systems to the wall.

From being forced to hang onto routes that haul few because of political threats to the countless bad decisions made based strictly on political pandering, public transit today is a mess.

In this situation, the editorial is based on the plan that the Valley Transportation Authority (VTA) came up with to change many routes to better serve the public. The VTA Board of Directors wishes to play politics instead and have been reluctant to approve the plan. Why? The VTA route restructuring plan would eliminate many of the political routes that few people ride but politicians just have to have.

It's time to stop the political pandering to brain dead politicians that wouldn't be caught dead riding a bus or streetcar unless it afforded a photo-op. The political pandering hasn't solved any transit problem in this country nor will it in the future. All it's accomplished is to make it too expensive to provide service.

The political issues of transit is the main reason I often state that transit needs a dedicated source of funding that isn't doled out by the politicians. If you take the politicians out of transit decisions, you ultimately will end up with a better operation that is more efficient.

I know a few transit fans and transit insiders that want more government involvement in public transit. They think it will solve the problems. I just laugh at them and show them the mess the political pandering has gotten transit into already and ask them if the politicians have screwed it up this bad already, what makes you think having more involvement from them will solve it? They usually see the light after that.

Although transit has always had politics involved in it, the impact wasn't too bad until the politicians began to meddle in the day to day activities. This started in the 60's but reached current levels of political butt kissing back in the late 1980's and early 1990's. That period was when I noticed many politicians jumping in and meddling with operational decisions at various transit systems as well as threatening transit systems, almost annually, over funding unless their ideas were incorporated into the operation.

Transit systems across the US need to put an end to this and refocus the operations. They need to become efficient and that will never happen as long as they have to pander to the egos of politicians that have no clue what transit is about.

Former PAT union boss defends improprieties

2007-08-25T06:07:00.001-04:00

Pittsburgh PA - The former head of PAT's union, Joe Hutzler, is defending the deferred retirement he set up for himself while retired but serving as union president as well as sitting on a 4-person pension board.

Hutzler believes that he did no wrong and that the current union president, Pat McMahon, has a vendetta against him.

Joe Hutzler is using the defense that it was wrong to collect a pension while collecting a union paycheck at the same time as well as that McMahon had a vendetta against him over differing views of union leadership. By claiming a vendetta as a big part of his defense, it sets off my alarms that there is much more here than meets the eye and that the vendetta may be in the opposite direction and aimed at McMahon rather than at Hutzler.

Regardless of the defense that Hutzler has offered, there are still some very serious questions regarding the self-crafted pension agreement that Hutzler set up as well as the secrecy surrounding his retirement.

The first point was that he retired from PAT but kept the retirement a secret from his union. Second was that while keeping the retirement a secret from his union, he was negotiating a union contract that ultimately stripped many protective work rules away from the union. Third was that he created the pension plan for himself and that would not have been done for others in the union as there was no such provision for it in the union contract or union rules.

At least to me, it seems as though Mr. Hutzler is trying to deflect the criticism of his bad decision(s) and trying to turn himself into the victim by claiming that the current union president had a vendetta against him. The points I mentioned in the previous paragraph all speak of a questionable act(s) by Hutzler.

While there may have been bad blood between Hutzler and McMahon, the criticism of Hutzler's actions are valid. Even if no quid pro quo occurred between PAT's management and Hutzler during this period, the simple fact that Hutzler crafted a pension deal for himself that no other union member would receive as well as keeping his retirement a secret from the union itself raises many valid questions that need to be answered and Hutzler's defense answers none of them.

While I normally avoid dealing with internal union issues here, this is one that I needed to comment on. I still believe that Pat McMahon was correct in his criticism of the Hutzler pension deal. There are just too many questions regarding it not to be critical.

Teen that knows transit

2007-08-23T05:02:00.000-04:00

West Roxbury MA - A 16-year old high school student, Stuart Spina, probably knows more about the transit service in Boston than those that run the MBTA. Spina is also several steps beyond most transit fans whose interest is mostly in the vehicles.

Much like myself, Spina is not just interested in the vehicles themselves but in how those vehicles provide service. He pays attention to not only the current routes but the history of those routes as well. While not directly mentioned in the article, I get the distinct impression that he also is very interested in what I call the back room which is the administration and management of the system.

Unlike what I dealt with growing up with my local transit system, the MBTA seems more willing to accept Spina's ideas and suggestions. At PAT, my local system, they never really shook off the Pittsburgh Railways mentality which was "it's our way or no way". The MBTA is already looking into implementing one of Spina's ideas which is a hand held Charlie Card reader which can be used to help cut down on boarding times.

Transit systems often times brush off "fans" as an irritant. Many times they are and I know many that I am embarrassed being seen with in public with but we "fans" also have an insight into the transit operations that the administration and employees just can't see. The fans like Spina and myself, who are interested how service gets on the street, are often times able to easily see problems that the insiders completely miss.

I'm glad the MBTA is taking Spina's suggestions and ideas seriously. With a little luck, Spina may one day run the MBTA and use his "fan" expertise along with work experience to further improve the MBTA operation.

SEPTA fighting to end paper transfers

2007-08-22T04:13:00.000-04:00

Philadelphia PA - SEPTA is continuing to fight to end the issuing of transfers and has appealed a lower court decision which forced the transit system to keep them.

While I haven't covered this issue before, it is something that needs to be addressed as SEPTA is trying to set a precedent and is being looked at by many transit systems as to the final outcome. If SEPTA wins their case, look for many other transit systems in cities across the country to start dumping transfers over the next few years.

Transfers are one of the most troublesome parts of any transit operation. Transfer thefts, reselling at a higher price on the street, attempted use of expired transfers, etc. have made transfers an item that many transit systems have on their list for possible elimination. The vast majority of fare disputes involve transfer issues as well.

The problem however is that transfers are needed. Given that no transit system can take everyone where they need to go without switching buses, transfers become a necessary evil in the transit industry to help make transit service somewhat convenient.

Better technology exists today to allow transfers to be issued while eliminating many of the headaches associated with the old style paper transfers. For example, coded transfers that are timestamped by a fare recording device and can be read by fareboxes eliminate the use of expired transfers. Cities that have adopted coded transfers have seen a large drop in transfer abuse and fare disputes but that technology doesn't come cheaply.

Eliminating transfers in a city such as Philadelphia will not spur transit usage. On the contrary, it will encourage people to find alternative means of transport that bypass the transit system completely. While SEPTA says it wants more riders, it is also making it more difficult to get those riders.

SEPTA is assuming that people will rush out and by a monthly pass or just pay full fare on multiple trips and the SEPTA financial coffers will start overflowing with money. It won't happen. As I mentioned, people will find alternatives to SEPTA and cut them out of the loop completely so that they end up pulling in less each month than they are now. In cities such as Philadelphia, unregulated/illegal low-cost jitney service is already a very common competitor with the transit system and eliminating transfers will just send many riders over to the competition.

Where I live in Pittsburgh, we used to have rather strict transfer rules which made sense even though it was somewhat complicated. The policy was loosened up over the years and ultimately have led to widespread abuse of transfers. In the distant past, you could only use a transfer for a one-way trip continuing away from the boarding point. Today they can be used for round trips and have a greatly increased valid time.

Not being familiar with SEPTA's transfer procedure, it may very well be the case that SEPTA just needs to tighten up the procedure as Pittsburgh needs to do. The problem here is that once the government gives the public something, it is almost impossible to take it away later. In other words, reimposing an older and more strict policy would meet with howls of protest, greater than what is occurring with the complete elimination of them.

In SEPTA's current eagerness to eliminate transfer privileges, it is setting a bad precedent in my opinion. By making transit more inconvenient for the rider, it will lose ridership in the long run and defeats the very purpose of what transit is there for. The added capital expense of implementing coded transfers is worth it as it helps make taking the bus or LRV more convenient, especially for the occasional rider which the transit systems would ultimately love to have as a regular rider.

SEPTA earns a Lance for its attempt to make riding transit more inconvenient. This move will only serve to keep people off of the transit system, not attract them.

Questionable doings not just a management thing at PAT

2007-08-21T03:45:00.000-04:00

Pittsburgh PA - The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review unearthed a highly questionable act by the Port Authority of Allegheny County (PAT) transit union. The highly questionable act was the formation of a special retirement package by former ATU Division 85 Union President Joseph Hutzler for himself which was kept quiet, even from his union.

The special pension deal revolved around allowing Hutzler to collect pension payments in a special account while he was retired and still union president. While Hutzler retired from PAT in 2001, he kept the retirement a secret from the union. This has upset the current union local leaders as Hutzler was leading the union in contract talks with PAT at the time which ultimately stripped the union of many protective work rules.

The pension arrangement was crafted when Hutzler was president of the PAT union and sat on a four-member pension board. The current union leadership called the Hutzler's self-crafted retirement deal an abuse of power. Current ATU Division 85 Union President, Pat McMahon, said ""I think he abused his position on that board to his own benefit."

Here I must credit the current PAT union president, Pat McMahon. When the Hutzler deal was discovered, McMahon and the current union leadership brought the questionable deal to the attention of PAT's management as they should do. PAT's corrupt management however swept the affair under the rug as they were too busy double-dipping into the management pension fund for their own benefit. Hutzler's arrangement was very similar to the controversial DROP program which key management people participated in during the same period.

The news came to me without much shock. I was aware there there were some shady deals occurring within PAT's union during the Skoutelas years at PAT. What did shock me however was Pat McMahon's response to the controversy. Instead of defending the former union leader, he said what was needed to be said which was that the deal was wrong and self-serving.

While I often disagree with Pat McMahon on transit matters, I must award him a Laurel for not trying to bury an embarrassing union incident under the rug and showing that the current union leadership is not acting as their predecessors. He's earned a lot of my respect today.

Empty seats just don't pay the bills

2007-08-18T03:42:00.000-04:00

Sacramento CA - As fare box receipts and funding continue to decline, Sacramento's Regional Transit (RT) is facing the same realization which many other transit systems across North America are facing. That is, empty seats don't pay the bills.

RT is looking at service cuts to less patronized routes as well as service adjustments to trim out the worst of the under performing routes. Cries of protest naturally are occurring from the decision however, RT can no longer afford the luxury of funding routes that carry few people.

In Sacramento, one route waiting for the budget ax to fall is the Downtown Trolley which averages about 5 riders per hour. "The bus' value transcends skimpy ridership numbers" states RT driver Stephen Renda in defense of the under performing route. Renda then continues that the tourist trolley bus is a "Welcome to Sacramento' bus for tourists".

Renda also states that Sacramento needs more transit, not less. That brings me to ask this, how is all the extra service you want going to be paid for?

I hear the same in every city. More service not less but let's face a hard reality, transit can't continue to run routes and trips that carry nobody just on the hope that someone might ride. The same people that use the "more service, not less" battle cry are the same ones that have fits when their taxes and fares go up to pay for it or their precious social services get slashed to pay for it.

Transit needs to become efficient if it is to survive. Running routes that fall well below ridership minimum standards is not efficient. In Sacramento, the first route I would eliminate would be the Downtown Trolley. It serves few, is duplicated by other routes and is a luxury the system can't afford.

The RT, as well as most transit systems out there, need to take a good hard look at the routes they run. Many routes can stand some thinning out of a trip here and there. One of the tried and proven techniques of increasing efficiency is being on top of the ridership trends and shuffling service to meet those trends. Yes, that means low performing routes get the ax but it also means increased ridership as freed up service can be sent to routes and areas that justify having the service. Sadly, this technique isn't used much these days as transit has become so political and the brain dead politicians can't comprehend such things as they insist that low performing routes be kept so they can get a few votes at election time.

Low performing areas can often still be served by a simple deviation from an existing nearby route on select trips. This frees up manpower and equipment that can be better utilized elsewhere while reducing the cost to serve the low performing area. Another simple and proven technique is to trim back headways on certain routes. Taking a route that runs every 20 minutes and changing it to every 30 minutes has little impact on the existing ridership (beside a slightly longer wait time) but frees up 1/3 of the service for service elsewhere or just plain elimination.

I'm sure the administration at the RT has plenty of waste as well that can be trimmed to save money. Union contracts are another area that I'm sure has plenty of waste built into it.

Many of the problem transit finds itself in today can be traced back to the 1970's and 1980's. That was the period that many of the low ridership routes routes came to be along with generous union contracts as well as having the money available to just waste without worrying about it. Well, it caught up with the transit systems as costs continue to climb and inefficient operations became ingrained as part of the culture of public transit. Few operations during the 1970's and 1980's were immune to this. While some did well at making the routes efficient during this time like PAT in Pittsburgh during the early 1970's, they became top heavy in administration and were learning the ways of wasteful spending in other areas.

The bottom line here is that transit is at the brink of failure today. Through inefficient operations and plain wasteful spending practices. Of course the riding public is the one that suffers for it and the only way to even begin to deal with the situation that transit systems find themselves in now is to go back to the basics of providing service which includes eliminating low ridership routes and freeing those resources for use in areas that will utilize those resources effectively. Money is not unlimited and it's time for everyone to understand that point.

Cornwall questions need for transit

2007-08-16T04:26:00.000-04:00

Cornwall ON - While there are new start-ups of transit systems across North America on almost a monthly basis and cries for expanded service echo across the continent, some Cornwall Ontario officials are questioning the need for having a transit system at all. The city has hired a consultant to see if it is worth improving the transit operation in place or if the city should reduce or even discontinue the service.

I've ridden the Cornwall system in the past and found it a very freindly operation with very well maintained equipment. While not very crowded on most routes, even in peak, at the time I questioned the need for the large buses rather than smaller buses for their operation. While the cost savings would be minuscule, the appearance would have a big impact.

City Councilor Kim Baird however doesn't want to see smaller buses. She believes that having smaller buses would cause them to fill up. Isn't that the point Kim? A filled bus is far less costly to operate than one that only has a few riding it. Once you start filling up the smaller buses, expand back into larger buses. It won't be an overnight change and will take many years to attract and keep ridership based on the quality of service.

I would love to go in and overhaul the Cornwall operation. It is obvious that the city leaders don't really understand how transit works. Instead of having a 40 or 30 minute set schedule system-wide, routes need to be run based on demand. More frequently on routes that require it and less frequently on routes that have lighter ridership. Much of the change wouldn't impact the finances as it would simply be shuffling existing resources from areas that don't need it to areas that do.

That was one of the issues I had with Cornwall when I visited and rode the operation. The 40 minute headway on all routes at all times. I guess it was from growing up with service that ranged from every 5 minutes to once a day depending on the demand of the route but a system-wide schedule using the same headway does little to attract ridership.

Cornwall currently has a 4% share of riders versus population. That can easily be doubled through simple changes that could actually save money. On my trip there, I rode a route that had 7 people riding on it. When it reached the transfer point, 5 of the 7 people (who all got on at different stops) boarded another bus together. Immediately I questioned why the route I was on didn't continue on in the direction of the other route. Obviously that is where people wanted to go.

What was happening was that Cornwall was in fact getting the people to where they wanted to go but at twice the cost as it should have been. 2 buses and 2 drivers rather than a through routing that would free up 1 bus and driver for service elsewhere or just plain elimination of the freed up trip to save money.

Hopefully the consultant the city hired will look at such things. Cornwall could eventually pull a 15-20 percent share of riders versus population within 5 years if it runs the operation properly. Simply lowering the set system-wide headway from 40 to 30 minutes or adding Sunday service won't do it. Learning where people want to go, adjusting service to serve where people go as well as running an efficient operation will.

An excellent lead-in for a news story

2007-08-15T04:06:00.000-04:00

Miami Fl - "A lot of well-heeled people who would never be caught dead on a Metrobus drove their cars and SUVs over to Miami's VA Medical Center last week to cut the ribbon on the first new bus shelter erected inside city limits in more than a decade."

The Miami Herald had that line as the lead-in for an article they published on July 30th. I understand the frustration with the politicians that the writer, Larry Lebowitz, showed in his article completely.

It mirrors many things I often say about the bulk of the politicians and bureaucrats who ignore transit unless it means a photo-op or they see a political advantage to temporarily supporting it. In this case, it was a photo-op that dredged up a bunch of politicians and transit administrators that are lucky if they know what the inside of a bus looks like.

The wheels of bureaucracy move at a snails pace but when something finally emerges out of it for the riding public, the first ones there to soak up the benefits of it are the politicians who want face time to sooth their over-inflated ego's.

It shouldn't take years to address something like transit shelters. Shelters benefit both the riders as well as the transit system by attracting new riders. I have witnessed first hand stops that had few riders that suddenly got a shelter installed and within a month, the passengers boarding at that stop increased dramatically. In a few cases, by 10 times the pre-shelter levels and that is reflected in the route ridership which also increased.

Providing proper amenities for the ridership will attract them. While shelters and benches do increases costs, deals made with advertisers can easily offset the increased costs. In many cases, the advertising agency also takes responsibility for erecting and maintaining of the shelter so it becomes a win-win situation. The riders benefit from having a dry and shaded place to wait as well as the transit system who benefits from increased ridership without incurring the costs of purchasing and maintaining the shelter. The ad agency also benefits by revenue from the ads it sells.

The politicians in Miami should be ashamed that it took so long to start putting up new bus shelters. Instead they bask in the glory of the first new shelter that has been put up in over a decade.

Mayor drops streetcar proposal

2007-08-14T01:20:00.000-04:00

Madison WI - Madison Mayor Dave Cieslewicz officially dropped his streetcar proposal Monday. The proposal had drawn fire from many sources due to the expense as well as the effectiveness of the plan.

The Mayor said in a press release, "There is an old saying in politics; when you've dug yourself into a hole, the first thing you do is drop the shovel. So I have decided I will not continue to pursue the issue of streetcars in Madison. The issue is off the table."

I do have to applaud Mayor Cieslewicz for dropping the controversial plan and not being stubborn and continuing to push it through. With a proposed Regional Transit Authority being planned for the Madison area, it will be tough enough to ensure they can run what they have in place now without the headache of a transit project that was designed more for taxpayer supported development than for actual transportation.

The problem I had with the Mayor's plan was just stated, it was to be for development at the taxpayer's expense rather than for transportation. Considering that Madison's bus system needs help and the streetcar line was not aimed at actual transit service, the plan was more of a fiscal black hole than a benefit.

Once Madison gets the RTA in place, the bus service up to par and a more reliable source of funding the transit system in place, it can be brought up again. Until then, it's best to put the proposal on the shelf.

I would suggest that any future streetcar plan be focused around actual transportation needs rather than the hope of development along a line that goes nowhere.

For backing down from his streetcar plan as well as finally recognizing that you need the broad support from the community before undertaking such a major investment, I'll award Mayor Dave Cieslewicz a Laurel.

Untested and unproven, you just have to build it

2007-08-13T01:28:00.000-04:00

Mesa AZ - A Personal Rapid Transit system (PRT) is being pushed for by the creators of what is called SkyTran. It is a futuristic transit mode that utilizes small passenger pods on demand rather than running on a fixed schedule. Seeing the computer graphics of what the SkyTran system is to look like, I started humming the theme from the Jetson's.

Currently in Mesa, the city is in the midst of a long term transit analysis and exploring various transit options for the future. Supporters of the untested and futuristic concept, built by Unimodal, want it included in the analysis and as the focal point of the study. Mind you, the analysis will help steer the city's future transportation planning.

To include PRT as a focal point of the analysis is simply ludicrous. PRT systems are not designed for mass transit, period. They are incapable of handling large passenger loads and are more suited for places like universities and large company complexes with many buildings spread out over hundreds of acres.

Wild and unsubstantiated claims on the SkyTran website such as SkyTran being able to "totally eliminate commuter congestion in any city" is literally false advertising and a complete misrepresentation of the product. Another claim of "SkyTran can END road congestion, car accidents and automobile air pollution" also state the impossible.

Where are the actual studies proving these claims? Not in-house computer projections or "what we believe" press releases but the actual independently conducted case study that proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that SkyTran will totally eliminate 100% of the traffic congestion in any city? I already know the answer, there isn't any such study.

The author of the azcentral.com article, Jerry Spellman who is a volunteer coordinator for Unimodal/SkyTran (and would make a tremendously successful used car salesman), touts SkyTran as the cure-all to Mesa's transportation problems. It can make a profit that can be shared with the city, Spellman proclaims. The same claims were made about the money losing Las Vegas monorail. Unlike the Las Vegas monorail however, Spellman wants the SkyTran system as the focal point of Mesa's transportation future. An untested and unproven mode of transportation that is full of the promises of Utopia if only it can be built.

Another claim from the makers of SkyTran is that people will be traveling around at 100 mph around the city. If you sent someone in one of the passenger pods for a 4 block ride, you would not get it to 100 mph. If you did, that person would be thrown back and whipped forward as there is insufficient space for speeding up and slowing down safely. You also would have hundreds of switches and sensors along the line to allow the PRT pod to bypass stations and other pods. One tiny error in any of the millions upon millions of calculations per second the system must do or a small system glitch, as the driverless pod is whipping around the city at 100 mph, could easily spell disaster.

The SkyTran website reads like a science fiction novel. Between the wild claims being made, bashing every other mode of time proven technology and fancy computerized graphics, one gets a clear vision of how Utopia is seen through their eyes. I really had to fight to convince myself that the SkyTran site wasn't a satire site but a real site aimed at convincing people that SkyTran is the answer.

"No ongoing taxpayer subsidies needed!" exclaims Spellman in his article. "A load of bull!", I exclaim here. As with the Las Vegas monorail, more tax money will have to be pumped into it as time goes on. Simply put, SkyTran will not even remotely pay for itself yet alone bring in the big profit that Unimodal states it will. There will be no sharing of the windfall with the City of Mesa.

To pay for the operation, you will either have to charge a ridiculously high amount to ride it which will keep most people off of it (and you still won't meet the operating costs as the higher the price, the less will ride) or you'll have to be subsidized by the taxpayer. That's basic Mass Transit Economics 101 in this day and age, Jerry.

Given that SkyTran is envisioned by Spellman as the central core of Mesa's transportation system, there is no way in hell that more tax money won't have to be poured into it. Your not going to be able to have SkyTran be the core system while charging $25 a ride. Your going to have to get the price down to existing transit fares which will mean a big drain on the SkyTran finances. To make up for the loss, you'll be heading to city hall to plead for more tax money to keep the system running.

What disturbs me the most is that the SkyTran sales pitch is exactly what tax and spend politicians love to bite on. Something unproven, sure to skyrocket in price and is touting the "green" message that these politicians blindly follow like mice following the Pied Piper. If Mesa doesn't bite on the SkyTran proposal, they'll start hitting up other cities to fund their PRT folly.

If SkyTran is all that it claims, where is the test line on company property to clearly show everyone the concept in a full scale working model? So far, all I see are visions of what it should be with wild promises being made. There is a huge difference between theory and reality. So many things work in theory but in reality they fall far short. In theory, even some of the greatest blunders of mankind looked great on paper but failed miserably when unleashed on the public.

This isn't the only PRT proposal floating around either. There are a few others out there by other companies. An ongoing proposal in Minnesota as well as one in Washington state to mention two I personally am aware of. Each one sounds the same however, build it and all your transit problems will be forever solved. None have been tested nor have any been willing to build a test line completely on their own dime to prove their claims. These companies all want to place it as a central core part of the existing transportation infrastructure. As I see it, this means that they have an escape if things go wrong and can unload the responsibilities onto the government if it goes belly-up.

Mesa politicians should not even think about including such an untested and unproven concept such as SkyTran into the transportation analysis. The residents of Mesa need to make that clear to their elected officials. If built, it won't save money, it won't be safer and it definitely won't cure your transportation problems. You'll end up with an expensive white elephant that even more of your tax dollars will have to be sunk into just to keep it running.

Chastain's LRT plan continues to get more holes

2007-08-10T02:07:00.000-04:00

Kansas City MO - Clay Chastain's Light Rail Transit {LRT} plan took a couple of big hits on Thursday but were, as usual, brushed aside by Chastain.

First there was the consulting team which issued its report to the city council and showed that the city just can't afford Chastain's dream system.

Then the city council learned that there were enough valid signatures on a petition to force the city to toss the plan or send it back to the voters.

Chastain of course instantly went on the defensive. He claimed the consultant report was deliberately overstating the building costs so as to shoot his plan down. A bit paranoid? It seems so but Chastain has a long history of being paranoid when things don't go his way. It's always that someone is out to get him.

What needs to be focused on is this paragraph in the news story: "He said the Missouri Department of Transportation should contribute $100 million to operate light rail. According to figures supplied by MoDOT, that would eat up what the state spends on general transit for about 25 years."

In other words, Chastain not only wants to decimate the bus system in Kansas City but he wishes to decimate transit in the entire state of Missouri just so he can build his personal legacy line at taxpayer expense.

Also highlighted in the consultant's report was that many of the things in Chastain's plan had problems and could even violate the law. There has already been many other questionable issues regarding the constitutionality of how he plans on funding it so that didn't surprise me.

What amused me was that he thinks the state will just fork over the money needed to fund all transit systems for the next 25 years to operate his legacy line. He's Clay Chastain so the state is just going to bow down to his royal highness. The bulk of Chastain's plan for funding revolves around such thinking. He thinks Kansas City will automatically go to the front of the funding line with the Feds. He thinks the state will just hand over money because he needs it to run his LRT line with gondola ride.

This is sure to end up in court as Chastain has no qualms about suing to get his legacy line built, even if the people vote it down in the next election. He was all for the people prior to this since they blindly voted for what he wanted but as soon as they learned what was happening and don't want his plan, it's to hell with the people. Sadly, when all is said and done, it will cost the taxpayers plenty but it looks as though Chastain's plan is getting more holes in it by the day and less likely to be built.

Kansas City residents have a chance it seems to officially dump Chastain's legacy line and send the meddler packing back to Virginia. With enough valid petition signatures, there is no reason that a re-vote of the plan can't happen with the next election. Let's hope these people understand what they are voting for this time.

If Kansas City must have a rail line, do it sensibly. Build it for service, not development or prestige. Don't go for the bells and whistles as they don't do anything but drive the price up. While I still think Kansas City can't support a rail line regardless of building price, it might just squeak by if it is done with transportation in mind in an existing high ridership corridor.

Talk about chutzpah

2007-08-07T03:58:00.000-04:00

Pittsburgh PA - The former Port Authority of Allegheny County (PAT) CEO, Paul "Captain Scuttles" Skoutelas, filed a federal lawsuit against his former employer late last week. He charges that PAT has illegally reduced his monthly pension by more than $3,000.

The key issue in the lawsuit revolves around a pension agreement that was not approved by the PAT Board and hence not legally binding. PAT reduced Skoutelas' pension and requested repayment of almost $65,000 in over payments. Skoutelas' attorney argues otherwise and states that a promise was made and must be honored.

The man that literally lived large on the taxpayer's dime and brought a whole new meaning to the term government waste is now experiencing the repercussions of his leadership and he doesn't like it. From day one, he spent money like Fort Knox was part of the operation. I mean, nobody needs an $800 desk clock but he deemed it a necessity when he first arrived along with a desk chair that cost well over $1,000, all on the taxpayer's dime of course. The wasteful spending just skyrocketed from that point on.

A costly move of the administration offices from a building it owned into leased office space in the high rent section of Downtown. Continuing to increase the funding of a proven failure of a marketing campaign. Nickel and diming the operating funds for everything from dinosaur books, greens fees and rented Christmas decorations for the office to hiring but not monitoring the spending of professional lobbying agencies acting on their behalf (i.e. reimbursing the lobbyist blindly). Greatly inflating inventory costs by having to have each bus order as different from the previous order as they could get it and with every option they could get. This is barely even the tip of the iceberg in terms of wasteful spending practices that occurred under the leadership of Skoutelas and directly led to the fiscal crisis PAT finds itself in today.

While PAT has never been a really efficient operation, the decade under Skoutelas was ripe with wasteful spending which set PAT up for fiscal disaster. More new ways to waste money were invented under the Skoutelas administration than occurred under all of the previous administrations combined. Skoutelas jumped the ship before the actual crash so he didn't have to deal with the consequences.

Skoutelas also introduced a controversial pension program under his watch at PAT known as the "Deferred Retirement Option Program" or DROP. The DROP program literally allowed key employees to double dip into the already underfunded management pension plan. He was also allowed to buy pension credit for previous service at PAT as well as his time with Lynx in Orlando FL to increase his overall pension.

Sadly, with the way the courts rule on such matters, PAT will ultimately be out the money and Skoutelas will get his full plunder. The riders and taxpayers will get punished in the end to offset Skoutelas' share of the PAT loot.

It takes a lot of chutzpah to sue your former employer for money when you yourself steered that former employer into a fiscal disaster which has left the public with 15% less service, threats of another 10% and a fare increase on the horizon as well as the loss of employment for many employees.

Hannemann: Rail transit is only way

2007-08-06T07:17:00.000-04:00

Honolulu HI - With Honolulu Mayor Mufi Hannemann's legacy rail plan being questioned, the Mayor dug in and tried to shoot down any thought of looking at alternatives.

Hannemann ranted, "There is no way we are going to change horses in midstream and now explore a busway as an alternative to light rail." He continued with "It will not be done. I will not allow that to happen."

This outburst only further confirms to me that the transit plan in Honolulu is strictly for the personal legacy of Mayor Hannemann rather than for the good of the residents that must pay for it. The Mayor has always fought any plan that wasn't rail and has long refused to even consider exploring what would work best. Even the routing would be challenged by Mufi if it didn't fit into his vision of how he wanted his legacy line.

While the brief description of the BRT plan leaves me with a lot of questions, BRT was never really properly considered initially. Only rail was. Even the routing is questionable as many questions are still pending as to if Mufi's plan will serve the most residents. Hannemann has pulled strings, called in favors and at times bullied to get his plan going. Even though the rail plan is still in question, Hannemann acts as though it is a done deal.

Council Chairwoman Barbara Marshall is unconvinced that Mufi's plan is the best because she doesn't believe all possibilities were given fair consideration during the early planning stages of the project. She is correct, they weren't. Mufi had already decided on rail and that was what he insisted be focused on.

Given that the line will require at least $5 billion dollars in taxpayer money (probably more when all is said and done), all alternatives need to be considered and the best technology as well as route chosen. Hannemann's refusal to consider anything but rail along the route he wants is a warning flag which proclaims that the project is a legacy project and doesn't serve the best interest of the residents.

Transit Funding vs. Other Public Projects

2007-08-03T00:48:00.000-04:00

Atlanta GA - Susan Gast had a very interesting article in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution regarding how the funding of public transit is viewed compared to funding for other government projects.

She is correct in her assumption that public transit operating funding is dimly viewed by politicians. In her article she questions why politicians often say that public transit doesn't benefit everyone so it shouldn't be supported while items like parks, roads and other infrastructure are (and let's not forget the $10,000 taxpayer funded BBQ pit at a senior center if your in Pennsylvania).

She does miss this fact though: Funding for transit capital projects which do little beside raise the cost of providing service is quite easy to obtain and politicians fight to get in line to hand that money out.

A big part of the answer she seeks comes from political legacy. Build a park, create a new highway and the politician, after they bite the dust and often before, can get a shiny brass plaque with their name on it for all of eternity proclaiming they were the ones responsible for this park or that road, etc.

Her example of Gwinnett County Commissioner Mike Beaudreau's comments reminded me of many politicians I have come across. They all have the same disdain for transit and fail to understand its benefits. They only embrace transit if they think it can further their political career or shut up some noisy detractors of their work.

The excuse that public transit is expensive and used by few is just that, an excuse. I pay for schools I don't use and know many others that don't have children to use the public school system but we still have to fork over money for the indoctrination centers. I pay for roads in the boondocks that are lucky they have 5 cars a day on them and I know I'll never have to use that road. I know many that haven't been to a public park in decades, including myself. Yet these all get funded with a smile by the politicians who proclaim "everyone benefits". Hardly.

A viable public transit system is an important part to the city economy. Without a good system, you will lose business. Not just a few lost sales from people that can't get to town to buy from the stores but entire businesses that pack up and move to somewhere that their capital is treated better. Far more people benefit from a viable transit system than just those that ride. Politicians are either too stupid to understand that fact or so dedicated to creating something they can hang a brass plaque on with their name that they ignore it.

Susan's article is very thought provoking and brings up an excellent point. After reading it, I was already going through the list of projects that my local and state politicians are rushing to give money to and very few of the favored projects benefited everyone. In fact, many were self-serving and benefited only the politicians and a handful of their contributors.

The "it must benefit everyone" argument is always applied to operating funding for transit by the politicians and rarely to anything else they rush out to give money to. While public transit does need to do a lot of house cleaning to make itself more efficient, it benefits far more people, including those that don't use the system, than the neighborhood taxpayer funded meth clinic or a new taxpayer funded road into a private housing development.

PAT is still finding new ways to waste money

2007-08-01T01:48:00.000-04:00

Pittsburgh PA - A columnist piece in the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review really should be a news item. Columnist Eric Heyl informed the readers on Friday that the Port Authority of Allegheny County (PAT) is still finding new ways to waste money and offering feeble attempts at justifying the waste.

What is it this time? Another attempt at nickel and diming the money needed to run service so it can be spent on anything but providing service. PAT placed an ad in the Pittsburgh City Paper for $1,400 which is little more than political butt kissing using money that is needed to run the service.

The full page ad declared in bold face letters "THANKS TO THE LEADERS IN HARRISBURG, WE CAN KEEP YOU MOVING."

It then goes on with "We'd like to thank Gov. Rendell, the lawmakers in Harrisburg, and all those who have worked together on the funding crisis," the ad states. "Their hard work and vision have made it possible for us to continue to offer our riders the dependable transit they deserve."

PAT's spinmeister, Judi McNeil, went into high speed spin mode to defend the ad saying that it was to publicly thank the politicians for their efforts in passing the transportation bill. She was also quick to add that the money for the ad came from advertising revenues and not taxpayer money.

I'm sorry Judi, the ad is a waste of money and shows exactly what I have been saying for years. PAT will find any excuse to spend money on anything but providing service. These politicians don't need to be thanked for doing their job. The same could have been done for free at the PAT press conference where they announced the funding deal. Instead, PAT just had to find a way to waste more money so they went out and bought a newspaper ad in a free tabloid style paper that is used more for lining bird cages and paper training the family puppy than it is used for reading.

Also Judi, that advertising revenue is supposed to go toward the operating fund. Whether you think so or not, the taxpayer still has to foot the bill for that useless advertisement since that is $1,400 more the taxpayer must sink into the system to keep service on the street.

While $1,400 isn't even considered chump change in the grand scheme of the total amount needed to run PAT, it clearly shows how the mind set of waste is ingrained into the transit system's administration. This is just like the $700 or so worth of dinosaur books PAT bought for the board of director's children several years ago. It is something to simply waste money on and does absolutely nothing to keep service on the street.

PAT earns itself yet another Lance for continuing to waste money and I'm tossing in another Lance for PAT's mouthpiece, Judi McNeil, for trying to once again defend the waste.

Pennsylvania eliminates senior ride restrictions

2007-07-31T04:39:00.000-04:00

Johnstown PA - The Johnstown Tribune-Democrat has a story regarding a change in the Pennsylvania State law regarding the times Seniors are allowed to ride for free on the buses.

Prior to the law changing, seniors could not use their transit identification card during rush hours. The CamTran general manager, Rose Lucey-Noll indicated that was to spare larger operations the problem of over-crowding during rush hour. Actually she is partially wrong. The original law was set up in part for that but it also dealt with the payout to the transit systems from the State Lottery fund which funds the free ride program for Seniors.

For small systems, such as CamTran in Johnstown, it won't have much of an effect on rush hour ridership and is a welcome change since they don't have much of a rush hour to start with. Now with larger systems, it may create a small problem.

That problem will be that larger systems may still restrict travel times for seniors using the transit identification card because of rush hour crowds. This will create unneeded hassle for the drivers that have to enforce company procedure while the law has no restrictions.

Overall, eliminating the restriction on senior riding makes sense. Currently in both Pittsburgh and Philadelphia, there is the "third rush hour" which consists of seniors trying to get where they are going before the real rush hour starts in the afternoon. This mini-rush hour has created some problems as both PAT and SEPTA still are running in off-peak mode. By eliminating the restrictions, that mini-rush hour will disappear and the crowd will be scattered out. Seniors, for the most part, will tend to avoid rush hour travel anyway due to the more crowded conditions.

While this change in the law won't bring in any more money from the State Lottery fund because the formula used to calculate how much each transit system receives will not change, it will be beneficial to the many seniors that depend on transit service to get around.

Chastain insists his plan will work

2007-07-27T16:17:00.000-04:00

Kansas City MO - Clay Chastain, the former KC resident that now resides in Virginia but still meddles in Kansas City affairs, insists his rail plan for KC is workable.

Once again however, Chastain pinned his belief about his rail plan on hopes and dreams rather than reality. At a meeting between Chastain and the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee of Kansas City, Chastain did little to prove that his plan was workable beside suggesting more local taxes be imposed to pay for it.

Chastain told the committee he expected the pie of funding for public transportation to get bigger. “I think the pendulum of the federal government is swinging in the right direction,” Chastain said of the Democratic shift in Congress.

In my experience, the Democrats talk a good game but fail to deliver on their lip service. KC won't see any more money under a government controlled by Democrats than it received under a government controlled by Republicans.

You can't build and fund anything just on the hope that someone in the government will take pity and hand you a big check to pay for it. Chastain just can't seem to understand that simple point. He wants KC to jump to the head of the line and not have to follow any rules or regulations that the rest of the country must follow.

Chastain reluctantly agreed that you can't decimate the bus system and expect the Feds to pony up the money. However, that won't stop him for pushing for his personal legacy line. Another threat of an expensive lawsuit was also issued by Chastain at the meeting if he doesn't get his rail line with gondola ride built as he wants it, proving he doesn't care if the bus system does get destroyed in the process.

Clay Chastain's rail proposal is the perfect example of a personal legacy project that he wants everyone else to pay for. It's his way or he'll sue to get his way.

Environmental Impact of Light Rail

2007-07-26T00:08:00.000-04:00

Seattle WA - An article on the Crosscut web site brings to light an interesting slant to the rail debate. The environmental impact of building a light rail line.

The writer, Emory Bundy, does a rather good job in pointing out that building a rail line has a much more serious impact on the environment than the pro-rail and environmentalist crowd would have you believe. Remember, rail is sold to the public as being good for the environment but the environmental costs are completely ignored.

Bundy states: "As an offset, Sound Transit claims it will save 14,000 tons of CO2 annually by running light rail trains on electricity, sparing the region emissions that otherwise would be generated by automotive traffic. Even if granted, it would take 90 years from completion of the line to break even on the energy transaction. If Sound Transit should manage to cut tunnel-related greenhouse emissions in half, by aggressive use of hydro electricity and human labor, an implausible proposition, it still would take 45 years to break even."

That's a long time to just break even on the environmental carbon footprint but Bundy failed to mention that even in the time frame given, the line still wouldn't break even on the environmental costs. Why? Even taking the shorter of the two times, 45 years, the line would have been rebuilt several times over. Each rebuild making more of a carbon impact and adding more time before the line breaks even on it's carbon footprint. The number also doesn't take into consideration the day to day maintenance on the line which also will add to the carbon footprint. In short, the Sound Transit extension will never pay for itself environmentally but will continually add carbon debt that will never be paid off. And no, buying carbon credits from Ozone Al won't cover it.

Actually, this whole carbon footprint nonsense is just that, nonsense. I am pointing this out the way I am simply to show people that rail isn't as environmentally friendly as proponents like to make it out to be. Those who are rushing out to buy "carbon offsets" (I could do a whole series on that scam) for a trip to the store will be shocked to see that the environmentally friendly rail line they take to work isn't as eco-friendly as they thought. As green is one of the big selling points for expensive rail projects, the public needs to understand that it isn't as green as the proponents say it is.

Getting back to Bundy's article. Bundy should have just left the article as a relatively decent informative piece. Instead he turned a good and informative article into a joke by going off in the last third of the article about how everybody should be riding bicycles to work. Over the years, I've worked next to people that biked to work and let me tell you, they stunk from their sweat in the summer, looked like a drowned rat if it rained and on some occasions, looked like they stopped off to do some mud wrestling on the way in. I'd rather take the bus.

While Bundy does miss a lot of points such as not comparing the impact of road building to rail as well as making assumptions on demographics, he brings up some valid points. Rail won't really help reduce the problems that its proponents say it will. In Seattle's case, hydro-electric power helps but in other parts of the country, all rail does is move the pollution from one location to another; namely to a coal-fired power plant in an already near capacity electrical power grid.

I could go on for days as each item in Bundy's article brings up two or more items that need to be covered. Slapping a rail line down isn't as simple as it may seem. The same goes for a busway or highway as well. Rail however, has more of a direct negative financial impact to it due to its much higher cost and as shown by Bundy, rail also has much more of a negative environmental impact than the general public is led to believe.

Beside the major distraction of his bike speech at the end, Bundy's article is pretty good. It brings up some good and valid points about the environmental impact of rail that are rarely mentioned. Many of these things I have been saying all along but there was some new information as well as a new way of applying what I already knew to better counter the pro-rail environmental rhetoric.

Tacky Trolleys proposed

2007-07-25T01:43:00.000-04:00

Winston-Salem NC - Winston-Salem is considering adding night time, weekend trolley service (with the tacky trolleys) to the city. The trolley service, tried once before during lunch hours and fizzled, is stated to help drum up business during the evening hours as well as spur the night life of the city.

Normally with such a news story, I would just read it, roll my eyes and forget it but a comment by the Art Barnes, General Manager of the Winston-Salem Transit Authority (WSTA), caught my attention. That comment was this: “just because something doesn’t work in one venue doesn’t mean you should give up on it."

Upon reading that comment, I immediately thought of all the waste done by transit systems and city leaders across America based on that very philosophy. Try, try and try again until the idea can be force fit into the fabric of the city just doesn't spell good fiscal management nor does it spell success.

I like Art Barnes and have corresponded with him in the past but his comment is a philosophy that I see practiced almost daily and I must disagree with him. The philosophy he states usually fails with costly results. The philosophy is almost ingrained into the thinking of public officials who give little thought about spending taxpayer money.

Just like with my local transit system who mastered the technique of trying to get a failed strategy to work and literally crippled the operation due to the excessive costs, the Winston-Salem trolley plan is similar. It is a plan that has failed in the past and should be left to rest in peace.

What we hear though is that "such trolley services have been successful in other cities". Wow, then let's jump on the bandwagon! What works in one city doesn't mean it will work in another city if tried. A point often ignored and ignored in this case as well. Lunchtime trolley operations work in other cities but failed miserably in Winston-Salem.

If the venture is funded strictly through private money, it's a whole new ball game but it won't be. What will happen is that more and more public money will have to be sunk into the plan if it gets up and running. The WSTA will most likely end up on the short end of the financial stick as money that should go for regular WSTA service on it's many routes will be siphoned off to pay for the night time tacky trolley operation that will not even come close to being cost effective.

The comment toward the end about extending the proposed service to colleges and having them pay for it is laughable as well. Oh you may get them to pay a small portion of the service but nowhere close to what is needed to run the service. Colleges will insist on free service for the students as well for a fraction of the actual cost of the service.

I say, let a proven failure rest in peace. Resurrecting a tacky trolley operation on the public dime, when it has failed before, will do nothing to improve business at the bars and clubs nor will it keep the roads free of drivers that have had too much to drink.

PAT's costs are over budget already

2007-07-23T23:49:00.000-04:00

Pittsburgh PA - The Port Authority of Allegheny County (PAT) is struggling to come up with excuses on the much touted (by PAT at least) North Shore Connector rail project. The project, which just recently started a few weeks ago, is already positioned to go through half of its $9 million dollar contractor contingency fund due to unexpected problems.

The totally unneeded $425 million project, pushed for by former PAT Executive Director, Paul "Captain Scuttles" Skoutelas, will connect Downtown Pittsburgh to the North Shore across the river. That, boys and girls, is less than a mile walk.

Overall, PAT has a $19 million dollar contingency fund for overruns. $9 million of that is for contractor overruns. Considering that the work just started and over $4 million has had to be drawn against the contingency fund already, prepare of one hell of an expensive project.

It is obvious that PAT's contractors, engineering and consultants failed to do their job. Soft ground? Ummm, why didn't you take core samples before you started work. What a bunch of idiots.

What will really make this North Shore Connector a disaster in the making is that no more Federal, state or local money will be pumped into the project. The public and political backlash from the lies of PAT's management have cost them dearly. When the plan was being pushed and even right up until work started, PAT claimed everyone wanted it. Management waved studies and polls around which weren't worth the paper they were printed on as they were totally fabricated. The truth is that only PAT wanted this subway extension. The public didn't want it, politicians were against it but yet the false studies and polls were accepted by the FTA for funding the project. The FTA stated earlier in the year that they wouldn't have approved the project had they known the truth which was that the politicians and public didn't want this project done due to PAT's financial crisis (which PAT officials also lied to the Feds about).

If this project runs through its $19 million contingency fund, work will have to cease regardless of how far along it is. Given that most every transit project out there goes way over budget, I'm projecting that when all is said and done, the North Shore Boondoggle will go from a $425 million project to a minimum of a $600 million dollar project. Where will that additional money come from? You got it, PAT officials will cry and whine about it before punishing the riders once again by slashing existing service and raising fares even though they can't use the money from that to pay off the project due to different funding types (but they'll punish the riders anyway). They must complete it or the Feds will want their money back on the project.

By the time that Steve Bland arrived at PAT in 2007, it was too late to stop the project without losing millions of dollars through having to pay contractors, engineers and consultants for something never delivered. PAT still should have stopped it. It would have been far less costly for the cash strapped agency to cancel it than to go ahead with it.

In the end, Paul "Captain Scuttles" Skoutelas will get his personal legacy line that he pushed so hard for. Ironically it will not be the legacy he wants but a new legacy. One of excessive greed, mismanagement and plain incompetence. Congratulations Paul, you've earned it!

Audit on PAT offers no surprises

2007-07-20T01:26:00.000-04:00

Pittsburgh PA - A county audit ordered by Allegheny County Chief Executive Dan Onorato showed no surprises when it came to the Port Authority of Allegheny County's (PAT) fiscal picture. Waste and inefficiency in the transit system are still present and the previous administration spent money like a drunken sailor that just came in from months at sea.

The Allegheny County Controller, Mark Patrick Flaherty, also compared PAT to 11 other comparable transit systems and PAT. While the names of the systems weren't released (I am trying to find out), PAT finished up at the bottom in most all of the categories.

Flaherty traced some of the agency's current financial woes to its "Ride Gold" program, which the authority retired in 2006. I have been saying that since the inception of the program in 1999. Former PAT head, Paul "Captain Scuttles" Skoutelas and his marketing guru Smilin' Deb followed the golden Liberal rule when the marketing program initially bombed. That rule was to just throw good money after bad and they did just that by ramping up the marketing campaign and pumping millions more into it even though it was a proven failure.

While PAT has been saddled with many long term costs over the years, waste and inefficient operations have become ingrained into the culture of the system. That is quickly draining the money needed to run service. Many things that PAT management feels are mandatory to do the job really are luxuries that can be done away with. They have management positions in place which literally were created to give someone a title along with additional perks.

The geography of the area also helps to increase costs. In order to service the various communities along a major corridor, you literally need multiple routes that converge once they begin funneling themselves into the city through the ever narrowing geographical corridors. Other cities don't have this issue but the cure many are suggesting is to turn PAT's operation into a mirror of what other cities run. That won't work well here and fails every time it has been tried.

Current PAT CEO, Steve Bland, is working on trying to eliminate some of the waste but has often focused on the wrong things. Cutting service and hiking fares isn't the way to do it. What is needed it so overhaul the administration, lay down new work rules for any new employee that is hired so that they aren't covered by the current contracts that are bleeding PAT dry but a newer contract that is more fiscally responsible as well as going back to the basics of providing service.

While Steve Bland feels the critical audit report shows PAT is on the right track now, he's wrong. Flaherty stated cutting service should be the last thing to be done yet that was among the first things Mr. Bland did. What Bland has done is help set PAT up to continue the downward trend by hacking 15% of the service before cleaning up the management's wasteful ways.

A job interview I went on once many years ago at PAT said it all. I will remember these words until the day I die. "You know too much about how transit should be run. We need someone that doesn't understand so they can be trained to do it our way".

Another flawed rail study?

2007-07-14T08:29:00.000-04:00

Charlotte NC - Critics of Charlotte's light rail line charge that a study done by the University of North Carolina at Charlotte (UNCC) and commissioned by the Charlotte Chamber of Commerce is skewed to favor rail. The report, used to bolster public support for a controversial tax, has critics of Charlotte's rail operation and tax to support it questioning the fairness as well as the accuracy of it.

Questions surrounding the study and report center around the fact that it was commissioned by a group favorable to the rail plan and tax. Records indicate that the President of the Chamber of Commerce, Bob Morgan, may have influenced how the rail study was handled by the UNCC.

The UNCC is investigating the matter but it's like in Washington DC when politicians police their own members. They won't find much that they did wrong. Even if researchers purposely ignored certain facts, the study was more than likely handled properly within the realm of the UNCC policy.

The policy prohibits "serious deviation" from commonly accepted research practices, including fabrication, falsification or plagiarism. Even ignoring key data and cherry picking the results would not fall within the grasp of the policy. Only making up their own data in lieu of gathering the data properly, deliberately changing results or stealing results from another source would violate the policy. I don't believe that happened here.

What I believe may have happened was that key data was ignored and not even looked at as well as results being cherry-picked to create at report that the people, who commissioned the report, wanted to see. The UNCC did nothing wrong beside possibly not looking at all information and not including information that didn't meet the study criteria. Research is like statistics, data can be viewed and even ignored in a variety of ways while not violating any ethics policy.

This isn't the first time such a thing happened. Studies generally tend to slant toward the views of whoever commissioned the study, regardless of who does the study. This is why I tend to question all the various studies that are being waved around by various groups and government agencies. The studies to believe lean more toward those studies that end up being buried by the groups that commissioned them as it doesn't say what they want it to say.

Personally speaking, the various studies being done for anything and everything these days aren't worth the paper they are printed on. Few produced are done without being commissioned by some group that is paying for the study to be done and setting the study criteria. Of course the Charlotte Chamber of Commerce will get a report favorable to their position when they are the ones setting the criteria of the study. I would bet that if the rail critics commissioned a study and set the criteria, they'd get one that supports their views.

Using commissioned studies to sway popular opinion has become a big business these days. Few are accurate and even fewer are non-biased. While the UNCC study will hold up to the internal investigation since it most likely didn't violate any internal policy, it is still a highly questionable report given the fact that it was a commissioned study which had the study criteria set by the group paying for it.

Someone woke up to the RTD FasTracks boondoggle

2007-07-13T00:13:00.000-04:00

Avarda CO - Denver suburbanites are beginning to take notice that the RTD's FasTracks program was over-hyped, full of lies and is costing them plenty. An opinion piece in the Mile High News by Tom Graham expresses many of the concerns that I have long held about rail and many other public transit projects.

Graham appeared to be a supporter of the FasTracks project to place new rail lines in the suburbs that would connect to Denver. Today he calls it a boondoggle. Why the change? The Utopian facade of rail is starting to fall apart with rapidly escalating costs, promises that weren't fulfilled, total lies and plans to take even more money from the residents to pay for it all.

RTD planners originally touted the project as a relief to the mounting traffic congestion in the Denver area. I could have told Mr. Graham from day one that reason was just spin to garner support by the traffic weary residents. There isn't one study, that anyone can produce, which shows rail will have a significant effect on the reduction of traffic. In most cases it is just the opposite and traffic congestion increases after a rail line opens for passenger traffic.

As Graham feels his wallet getting lighter by the minute, he has woken up to the fact that rail isn't the answer for Denver, or for many areas for that matter. He states that Avarda residents are already paying $2,600 each per year and not even one train is running. He fully expects that amount to increase and I agree.

He then complains that what is happening isn't what the people voted for. Again, I have to agree but also add this; What did he expect to happen when government is involved? What the voter wants rarely coincides with what they actually end up with. The Utopian vision painted by the supporters makes it easy to say "I want that" and cast a vote in favor of the plan. The reality is that what is presented is just spin. The ballot initiatives are written to encourage a yes vote as well.

Reality is like a slap in the face with a dead fish but the voters in Avarda and other Denver communities got exactly what they voted for because they didn't do their homework and find out more. Just listening to the RTD, politician and activist spin without bothering to take the time to look at the opposite side of the issue just played right into their hands. It's exactly what they were counting on.

Tom Graham has nailed the situation in the Denver area pretty good. It's just too bad he didn't see the light before now since it's too late to do anything about it. It's an expensive lesson that too many people learn after its too late simply because they believe the Utopian spin that rail is the Saviour and everything will be fine once a rail line is slapped down.

PAT gets funding with strings attached

2007-07-12T02:18:00.000-04:00

Pittsburgh PA - Pennsylvania lawmakers finally approved a budget which includes dedicated transit funding for the state's transit systems but there is a string attached. To get the funding, local government will need to put up matching funding.

In Allegheny County, the state is going to allow Allegheny County officials to impose up to a 10 percent poured drinks tax as well as a $2 per day tax on rental cars. In other words, the state politicians passed the buck to the locals.

Now, to Allegheny County Chief Executive Director Dan Onorato's (D) credit, he stated that he would not impose the new taxes until the Port Authority gets its union and management costs down more. Yet another string on the funding. Given Onorato's desire to implement the original and poorly conceived PAT hack & slash plan which left large sections of the county without any transit service, I really believe he will hold to what he is stating.

The Port Authority has a long way to go to trim costs. The union is willing to reopen the contract for negotiations however they will fight against any major concessions. Management is busy doing a smoke and mirror act with many of its costs.

There are some problems with the new funding plan for Allegheny County also. Primarily is that it is yet another "sin" tax. A poured drink tax is a targeted tax aimed at a select group of people, most of whom will have no problem taking their business across county lines. These types of "sin" taxes have proven to generate far less than projected in addition to chasing away money to other areas that are more money friendly.

Secondly, the string attached to the so-called dedicated funding by the state politicians is designed strictly to take the focus off of them the next time there is a funding crunch and place it on the local politicians. The state also must budget and tax the residents for the maximum amount of the funding even if it isn't used. Unused money from one year won't be carried over to the next year in the budget either.

Each year the state politicians will still have to do exactly as they have been doing since 1964 and budget the money. In effect, all the state politicians have done is to increase the red tape and bureaucracy since they now require the local government to tax and match to get the funding. I didn't expect anything less from the state politicians.

How I see this going down is as follows in Pittsburgh. The county will impose a small portion of the tax, around 2-4%. Some of the revenue generated will go to get matching funds but not all of it. PAT's management and union will not bring costs down much more than they already have which will keep the county from providing the full amount of money to get the state's matching funds. Probably around half of the poured drink tax revenue will be skimmed off for other county needs even though it was implemented as a transit tax. While all this is going on, each year the state politicians will find new reasons to reduce the state funding pot. In other words, nothing really will change except for more taxes and more bureaucratic red tape.

PAT, SEPTA and the other state transit agencies are breathing a huge sigh of relief over the new state budget but they aren't out of the woods with the new policy on transit funding that was passed by the state politicians. Some may squeak out a few years before being in the same position they are in now. Others may be lucky if they can make it to next year before crying about being out of money again.

Failure despite success

2007-07-11T01:32:00.001-04:00

Toronto ON - The Toronto Transit Commission (TTC) is in a unique spot these days. Its ridership is greatly increasing but is causing overcrowding as well as cash flow headaches. The TTC finds itself unable to cope with the influx of riders as politicians and activists push harder to get more people on board.

This is a problem every transit system in North America faces as they try to find ways to get people out of their cars and onto transit. It's a Catch-22 where even if you win, you lose.

Of course there is no additional money forthcoming. The TTC claims it needs $6.7 million (C$) to battle the overcrowding by adding more transit vehicles and drivers. Where does this leave the TTC? Wanting to hike fares to help cover the expenses of increased ridership.

Now, one more time people. Let's look back at the Port Authority of Allegheny County (PAT) during the early and mid 1970's. They had a massive increase in ridership yet this was handled without dramatically increasing costs and without fare increases or increased funding. New routes were added, service was run efficiently which allowed more service out of one bus and driver as well as having just about every fare incentive out there to get even more riders on board.

PAT had crowded buses and trolleys but they were able to handle the quick influx of riders quickly, effectively and efficiently. It's too bad the PAT management of today doesn't understand this basic principle but that's another rant for another time.

This is what bothers me on the Toronto story. The TTC has plans for various new transit projects while ignoring the existing service. Just about every other transit system in North America is the same way. Rather than make their operation efficient, they instantly put their hand out for more tax money and when they don't get it, they punish the ridership by raising fares and cutting service.

Politicians, activists of various causes and transit officials all want more people on board. When they get them, they aren't prepared for them. It doesn't take much to prepare either. Run an efficient operation and the ability to handle the crowds becomes easy. You don't need more money to handle an increase in ridership.

The answer most of the politicians, activists and transit officials see is to build expensive transit projects that benefit few and take away from the rest of the area's service to pay to run the project. Rarely do you see any of the above decide to make the system cost efficient and focusing on what they already have in place. As the above groups push harder to make driving more expensive by wanting to tax private car ownership to oblivion, they are also hurting the transit systems. By forcing unneeded transit projects to be built and sacrificing the rest of the operation to pay to run these projects, they ensure people keep finding new ways to keep driving, regardless of cost.

The TTC is also pointing the finger of blame at the monthly pass holders for its revenues dropping while ridership increases. What a load of BS that is. That makes absolutely no sense what so ever. Again, PAT in the 70's had just about every fare incentive you could think of to get riders on-board and it wasn't losing revenue doing it. The vast majority of the riders back then used some form of pre-paid discount fare instrument and fare revenues were increasing, not decreasing. PAT turned the worst fare days into the best with the Tuesday Special reduced fare for everyone during Tuesday off-peak. Using the TTC excuse, the PAT of the 70's should have been losing money faster than water going over Niagara Falls with the Tuesday Special. The TTC is just trying to justify a fare hike with the claim that monthly pass holders are costing it money.

Toronto is just one of many operations that are experiencing a rider surge. More will follow, some will totally screw it up *cough* PAT today *cough* while others will adapt and deal with it. Toronto seems to be trying hard to screw it up while at the same time trying to slip their hand into the tax till for more money.

Is PAT Really Trimming The Fat?

2007-07-09T07:55:00.000-04:00

Pittsburgh PA - Allegheny County Councilman Matt Drozd (R) has spoken out that it is time for the PAT unions to give back like the management has in light of the fiscal crisis that PAT is currently in. Drozd doesn't address this however.

PAT has 19 jobs in upper management currently posted in-house and 15 currently posted on their web-site. The lowest salary is for $4,800 a month ($57,600 a year) with one going for $9,800 a month ($117,600 a year), not including benefits.

Considering that some of these positions can be merged together into one position and that the bulk of the positions would go for less in the private market, it tells me that PAT is still not being fiscally responsible.

Matt Drozd needs to mouth off about this issue but I doubt he will.

While I agree that the unions do need to make concessions, Drozd is letting management off the hook once again as they are trying to refill their ranks at a higher price than the private market in Pittsburgh offers. The fiscal crisis PAT finds itself is cannot be solved by a one-time theatrical act of cutting management staff and salaries while then silently going out to fill the vacancies at greater than market prices.

As I have mentioned before in various Laurels & Lances articles on PAT's financial woes, the agency has decades of waste built into the management philosophy. As one can see, that philosophy is still there. Many of those management positions need eliminated, merged with existing positions and salaries reduced to market levels consistent with the Western Pennsylvania area.

County Councilman Matt Drozd (R-Ross) earns himself a Lance for letting management off the hook on this situation while pounding the drums about the union needing to give back. While I do agree with him on that point, PAT's management still has a long way to go before they can even be remotely considered fiscally responsible.

Fare Free Transit - Does It Work?

2007-07-09T06:08:00.000-04:00

Whidbey Island WA - The Seattle Post-Intellegencer had an article regarding fare free transit for Island Transit on Whidbey and Camano Islands in Washington. The article went into the benefits of providing a fare free system. It did list some of the cons as well however they were glossed over in my opinion.

With several cities as well as various transit activists pushing for this type of operation across North America, the article appeared as though it was commissioned.

Let's take a trip back in history first. In the early 1960's, the Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU) was a strong advocate of just such a scheme. In fact, it was tried in several cities for a very short time. Some cities, such as Cleveland, stopped the experiment within a few hours due to excessive crowds on the buses as well as fights and other rowdy behavior. The experiment was pushed by the ATU to "protect its drivers" from the hassle of fare disputes. The union became rather silent on the subject after the experiment.

Over the years, many cities implemented free fare zones in their downtown cores. This worked for the most part and was convenient for all, especially for systems like in Pittsburgh which has a zone fare structure that required paying first inbound and paying as you leave on the outbound.

Now to the present. Cities such as San Francisco and New York City as well as states like Connecticut are looking into such schemes again. The activists in these places hold up operations like Island Transit as well as Chapel Hill NC as the poster children. "It works there so it'll work here", they claim.

Wrong. What you will have is chaos in a larger city. Small towns can accomplish free transit rather easily. They don't have many of the problems that larger cities have with rowdy teens, homeless populations, crime, etc. In small scale applications, even in a large city, these factors can be controlled. On a large scale, these issues can't be easily controlled.

Many systems today already have many problems with disruptive people riding even with fares. Complaints are very common regarding the homeless that get free passes from other government agencies and then ride around panhandling on the buses and teens that get special discounted fares who ride around with nothing else they are willing to do besides cause problems on board. I could write a book on my experiences of riding buses and the majority of it would easily be filled with such incidents.

Then one must ask this. How will public transit in large cities make up the loss of millions of dollars in fare box revenues if they went free? Most cities can't afford the increased cost for transit as it is and to then throw out millions of dollars in income because they want to jump on a bandwagon which is being spearheaded by transit activists and Liberal politicians would simply create a situation that would cost everyone.

The activists and Liberal politicians would be having fits as service was slashed to cover the reduction of millions of dollars in fares. You know they have absolutely no plan to cover the loss of fares beside raising taxes on anything and everything. Much of that increased tax money wouldn't end up at the transit system anyway and we all know that.

The bulk of the various free transit plans being floated around currently are nothing but another example of Liberals once again refusing to look at what the results of their actions would be. They pop on their rose colored glasses and see a transit Utopia rather than the reality of further destroying public transit.

And don't think the transit activists and politicians would be silent once they push through a fare free system. They'll be whining about needing to add more buses to eliminate overcrowding from the people just riding around trip after trip after trip and causing problems. Don't push them off either or you'll be guaranteed to have other Liberal groups stepping in to fight and defend the rights of the people causing problems and keep them right where they are, on the bus causing problems.

The free transit bandwagon that is forming will attract even more willing participants. Like most things Liberal, it sounds good but has no basis in reality. It will further destroy public transit if instituted in a larger city simply because many of these same cities can't afford to run what they in place now.

Small operations like Island Transit work. There is no denying that currently. The problem comes if their subsidies suddenly change. If they lose a subsidy, they are screwed. Other taxes will go up to compensate of course but they aren't invulnerable to the rising cost of providing service, in fact they are more vulnerable to it since they have no quick patch to the problem.

Critics also point out fare collection costs. A valid point but in most cases, fare box revenues exceed collection costs by a good margin. The article shows this with the exception of Skagit Transit which is losing money on fares. One must then question why their collection costs are exceedingly high. I would bet they have padded payrolls and make-work rules in place.

The bottom line to all this is that fare free public transit in larger cities will not work. What it will do is further push people into their cars. It will also push people out of the cities and into the lesser taxed suburbs as taxes in cities go up to try and cover a fare free plan. In the end you'll be left with a shuttle service carrying those that can't afford to leave the area along with the troublemakers and panhandlers. It would be one more nail in the coffin for public transit brought to you by those that stand on their head and tell you that your are upside down.

Port Authority announces an additional 10% cut in service

2007-07-06T17:37:00.000-04:00

Pittsburgh PA - Port Authority announced today its plan to eliminate 34 bus and rail routes, eliminate Saturday and/or Sunday service on 18 others and reduce service on 65 additional routes as part of a 10 percent service reduction scheduled to take effect September 2, 2007.

The service reduction was one of the assumptions in Port Authority’s Fiscal Year 2008 Operating Budget, which includes a $44.6 million deficit to be offset with funds previously designated for capital purposes.

The 10 percent service reduction, which will not only affect 117 of Port Authority’s 185 routes but also result in 174 layoffs and close the Harmar Division, will be rescinded if the State Legislature approves additional funding for Pennsylvania’s transit providers.

The timing of today’s announcement coincides with the notification of affected employees as required by the federal Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act and the presentation of the September 2 service plan to Amalgamated Transit Union Local 85 and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 29 as required by their respective labor contracts.

The announcement of these measures comes three weeks after Port Authority instituted a 15 percent service reduction that eliminated 30 routes, reduced service on 104 weekday routes and resulted in 203 layoffs – the largest one-time service reduction in the Authority’s 43-year history.

"We remain hopeful that the transportation funding crisis in Pennsylvania will be addressed by the legislature, and we continue to work diligently toward achieving that goal," said Port Authority Chief Executive Officer Steve Bland. "But we must prepare our customers and our employees for the possibility that new funding will not be available.

"Should this service reduction go into effect in September, it will reduce transit options in Allegheny County to unthinkable levels. It will result in significant ridership losses, estimated to be at least 11 percent; it will devastate those customers who will be unable to get to or from work; and it will harm our local economy and further erode our competitiveness as a region."

Among the routes eliminated in this plan are 3L Creighton-Lower Burrell Express, 3M Tarentum-Natrona Express, 6C Spring Garden, 11C Perry Highway, 13B Babcock Express, 13G Thompson Run Express, 13J Franklin Park Express, 18C Bellevue-Union Avenue Express, 21B Kenmawr, 21D Kennedy, 29E Millers Run, 37A Mt. Lebanon-McFarland, 41C Cedar Boulevard, 42M Mt. Lebanon Short (rail), 42S Penn Park rail trips, 46H Pleasant Hills, 51D Churchview, 51E West Mifflin-Jefferson, 55D West Run-Brierly Lane, 55E Whitaker-West Mifflin, 60P Port Vue-Liberty, 63A North Braddock Express, 63B Rankin Express, 67E Greensburg Pike, 69A Forbes, 75A Monroeville Shopper, 75D Penn Hills-Monroeville, 77C Shadyside, 78E Penn Hills-East Vue Express, 79A Blackridge, 84B Oakland Loop, CO Coraopolis Flyer, E Elizabeth Flyer, G Greensburg Pike Flyer and T Trafford Flyer.

Routes with Saturday service eliminated include 24A Crafton-Presston, 36D Westwood, 46K Beltzhoover-Knoxville-Bon Air, 51B Spencer, 53F Homestead-Lincoln Place, 67F Trafford, 74A Homewood-Squirrel Hill, 94A Stanton Heights and LP Lincoln Park Flyer.

Routes with Sunday service eliminated include 1D Mt. Royal, 6A Troy Hill, 11E Fineview, 21F Presston-Kenmawr, 25A Robinson-Moon-Coraopolis, 35A South Park, 46K Beltzhoover-Knoxville-Bon Air, 56E Greenfield, 67F Trafford, 74A Homewood-Squirrel Hill, 75B Pitcairn-East McKeesport, 89A Garfield Heights, 94A Stanton Heights and LP Lincoln Park Flyer.

Port Authority continues to plan for a fare increase, its first in more than five years, to go into effect on January 1, 2008. Neither the fare structure nor the amount of the increase has yet been determined.

(Source: Port Authority of Allegheny County)

MARTA being pushed to waste money

2007-07-05T04:21:00.000-04:00

Atlanta GA - Political and business leaders are pushing for MARTA to move from their current headquarters, built in 1987, to a run down section of town in the name of development.

Many MARTA board members are on board this idea even though MARTA will stand to lose millions of dollars. "A new MARTA office tower could act as an anchor to clean up the area", said the Rev. Walter Kimbrough, MARTA's board president. He then adds, "MARTA is in a position to provide leadership to that cause". Based on what Rev. Kimbrough?

This whole plan comes on the heels of ideas to revitalize the Five Points area of Atlanta. While MARTA is struggling both operationally and financially, the idea that public transit magically spurs massive development rears its ugly head once again. The area already has a major rail transit hub which didn't save the neighborhood. I just can't grasp how MARTA wasting millions of dollars to move its headquarters to Five Points will suddenly turn things around.

Central Atlanta Progress (CAP), the Atlanta business group which is actually an activist group for Atlanta businesses, is pushing hard for this as are the local politicians. They all fail to comprehend the cost to the transit system which is having many problems. They are looking though rose colored glasses and seeing a massive revitalization if MARTA moves to Five Points. My alarms go off whenever I see the word Progress in a group's name. 99% of the time it turns out to be a left-wing group and their push for this plan told me all I need to know about CAP.

What these groups and individuals don't (and won't) tell you is that all this revitalization that they see in their vision comes at a huge price to the taxpayers. Besides the millions that MARTA will have to shell out to rehabilitate a building to move into, the other development will only occur after billions of dollars of taxpayer money are sunk into sweetheart deals for developers. Hell, they could do that now without making MARTA move but that's too easy.

This situation shows how ignorant the MARTA Board of Directors, politicians and activist groups really are. Transit everywhere is having major problems and these boneheads want to compound the problem because they have a Utopian vision of tree lined streets and a waiting list for all the people that will want to come to Five Points if they can just get MARTA to move its headquarters there.

The MARTA Board of Directors, Central Atlanta Progress as well as the various politicians supporting this unneeded plan to further compound the problems for MARTA each earn a Lance.

MARTA to review operations

2007-07-05T01:59:00.000-04:00

Atlanta GA - After 25 years, the Metropolitan Atlanta Regional Transit Authority (MARTA) has decided to do an in-depth look at their bus and rail operations. From routings to just about everything else that it takes to provide service is going to be looked at. MARTA hopes to retool its operations to meet current times starting with a $1.8 billion dollar study.

While reviewing operations is something all systems need to do, such an undertaking should have been happening all along. This situation is all too common in the transit industry and has been a major complaint of mine for decades. Every few years at least, operations should be looked at to ensure things are running smoothly. By waiting 25 years or more, as some systems have done, your talking an expensive undertaking that can result in dramatic changes rather than gradual changes.

$1.8 billion dollars isn't chump change, even in government circles. Much of what is to be studied could have easily been done cheaper in-house if it had been done on a regular and timely basis over the past 25 years. It does often take an outsider to point out the flaws in an operation however and even if studies were done every few years by a consultant, it would end up being cheaper than having to do it when the system is in crisis.

"The system's unwieldy tangle of bus routes — some still following the paths of old trolley lines — is difficult for even longtime Atlantans to grasp." A common theme among many systems that insisted on hanging onto historical routings rather than move them to meet the changing demographics of an area. This single issue alone, if corrected, could greatly increase the efficiency and effectiveness of transit service.

Then there is the other common plague of many cities, rail maintenance that has been deferred over the years due to the excessive cost, inherent in any rail operation, has come back to haunt the operation. You can call for better maintenance in the rail operations however, that money has to come from somewhere and public transit budgets are already stretched to the breaking point, MARTA included.

While MARTA should get a Lance for spending $1.8 billion dollars on a one-time study that should have been occurring on a regular basis, I'll award them a Laurel for actually waking up and realizing their transit system is in trouble, needs fixed and starting the long overdue process.

Transit Oriented Development a flop?

2007-07-03T06:10:00.000-04:00

Los Angeles CA - Transit systems and cities spend billions of taxpayer dollars on real estate development. They cite the mantra that Transit Oriented Development (TOD) will encourage transit use, allow for development of decaying neighborhoods and bring in more than is spent. That doesn't appear to be happening and finally there is something being said about it.

In Los Angeles, the LA Times did a review of Los Angeles area TOD projects over the past several months. The conclusion was that most who live in TOD projects don't use public transit for a variety of reasons. I can't locate the main story but found the LA Times blog site which has some of this information. It may be information on an upcoming story but the fact remains, most TOD residents weren't using transit.

This is something I have long known anyway so it came as no surprise to me. What did surprise me was the indication of how many shunned transit even though TOD is supposed to be designed to encourage transit use.

With many transit systems focusing more and more on TOD, entire departments are being set up to plan, design and administer such developments. This is taking money away from where it needs to be which is service. SamTrans has designed an entire TOD community at taxpayer expense while at the same time complaining it needs more money to run service.

TOD is fickle. Many TOD projects are failing, not just in attracting ridership but in the whole concept. The build it and they will come philosophy just doesn't work. Costs are much higher than standard development and generally are in higher tax districts. The residents being attracted to these developments tend to be more affluent and far less likely to ride public transit yet billions are being pumped into various TOD projects across the nation. In addition, the real estate bubble is at the point it will burst soon and prices will bottom out leaving the taxpayer holding the bag.

In many ways, TOD it is just another excuse for the politicians can pick the taxpayer's pocket. It also isn't helping public transit as money that can be and should be used for providing decent service is being diverted to real estate development.

While some of the projects have worked, many more haven't even come close to living up to the promises made. With the fact that the vast majority of TOD's are done using taxpayer money, either directly or through sweetheart deals, the taxpayers need to put a stop to the waste.

The urbanization activists that push for TOD are as bad as the pro-rail crowd for spinning the truth. Much of their banter is based on half-truths, misinformation and outright lies all spun to create yet another Utopian vision of perfection that the spendthrift politicians and government bureaucrats bite on.

I am glad to see something finally that gives the opposite viewpoint to what has become an accepted consensus. TOD isn't the Utopian vision that will bring throngs of people onto the transit system and make the area a wonderful place to live.

PAT's coach shortage is of its own making

2007-07-02T05:08:00.000-04:00

Pittsburgh PA - The Port Authority of Allegheny County (PAT) is still experiencing coach shortages, even after a 15% reduction in service, which is adversely affecting service. Often routes run late because buses are not available for the driver and they need to wait until a bus returns to the garage from another run.

Now in PAT's infinite wisdom, they are retiring many buses that run just fine. At one garage, 8 of these buses sit with orders not to run them. Even when drivers are standing around waiting for a bus so they can get their run started, those buses are officially off limits for service (although one or two may sneak out). It's much the same story at other PAT garages as well.

PAT has a long history of coach shortages. What is infuriating is that they usually are shoving running buses out the back door to be scrapped while they whine about not being able to meet service.

There have been various reasons over the years as to why PAT has had coach shortages. This time it's mostly because the newer buses are laid up with trivial problems as well as problems from advancing technologies that just aren't ready for prime time.

While PAT is crying the blues for more funding, cutting service and raising fares, they are also driving off riders by the late buses. Due to the coach shortage, it is a sin that PAT is disposing of buses that run and not allowing some to be run when they don't have enough operable buses to meet the service.

It is just one more thing that shows how out of touch PAT management is. If I ran the show, I wouldn't be disposing of operable buses when there aren't enough buses to meet service. All PAT is achieving by doing so is to further alienate the ridership and helping to keep public transit in the downward spiral in Pittsburgh.

This is not something PAT wants to be known and is rarely on the news. The information comes from various PAT employees. It is information that needs to be known by the ridership.

Short takes

2007-07-02T02:13:00.000-04:00

These are just a few stories that I have comments about but don't warrant a full article.

Norfolk VA - I'd love to know how much it actually cost to choose a name for Norfolk's proposed LRT system.

NYC NY - Mayor Bloomberg not only wants to tax people coming into the city, he's going to tax them to leave the city as well. Talk about wanting to make your city visitor unfreindly. All it will do is raise costs for everyone and won't reduce congestion one bit.

San Francisco CA - Clueless Mayor Gavin Newsom, the same one that wants to make MUNI a fare free system and won't increase funding to cover the fare loss, was beseiged at a meeting where he hoped to plug his Central Subway Plan. Instead he fielded complaints about MUNI's problems. Newsom is the last person I'd trust to solve MUNI's problems as he's been out to make more problems for them.

Washington DC - APTA's press release about how 48% of the people want to take public transit when visiting another city has more spin than an amusement park ride. Even though the poll results had environmentalism low on the list, the rest of the press release goes into the long failed marketing effort of pushing transit as the environmental choice. The vast majority of people riding transit don't give a rat's rear end about "green" choices, they just want to get where they're going.

Reforming Pennsylvania's Public Transit Systems

2007-06-29T03:59:00.000-04:00

Pittsburgh PA - In an editorial out of The Valley Independent, a rallying cry for the privatization and free market competition in the reform of public transit is once again heard. While the editorial has some valid points, it misses the mark.

The paper correctly points out what other "reformers" are doing which is throwing good money after bad while not actually solving the core problem of why public transit is in a crisis. The problem I have with the editorial is that they are too busy pointing fingers at the union and laying the whole problem on them while ignoring the administration as well as the multitude of other issues that have helped price transit out of the market.

The problem public transit faces today just isn't the union, as the paper will have you believe, it is a whole cadre of issues. Wages, benefits, mis-management, inefficient operations, rising costs outside of the control of the system, etc. While the union definitely plays a role in the wasteful practices, the waste in some of the transit administrations across the country can make a generous union contract look like Ebenezer Scrooge wrote it.

The call for privatization that the paper wants is based on information that is more or less cherry picked. Denver's private operations, for example, have more than its fair share of problems and the costs continue to climb. Rider complaints are much higher on the privatized service than on the agency run service. You won't hear any of this mentioned however. It is detrimental to the cause of privatization and Denver's problems have recently received national press so that city, once the poster child for the privatization movement, was completely ignored.

In Pittsburgh, privatized maintenance on specialized transit vehicles known as Small Transit Vehicles (STV's) resulted in massive over billing for services by the contractor, many times for services which were never performed. The same will happen with contracted service. Money that should be used for service will also end up paying lawyers to settle the multitude of disputes that will arise between the overseeing transit authority and the contractor.

I also find it funny that the editorial doesn't mention the Westmoreland County Transit Authority (WCTA) which is right next door to Pittsburgh and the same editorial staff also writes for a paper in Westmoreland County. The WCTA contracts out services to private carriers just like the editorial writer wants. The reason they don't mention this system is that the WCTA has had many problems with its contracted services. From complaints, lack of maintenance, many missed trips, disputes between the WCTA and the contractors, etc., the system isn't the Utopian model that the privatization crowd wants you to see.

Privatization isn't the answer. Public transit is incapable in today's market to succeed without subsidies and the wasteful bureaucracy that is in place now will still be there overseeing the contracted service. Even in the golden age of transit in the 40's and 50's where private operators ruled, transit operations often were in and out of receivership multiple times and some just outright folded.

The cost to provide service today is even greater. With EPA and ADA regulations that cost systems millions of dollars to comply with as well as the new burden of security, the cost of providing service is going through the roof and it doesn't matter if the service is contracted or not, it won't contain the costs.

The reform that is needed is to eliminate the wasteful internal practices, reduce and even eliminate much of the politics that have come to drive transit systems these days (i.e. politically motivated routes that haul few), get transit systems out of the real estate development market, stop building new transit projects, chain up the marketing department and stop letting them literally run the operation, and concentrate on the basics of providing service. It is possible to run efficient operations even under a government agency and PAT did just that in the 1970's with a massive route expansion that was funded through streamlining the entire operation to make it efficient.

I totally agree with the premise that changes must occur. The status quo can't be allowed to continue. I just can't justify the position of the editorial however. Trading one set of expensive problems for a new set of expensive problems isn't a good idea and won't benefit the public that depends on transit service.

O'Toole wrong on this one

2007-06-28T03:37:00.000-04:00

Victorville CA - A story out of the Victorville Daily Press tells of the difficulties of the loss of commuter bus service in the Victorville area, especially for the disabled and low income residents. It is a situation that is all too common in many areas of the country. Trips on the commuter bus that cost $9 now cost between $28 and $120 using taxi, Greyhound, Amtrak or the local paratransit service.

Enter Randall O'Toole from the Cato Institute. While I generally agree with most of what O'Toole comments regarding public transit, I believe he's wrong on his latest comments regarding issuing vouchers for transit.

O'Toole comes across as though issuing transportation vouchers will reduce government bureaucracy. "Instead of trying to pay for a service that will never turn a profit, O’Toole suggests giving them vouchers — like food stamps — rather than subsidizing a bloated bureaucratic agency" states O'Toole.

Sadly Randall, that isn't the case and you should know it. All your doing is transferring the bureaucracy from one area to another area. The taxpayer will still be shelling out for a bloated bureaucracy to monitor and run a voucher program.

O'Toole is using the free market philosophy which I support but when it comes to public transit, the free market quickly becomes government regulated which drives up the cost of providing services. The residents are already using the free market options and the cost is much greater. Add vouchers to the mix and the cost will go up more because your creating more paperwork for the private entities which will lessen the value of the government issued voucher.

Whenever I hear the word voucher, the first thought that comes to my mind is the bloated government bureaucracy needed to run the voucher program. Vouchers also will not reduce the bloated bureaucracies that are inherent in public transit systems. With the paper shuffling that will be required to run a voucher program, your going to greatly increase the cost of providing service by having to create whole new departments to handle the vouchers.

Why O'Toole thinks vouchers are the answer to reducing costs, spurring free market competition and reducing the size of government is beyond me.

While I sympathize with the plight of the residents that depended on the commuter bus service, instituting a government voucher program isn't the answer to the problem they face nor is it an answer to reducing the cost or size of the bureaucracy in a transit system. All it will do is increase the problems as well as the cost to everyone.

What is needed is what the Victorville Valley Transit Authority General Manager, Kevin Kane, suggests. Get the non-profit social service organizations involved. So far these groups have been reluctant to step up to the plate, even with the carrot of a free van to provide the service. Perhaps the VVTA needs to reduce the bureaucratic weight on such groups that provide service to make it happen or cover their operation using the VVTA insurance.

The cost for a non-profit group to provide such a service isn't cheap. Insurance costs alone can make or break such an operation. Then there are the many government regulations that add to the cost of providing service.

Whatever the reason, the non-profits won't step forward to assist and the reasons need to be made clear. Once understood, perhaps a deal can be worked out to get the idea moving.

Don't try to ride if you don't live here

2007-06-27T06:00:00.000-04:00

Apple Valley MN - A battle over parking spaces at an overcrowded park and ride lot has prompted the the City Council of Apple Valley to implement a rather odd plan. The plan is to ban anyone except Apple Valley residents from using a publicly funded Minnesota Valley Transit Authority (MVTA) park and ride lot.

Police are already licking their chops at the prospect of being able to write more tickets. A $29 ticket will be issued to anyone outside of Apple Valley that parks in the publicly funded MVTA park and ride lot.

The debate over this stems from the fact that 59% of the parkers at the park and ride lot come from outside of the Apple Valley special transit tax district. Therefore the claim is made that the residents of nearby Lakeville and Farmington don't have the right to park there.

Naturally the residents of Lakeville and Farmington, areas not served by the MVTA hence why they are not in the special tax district, claim that existing property tax and motor vehicle taxes they pay already go to helping the MVTA.

The Democratic-Farmer-Labor party (DFL) politicians, Minnesota's version of an Ultra-Liberal Democrat, tried to take advantage of the conflict to raise taxes by expanding the special transit tax district to a 7 county area. The measure was defeated primarily by the counties that have no transit service because the MVTA doesn't serve there and has no plans to in the future.

Similar situations are occurring all over the country. It's just the banning of riders that is a new twist on an old theme.

The simple premise of barring certain people over political boundaries will do nothing to encourage transit usage. To the contrary, it will force people back into their cars. Considering that the MVTA receives State and Federal funding which is paid by the Lakeville and Farmington residents, the residents are paying. Just because Apple Valley residents voluntarily voted to approve an additional tax on themselves doesn't give them the ability to ban others.

Here's a solution. If Lakeville and Farmington join in the special transit tax district, the MVTA gets off their duff and starts providing service to those areas along with a park and ride lot all their own. It is obvious that the demand is there. The main reason these communities haven't joined the tax district is that the MVTA has absolutely no plans to serve those areas.

If Apple Valley goes through with its plan, look for this to be dragged into court. In the mean time, look for Apple Valley residents and politicians to continue to complain when the banned riders are forced to another lot further up the line where they can board first. Complaints of parking will be replaced with complaints about overcrowding of the buses before they reach Apple Valley.

Apple Valley's City Council received a Lance for the attempt to ban transit riders simply due to political boundaries. The MVTA also earns a Lance for not serving areas that obviously generate quite a lot of its ridership. The MVTA could easily get the outlaying areas into its special tax district if they would only serve it as well as genuinely increasing its ridership numbers.

Streetcars give a lift but at who's expense?

2007-06-26T04:47:00.000-04:00

Tampa FL - A Wall Street Journal story that was picked up by many papers focuses on Tampa's streetcar system in an attempt to show how having a streetcar will spur massive development. It at least acknowledges that the $68 million streetcar line in Tampa as a transportation tool is a total dud.

Unfortunately, the story by Thaddeus Herrick of the WSJ barely mentions anything about how the massive development is funded. It sings the praises of using streetcars as a development tool while glossing over the fact that the taxpayer is shelling out billions of dollars to developers each year across this country. From tax breaks, grants, low interest loans that are often never repaid and other sweetheart deals, the cost to lure developers often is never recovered in tax revenue from the development.

The public is routinely spun a tale of how a rail line will spur development on its own. Sadly that isn't the case in most instances. The public pays for the development through the various sweetheart deals that the politicians create.

I would love to see the true amount that a developer is given in taxpayer money through various incentives versus the cost of the actual development for transit projects. It's a closely guarded secret it seems as I have tried to obtain this data and have been stonewalled every step of the way. I have been told off the record (but haven't been able to verify with my own eyes) that many times the tax breaks for developers on transit oriented development exceed the actual cost of development. That really doesn't surprise me given other sweetheart deals in non-transit project related development where this was in fact true.

The taxpayers need to understand that the development isn't free. They are paying for it though their taxes. While transit systems struggle, police and fire are being cut back and other other important services curtailed, a nice chunk of that money is given to the developer in one form or another. Either as a grant or loan or through having their tax burden greatly slashed or even eliminated. The taxpayer is left holding the bag either way.

Then there is the congestion argument once again:

While streetcars lack speed and mobility, proponents say the role they play in urban development makes them a worthy transportation choice. They (proponents) argue that by helping to draw development to urban areas such as downtowns, and by providing a transportation link in those areas, streetcars reduce the need for extra lanes of highways to the suburbs and limit the need for cars in and around downtowns.

Actually that isn't true. No streetcar line built in the US has reduced traffic congestion. It's had the opposite effect of causing more traffic congestion. Proponents refuse to understand that easily observable and documented fact.

The final part of the article goes into how Tampa's streetcar line is losing $1 million a year. It's attracting tourists but I must ask, does the revenue from the approximately 195,000 tourists that visit the Tampa area each year and are reported to ride the line cover the losses of running the line? Obviously the answer is no since the line is losing $1 million a year and the city has decided not to pony up more money to keep it running. If the line was such a boon to the city coffers, they'd have no problem stepping up and pouring more money into keeping the line operating.

The bottom line is that the WSJ article is just a bunch of pro-rail rhetoric designed to help generate support for getting more streetcar lines slapped into various cities. A real story would have included the cost to taxpayers for subsidizing the private developers. If the developers truly believed the streetcar was a draw for their development as Fida Sirdar, president of Key Developers Group LLC stated in the article, they wouldn't need sweetheart deals to build there.

When a cut is actually an increase

2007-06-25T22:23:00.000-04:00

Sacramento CA - In a letter to the Alameda Times-Star, Dale E. Bonner who is the Secretary of the California Business, Transportation and Housing Agency (governmental) responded to an article posted in the paper that whined about Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger's cuts to transit in the State budget.

Bonner wrote:

A RECENT ARTICLE ("Bakers Bemoan BART Budget Issue," June 20) misrepresents Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's proposed transportation budget.

First, referring to Gov. Schwarzenegger's public transportation budget as a "cut" is inaccurate and misleading. The Governor has increased funding for transit by more than 20 percent over the last year and more than 400 percent over three years ago. His budget proposal shows tremendous leadership on public transit by increasing funding for state and local transit by $321 million.

State funds account for a very small portion of transit agency funding. According to the state's non-partisan legislative analyst, state funds accounted for only 2 percent of all transit agency operating revenue statewide over the last 10 years. The remaining 98 percent comes from federal and local revenue sources and passenger fares. Attributing any change in a local transit agency's budget to the state's traditional 2 percent contribution is illogical and unwarranted.

Gov. Schwarzenegger supports transit in the state. He championed last November's Prop. 1b, which included $4 billion for public transit, intercity and commuter rail and waterborne transit operations, and has promised to continue to build infrastructure for the next generation of Californians.

I myself had been a little confused over the funding situation in California and could slap myself for not remembering one of the key political tools used these days (yes, the spin doctor was winning). An increase in funding over the previous year is considered a cut if it fails to meet the percentage level that the politicians pushing for it want. In their eyes, an increase becomes a cut in the world of political spin and the fact that it actually is an increase over the previous year is completely ignored. It's a tactic that is heavily used by politicians these days as they try to spin their way around each other and I'm ashamed I forgot about that often used little trick.

As with most transit systems across the country, California is no exception to wasteful spending. Remember the 30 page procedure to buy a cake for office parties story that was posted on Laurels and Lances on February 1, 2007. California operations are also much more cost heavy due to more stringent environmental rules which cost transit operators across the state billions of dollars in extra costs. The politics of transit is also very heavy in California which tends to make for wasteful procedures to satisfy the bureaucracy machine.

I have thought for quite awhile that what transit systems in California were doing was looking for the financial band-aid rather than trying for an efficient operation. Another Laurels and Lances column from March 8, 2007 shows the mentality of the Bay Area transit systems which were eagerly gearing up to build more transit projects while at the same time crying about not being able to afford to run what they already have.

As I am seeing this, the state increased its funding but not enough to satisfy the transit systems, local politicians and activists. My solution is to stop whining and trim the internal fat of the transit operations. Try becoming more efficient. Stop looking to build more transit projects when you can't afford to run what you have in place already. And please, stop the spin, I'm getting dizzy.

I'll say this for public transit systems these days, they're becoming worse than my local PBS station (WQED) when it comes to begging for money. I'm just waiting for them to call the riders a bunch of freeloaders like WQED called their viewership many years ago when they were shaking their tin cup a bit too hard...

HART's union unwilling to accept reality

2007-06-25T03:09:00.000-04:00

Tampa FL - The Hillsborough Area Regional Transit Authority (HART) was flying high only a few months ago. Big plans were in place to expand service and a recently negotiated 5 year union contract assured no threat to those plans. It was a win-win for everyone.

Fast forward to the present and HART is now sounding very much like most transit systems in the US, route cuts and fare hikes.

The sudden change that shot down HART's fast flying dreams was a change in the State budget. HART found itself $5.2 million short of what was needed to expand service as well as fund the new contract.

Union president Mike McCoy dismissed any idea of renegotiating the recently approved contract which gave union members a 5% yearly increase (25% increase over the course of the 5 year contract). "We expect that contract to be adhered to," McCoy said and added that the union won't go back to the bargaining table.

I'm sure Mr. McCoy will be the first to whine like a little baby when 50 of his union brothers and sisters are sitting on the unemployment line after they are laid off. Working in the best interest of the union membership? It sure doesn't sound like it to me when he's voluntarily tossing 50 of his members into the fiscal shredder and willingly taking away routes that his members would be driving otherwise.

The recently approved contract was rather generous and was based upon having the money available. I'm more than positive that the union actually wanted a double digit increase in pay each year and were forced to accept a lower amount to fit into the forecast of what HART would be getting in funding.

Unions, as well as management, often forget why they they are there in the first place. Let me remind them. They are there to serve the public with clean, reliable and convenient transit service. Unions have shown at many transit systems that they are more than willing to let the public, who are the ones that pay their wages by the way, suffer when projected income falls well below what was anticipated and the union contract becomes detrimental to the operation.

HART's union needs to rethink it's "screw you" attitude. Not only are they out to hurt the ridership with their outright refusal to even consider reopening the contract due to the sudden fiscal changes at HART but they are hurting their own membership and helping to push HART into the fiscal abyss that it may never be able to escape from. Once in the abyss, the downward spiral continues with more and more cuts and more layoffs.

Even one of the more difficult unions to deal with, ATU Division 85 in Pittsburgh, is open to contract negotiations to save their member's jobs and keep service on the streets for the public. Mr, McCoy obviously doesn't seem to give a rat's ass if the public is cut off from service or if his union brethren lose their jobs.

Mike McCoy, you've earned a Lance for not understanding the consequences of your actions. You alone have the ability to keep HART from entering the fiscal abyss that so many transit systems are in right now as well as determining if your members work or are sitting on the unemployment line.

PAT continues in the fiscal death spiral

2007-06-23T04:23:00.000-04:00

Pittsburgh PA - Port Authority of Allegheny County (PAT) on Friday approved more service cuts, layoffs as well as a yet to be determined fare hike. This will only further push PAT into the abyss from which it can't escape.

The years of living large under the former executive director, Paul Skoutelas, have caught up to PAT. Wasteful spending practices were honed to perfection under the Skoutelas reign at PAT which left little wiggle room for unexpected emergencies or cost increases which would immediately tilt the delicate balance.

The result of the wasteful practices was a 15% service cut with associated layoffs that went into effect last Sunday. Now an additional 10% of service has been approved for slashing as well as what will be a hefty fare increase.

Of course not all blame is to be laid on Skoutelas' doorstep. The State and local politicians are also to blame for not being willing to fund transit properly. It is hard to fund a wasteful organization properly however but the service shouldn't be destroyed for the people that depend on it just to cover political rear ends.

We as a nation just went through a national "Dump the Pump" promotion of public transit. What is happening in Pittsburgh is the very model of the opposite of what the promotion is all about. PAT is now at the point where it may never recover the lost ridership and what ridership remains will be finding other methods to go where they need to go.

Critics of PAT often cite duplicate service as a wasteful measure. It is true PAT operates what seem to be more duplicate routes than other systems but there is a reason. Pittsburgh has one of the most difficult service areas of any transit system in North America. The hills and valleys with roads that wander along the lay of the land make duplicate service hard to avoid. Roads in this area are designed to funnel into the Point in Downtown through a series of ever narrowing corridors. As buses head out of town, the routes break off a main trunk and head into the various communities tucked away in the geography.

Even with PAT's long overdue plan to overhaul the entire service under the "Connect '09" initiative, they will find it extremely difficult, if not impossible, not to have duplicate service in the majority of the natural geographical corridors.

PAT does need to control its spending. There is no question about this fact. PAT also needs a reliable source of funding it can depend on as well. Reliable funding is something that Pennsylvania has never allowed any public transit system in the state and it is long overdue.

The current fiscal crisis PAT faces effects every transit system in Pennsylvania but primarily the two largest operations, Pittsburgh and Philadelphia. The State Legislature is stuck in session until something is done regarding funding the transit systems.

It's much more than just wasteful spending practices that triggered this crisis. Fuel, health care, wages and other operating expenses continue to go up while more and more unfunded government mandates continue to be placed on transit systems. All of this has helped push transit nationwide on to the event horizon of a massive fiscal black hole.

Nowhere is the effect as devastating as it is in Pittsburgh. This region has many areas that appear to be very close to a major transit line, as the crow flies, but can actually be a several miles away by road and sidewalk (if the road even has a sidewalk). This issue makes it much more costly to provide service in Pittsburgh. Something needs to be done to prevent public transit from failing completely here. It will hurt the entire region if PAT is allowed to continue to implode.

I have been critical of the most of the various plans brought up to help fund transit in Pennsylvania. The plans championed by various politicians do little toward actually solving the funding problem and everything to allow the politicians to pick the pockets of the taxpayer. None of the "cures" brought up to date address the problem of the need for a dedicated and dependable source of income for public transit.

The various proposals brought up by the politicians will still require the same method of distributing the funding. This means it has to be added to the state budget and then left open to being slashed for political pet projects and other agencies and groups in the state that are screaming loudly for money.

While I know taxes will have to go up to save transit in Pennsylvania, I will not nor cannot support any tax increase until the politicians allow a truly dedicated source of funding that is distributed equitably and not subject to the political whims of the politicians and activists. The public transit systems also need to continue to clean up their act and eliminate wasteful spending practices if such a funding scheme does happen.

Public transit is important to many people as well as the economy of the region it serves. It can't be allowed to crash and burn however we taxpayers also can't allow new taxes to be placed on the books for transit just to maintain the status quo. Changes are needed before we can accept more taxes for transit. Let's face a fact, PAT isn't the model of fiscal efficiency but it is improving. Those improvements need to continue and the state needs to allow for a truly dedicated funding source that is can be depended on.

Art project rusts while costing city plenty

2007-06-22T03:58:00.000-04:00

Ventura CA - In an event that is more common than most think, yet another piece of art that adorns a transit facility is being damaged by the elements and costing the taxpayers much more money than the art is worth.

The City of Ventura built a transit center at the north end of the Pacific View Mall in 2002. This art work, which the city calls a shelter, cost $2 million. Since its installation, the structure has started to rust away. Fingers are being pointed and now is in court, wasting even more taxpayer money.

The city isn't maintaining it and trying to get the contractor to pay for restoration while the contractor insists that the city should pay for it since they didn't maintain it. The artist had final say in what paint and undercoating were to be used and he blew it. The result is a $2 million dollar rusting hulk that will take a few hundred thousand to restore, not including the money spent on the legal proceedings.

Anytime Federal funds are involved, art is mandated. If Federal money isn't involved, the local cultural community whines and complains until they can get art installed. Both scenarios are fully at taxpayer expense.

What few seem to understand is that these artsy-fartsy designs, sculptures and other permanent art work cost millions and the cost is on-going for maintenance. In some instances, the artwork takes priority over the facility itself due to the agreements over the artwork. If the piece doesn't get pristine maintenance, the artist and cultural groups begin hiring lawyers.

I have always had a problem with the rules requiring artwork, especially in transit projects. Most of what I see in these public art projects that cost millions to have is pure junk. I've seen better junk being tossed out on trash day.

Art is an acquired taste as well as one of personal taste yet the cultural community has succeeded in shoving their vision of art on everyone at the taxpayer's expense.

Transit systems are especially hit hard by having to maintain the mandated art due to the threat of expensive legal proceedings if they don't. In addition, if the art isn't maintained, it makes the facility look shabby. There is nothing wrong with a clean facility using easy to maintain materials, especially when the taxpayers are footing the bill.

Here's a solution, if the cultural community insists on art then let them pay for it as well as maintain it on their dime. It will never happen as it is just so much easier to spend your money than it is to spend their money.

The last two paragraphs in the article say it all and are sentiments expressed by the vast majority if the public in every city:

“It’s just rotting away and they paid $2 million,” Comstock said. “Somebody should be paying for the upkeep since they spent so much money on it. It doesn’t make any sense to me. I guess it’s art. They call it art. I don’t understand it.”

Sally Ramos, owner of Allison’s Country Cafe which faces “Bus Home,” echoes Comstock’s sentiments. “I think it was a waste of money. I think they should have built something practical like a structure that people could stand under when it’s raining and not get wet,” Ramos said, then added, “You look at it and just kind of wonder ‘Why?’”

PA Dems out to pick pockets for transit

2007-06-21T03:17:00.000-04:00

Harrisburg PA - Higher vehicle fees, higher emission sticker fees, higher tolls, increased fuel taxes, higher taxes on tires, titles, inspections and taxing professional sports are all on the plate with Pennsylvania's tax and spend Democrat legislators.

I have mentioned in the past on the AMCAP Transit Talk discussion board that I truly believe that the Liberal politicians are trying to price the automobile out of existence through taxes and fees and once again, my vision of the future is coming true. Pennsylvania Democrats are trying for everything except congestion pricing at this point to generate money for transit but Governor "Fast Eddie" Rendell wants to tax oil companies at the state level instead.

If these Democratic plans go through, most of the money generated won't go to transit anyway. Pennsylvania's transit funding crisis is simply a convenient excuse for the tax and spend politicians to justify picking the taxpayer's pocket once again.

It's just not in Pennsylvania that such lunacy is taking place. One example is New York City, home of the ultra-Liberal Mayor Bloomberg (who actually was a life-long Democrat who only changed parties since the Dem ticket was too full for him) wants congestion pricing and is promising lower fares if his initiative passes. Yeah right, lower fares. It's not happening in London, the showcase for congestion pricing.

Luckily, the Pennsylvania Legislature is controlled by the Republicans who are resisting raising taxes. Most of these new taxes are dead on arrival when it comes to a vote yet the Dems keep coming up with more ways to raise taxes while offering nothing toward showing any fiscal responsibility.

Trying to tax the automobile out of existence won't help public transit, period. Even if all the tax increase went toward transit, all that would happen is that the status quo would remain in place for a few more years and then we'd be right back in the same exact position we are in now.

It is also a proven fact that taxing automobile ownership doesn't work. Minnesota has such a scheme to fund transit and they are finding that as people abandon their cars for transit, the automobile generated revenues for transit are dropping rapidly, placing the systems in a financial bind. Fares just don't cover the operating expenses of public transit today.

A single dedicated funding source such as a local 1/4% or 1/2% sales tax is a far more equitable method of funding transit rather than nickel and diming every aspect of automobile ownership. Any form of funding should also come with a string attached which is that wasteful spending practices will be punished by the system not being funded.

Much of the funding crisis is the direct result of wasteful spending practices at transit systems for decades. My local system, the Port Authority of Allegheny County (PAT) mastered the technique of wasting money on everything except putting service on the street. Simply taxing the hell out of the taxpayer to pay for transit service by wasteful systems is useless as they'll continue to blow money and have their hand out for more next year.

Transit funding is a complicated issue. The two things that are clear however is that public transit does need to be adequately funded and public transit administrations and unions need to stop wasting money and refocus on the basics. It's like matter and anti-matter with the funding being obliterated by the wasteful practices at many agencies.

The answer to funding isn't to tax the car owner out of existence. It won't solve the transit funding crisis and will only serve to push even more people out of the state. The Pennsylvania Democrat's plan is a disaster in the making and decades of evidence on past political behavior show that much of the money raised will not go to what it is intended for and transit will still be left with inadequate funding.

In Kenosha's tracks?

2007-06-18T00:38:00.000-04:00

Kenosha WI / Madison WI - Madison WI Mayor David Cieslewicz and his partner in the pro-rail spin machine, Charlie Hales (streetcar consultant to Cieslewicz), are attempting to use Kenosha's streetcar system as proof that a streetcar system in Madison will work.

The article in the Madison Times had me laughing for quite some time. These 4 paragraphs are pure gold:

"It a boon to tourism," Cieslewicz said. "And tourism is one of the reasons for a streetcar here."

However, on a recent Monday, there wasn't a tourist in sight on Kenosha's downtown lakefront.

The weather was glorious. The sun was glinting off the water. The breeze was mild enough to keep the small crowd gathered at a transit transfer point comfortable in the 80-degree heat without messing up their hair.

But none of that crowd got on the streetcar. They were waiting for buses.

The article then goes into mentioning the empty streetcars that frequently run on Kenosha's tourist line. 50 riders a day is average for a weekend during tourist season. "There are fewer riders in the winter, when Brandup cuts back the hours of service so people don't see empty cars going by as often."

Cieslewicz and Hales then state that streetcars aren't about ridership. Excuse me? Not about ridership? That's one of the reasons Cieslewicz has frequently stated as to why he is trying to ram his streetcar proposal through, it will reduce the traffic congestion in Madison.

Cieslewicz wants his streetcar line for two reasons. One is that he thinks that in time, it will be a positive factor for his legacy and the second is development. Once again, no mention was made of the fact that the bulk of the development which will occur will occur on the taxpayer's dime. Grants, no-pay back loans, tax breaks and other taxpayer funded methods will be used to lure developers to build along the line. It can take 20 years or more before any real development occurs. As I have mentioned before, I'm still waiting for the promised development along the rails in my hometown.

I have to give Madison Mayor David Cieslewicz a Lance for this performance.

Forcing transit on the public

2007-06-16T04:15:00.000-04:00

Honolulu HI - The Honolulu Advertiser has a story on the recent Census Bureau study that showed commuters nationwide are not being swayed to hop on board public transit. In the story however, an ill-conceived game plan of sorts has been laid out to show how people can be convinced to abandon their cars and hop on board mass transit.

The basic plan laid out uses a two prong strategy of persuasive as well as coercive tactics. The coercive tactics spelled out in the plan are scary and are aimed at literally taxing the hell out of private autos so that owning one would become completely unaffordable to the general population.

While the Honolulu Advertiser reporter, Jerry Burris, states that to be fair mass transit must be in place first, his goal is to give a template to the pro-rail activists which they can follow to force expensive rail projects to be built.

Nowhere in the article does Mr. Burris state that Honolulu's mass transit system should improve its operations and become more efficient. Nor does Mr. Burris state that mass transit has limitations that just can't be solved. What he does state, more or less, is that the pro-rail supporters have to step it up a notch. In other words, push harder to get rail built.

The problem with Mr. Burris' template is that it just won't work. Simply building transit projects such as LRT or BRT will not get people to switch even if you tax every aspect of car ownership to the max. People will ride transit if it is convenient and takes them where they want to go without a lot of fuss. Often times, what is a 15 minute car ride translates to a 2 hour plus transit trip with multiple transfers. Try hauling a bunch of kids with a few hundred dollars of shopping on a two hour bus ride in crowded conditions. It's obvious to me that Mr. Burris never has.

Mr. Burris also fails to understand that if you get people to give up their cars and on board public transit, you also give up your revenue stream. Less cars entering the city means less in congestion taxes, parking taxes and other taxes that have been levied on the concept of private auto ownership. With reduced revenues, the translation becomes route cuts and fare hikes which then will start the downward spiral that so many transit systems are in today.

I am a transit advocate but I am also well aware that transit has problems that will never be solved. Getting from point A to point B isn't simple on transit and that fact seems lost on many transit advocates. Many transit advocates these days feel that all you have to do build just one more expensive transit project and everyone will suddenly abandon their cars. Where I live, we've had many expensive transit projects built and I'm still waiting for the massive influx of new riders.

The best that can be hoped for is to attract as many choice riders as you can through focusing on the basics of providing service. That point is also lost on the majority of the transit advocates. Your never going to get a 50% share of choice riders, yet alone the much higher percentage they seem to think they'll get even with the coercive tactics suggested in the the article.

Simply building rail lines and marketing the system isn't going to get people to switch. Even taxing the car owners to the point of abandoning their cars won't do it (most will simply move to greener pastures where their money is treated better). The reason these methods won't work is that public transit is incapable of handling the diverse number of destinations that people want and need to go in any form of a timely and efficient manner. Expensive transit projects are not the answer nor is trying to force people onto transit through the leftist tactic of taxing something they don't like into oblivion.

While I agree with Mr. Burris that attitudes toward public transit need to be changed, his suggested methods are not the way to do it. Public transit needs to fix what it has in place already and go back to the basics of providing service. They need to stop building expensive transit projects when they can't efficiently run what they have in place already. A system that has good service at a reasonable rate will attract far more riders than a system that is going bankrupt building transit projects that benefit few.

NYMTA to Disabled Community: Prove it

2007-06-14T03:49:00.000-04:00

New York City NY - In a move that the New York Metropolitan Transit Authority (NYMTA) is saying is not related to spiraling costs of paratransit service, the system is now requiring disabled customers to visit a testing center to be certified as being disabled. Doctor notes are no longer accepted.

The move is causing some outrage among many in the disabled community, not so much for the certification itself but in how the certification process is done. Many believe that the NYMTA needs to go to the assisted living facilities rather than have the residents trek down to a testing center.

This change of policy comes at a time when paratransit service nationwide is routinely abused. While the NYMTA claims the move isn't cost related, it really is as paratransit service is extremely expensive to provide and is rapidly draining operating funds.

Some of the abuse of paratransit comes from the ease of being classified as disabled. All you need is a note from your doctor and you can be permanently listed as disabled even for a temporary issue. The NYMTA is attempting to eliminate that rather large loophole.

The NYMTA does need to make a change in its policy however, customers from legitimate assisted living facilities should have the NYMTA examiners go there or certify a doctor at those facilities to make the determination. Other customers not in a registered facility should still be required to make the trek.

I do agree with the NYMTA however that such a certification is needed. The abuse of the much more costly paratransit service has gotten out of hand. I believe that if the NYMTA makes that one change to their policy, the criticism of the new plan will be greatly reduced as well as the abuses of the paratransit system in New York City.

Transit symposium brings up some good points

2007-06-12T06:04:00.000-04:00

NYC NY - An article in The Journal News reports on a transportation symposium that was sponsored by the Tri-State Transportation Campaign. The symposium focused on bus rapid transit (BRT) rather than on light rail transit (LRT) and brought up some important points.

I read the article a few times but on the first pass the item that jumped out at me was the first sentence which read, "Bus rapid transit, if planned and built so that it is more than just a cheap version of light rail, could help ease congestion through the Tappan Zee Bridge/Interstate-287 corridor, several experts said at a symposium sponsored by The Tri-State Transportation Campaign".

I couldn't agree more about the concept of not making BRT a cheap version of an LRT line. BRT has the ability of being one of the most flexible modes of transportation available which is obtainable at a fraction of the cost of most other modes of public transport. To turn it into a cheap version of an LRT line severely limits the ability of the buses.

Busways such as those used in Pittsburgh Pennsylvania, for example, are a prime example of how BRT can be flexible. Pittsburgh's busways are designed for the same buses that provide service elsewhere in the service area and don't require specialized equipment. On the opposite extreme is the BRT operation in Eugene Oregon which has limited itself to being an LRT wanna-be with specialized equipment.

Another point brought up is that BRT as an image problem. I agree again. Much of the negative image of BRT is thanks to the pro-rail crowd. By broadly painting bus transportation with terms such as "dirty", "low-class" and other negative connotations, the pro-rail activists have convinced many in the general public that rail is the answer and to ride a bus is slumming it.

What I find amusing are these two paragraphs:

But to build a bus rapid transit system that will attract riders by choice, Alan Hoffman, a principal with the Mission Group, a San Diego planning firm, said buses must get people where they want to go, do it quickly, frequently and with less than a 10-minute wait, and make them feel good about using it - all at once. Without all these elements, BRT is just another dreaded bus.

"We don't want to feel like losers," Hoffman said, adding that "often the experience of transit is a humbling experience."

Why is it that people will wait a half hour for an LRV and feel like winners but if they have to wait 11 minutes for a bus that they feel like losers? Much is the successful stereotyping that the pro-rail crowd as fed to the public.

Don't forget that in the 50's and 60's when rail was rapidly being replaced by buses, the opposite was true. The majority of people complained about having to ride the slow and ancient streetcars and wanted them replaced by buses. They felt like losers when they had to ride a slow streetcar but like winners when they could ride a bus that could bypass many of the problems that slowed the streetcars down.

This point was brought up to me by a friend who sent me the article and he is totally correct. It was completely a mirror image of today in terms of public perception. The only thing that has changed over the years is the flip-flop in the perception of buses and rail vehicles. We'll have another perception flip-flop with the same cities that clamored to get rid of rail in the 50's and 60's and are now clamoring to hop on the rail bandwagon today will be trying to get rid of rail once again in 40 or so years.

Pittsburgh's routes may be changing

2007-06-09T01:29:00.000-04:00

Pittsburgh PA - The Port Authority of Allegheny County (PAT) announced yesterday an initiative called "Connect '09" which may bring some sweeping changes to how transit is provided in the Pittsburgh area.

Starting with the introduction of smart card fare collection technology, the Connect '09 initiative is ultimately aimed at overhauling how the entire transit system is structured. Data collected from smart card usage will give PAT a better idea of its customer's riding habits claims PAT Chief Executive, Steve Bland.

One thing that is funny is that many of the things that Bland states have been being said for decades and totally ignored by PAT. Suddenly PAT discovers what needs to be done and acts as though it has never been thought of before. Wrong Steve, much of this has been said from long before PAT even took control of Pittsburgh's public transit system. I know personally that I've been waving the banner claiming PAT needed to look at transit in a new way for decades.

The Connect '09 plan also can be used to integrate the surrounding counties into a single transit system with either a direct agency or as an umbrella agency. That fact was heavily downplayed at the press conference by PennDOT Secretary, Allen Biehler as well as Mr. Bland.

Now before any catcalls about how PAT can afford this, it is being paid for through a Federal grant and has no effect on the service cuts. The cuts would happen with or without this program. One side note however is that the grant only pays for this to be used on the buses and PAT will have to come up with other forms of funding to pay for the implementation of the smart card technology on the rail vehicles.

While Steve Bland has earned himself and PAT a few Lances since his arrival, I must give him a Laurel for finally acknowledging that PAT needs to overhaul its route structure. It took long enough for someone in a position to do something to actually shed light on what us common folk have been pointing out for decades now.

Seattle group forms to fight LRT

2007-06-08T03:22:00.000-04:00

Seattle WA - A new advocacy group has formed to oppose Sound Transit's rail expansion plans. Called the Washington Traffic Institute (WTI), the group calls into question the claims made by Sound Transit and other pro-rail advocacy groups as to cost as well as reducing traffic congestion.

I was actually surprised to read about the group in an article in the Seattle Times. Usually these types of groups that go against the "popular flow" get little media coverage.

The WTI was formed to fight the $37 billion Roads and Transit measure that is set for the fall ballot. Sound Transit needs this measure passed to expand its rail transit network.

Although the WTI website is a little spartan currently, it does put up some numbers that show how the costs are skyrocketing and that the costs don't justify the projected ridership numbers. It was a welcome site to me in a world of pro-rail spin which ignores such things.

One of the prime reasons stated by Sound Transit for pushing for the expanded rail transit network is that it will reduce traffic congestion. That is a total fallacy. There is not one study of any LRT line in North America which can show a direct correlation between a rail line and reduced traffic congestion. On the contrary, most studies show even more traffic congestion once a rail line is opened.

That fact is downplayed and often outright ignored by the "damn the costs, full speed ahead" pro-rail crowd in their rush to slap rail lines in as many places as they can. There needs to be more groups like the WTI which want a serious approach to improving the transportation in a city. Rail isn't the answer in the vast majority of the cases yet it is sold as the Saviour of city by the pro-rail crowd.

Rail has become the new way to pick the taxpayer's pockets. As I have often stated in numerous Laurels & Lances articles, rail isn't being used for transportation these days as much as it is being used for political and personal legacy reasons as well as trying to steer development to where the political leaders want it to go.

If cities really want to reduce traffic congestion, they'll fix what they have in place already. Adding more while leaving an existing under performing operation in tact does nothing except create a fiscal black hole that sucks down taxpayer money.

Let's face a simple fact. You are never going to get rid of the private automobile. The best you can hope for is to make transit attractive to the car owners and hope to get some of them to switch. To do that, public transit needs to first go back to the basics of providing service. Bells and whistles such as new rail lines just don't cut it in the long term if the basics of providing service aren't in place or need improvements.

Rail has its place. That is something I don't argue with. Where I have the problem is that rail is being sold to the public as the greatest invention since flush toilets, complete with a long list of dubious claims of positives while the negatives are ignored.

Rail isn't the answer in every situation. In most cases, simple service adjustments on the existing bus system will do far more, and at a much cheaper price, than slapping a rail line down for the sake of having a rail line.

Chastain pounds the rail drums

2007-06-05T01:26:00.000-04:00

Kansas City MO - Pro-rail advocate, Clay Chastain, is pounding the drums again to get his rail plan in place in Kansas City. For some strange reason, Chastain seems oblivious to the fact that Kansas City can't just jump ahead of the waiting list for Federal money to build his precious rail line.

Chastain, a Bedford Virginia resident, seems intent on trying to saddle Kansas City Missouri residents with a light rail plan that the city just can't afford. He loves to claim the voters overwhelmingly want his plan when, based on numerous articles and letters to the editor by residents, that really isn't the case.

The truth of the matter is that many Kansas City voters were simply confused, overwhelmed and completely uninformed of what they were voting for. Of the various comments I've seen in KC newspapers and radio/TV sites as well as comments sent to me, many people thought they were voting for KC to look into a rail plan for the future. They were largely unaware that what they were voting for was to implement Chastain's personal legacy rail line immediately.

That really is the voter's fault and they deserve what they get however, the ballot question was reported to also be rather confusing and misleading. That doesn't really surprise me but the voters still should have informed themselves and it was easy to do with all the coverage on the rail proposal.

Chastain's comments in the linked article also give me further proof that this is all about his personal legacy rather than the good of the city. Of the item's listed, "My light rail plan" comes above anything else. He really wants his name on a brass plaque along the line for posterity.

While Chastain does mention that there needs to be a bus funding plan, it falls much further down on his list. Even with his proposed eighth-cent sales tax to cover bus operations, that money will be siphoned off to pay to operate his rail line, complete with gondola ride which in other news stories he insists must be included or he'll sue the city.

Chastain refuses to look at the whole picture. He's so desperate to get his rail plan built that he really doesn't care if he turns the city into a ghost town. Federal money will not be coming to build it as the Feds have already made clear that KC can't jump to the head of the funding line. I doubt the State will rush to pay for it. That means KC residents will have to pick up the entire tab for Chastain's Folly one way or another. By building it or paying to cover the city costs to defend against Chastain's threatened law suits to force the line to be built. Just imagine the sky high taxes and the rush to move to greener pastures where taxes are lower.

Clay, here's a Lance for your "Damn the costs when my legacy is at stake" attitude. You've earned it.

North America could learn from Brazil

2007-06-02T01:51:00.000-04:00

São Paulo Brazil - The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc., better known as the IEEE had a very interesting article in the IEEE Spectrum magazine regarding the transit operation in São Paulo Brazil. Suffice to say, São Paulo operates one of the most complex bus operations in the world and rather successfully I might add.

While the pro-rail crowd in North America still often points to Europe to show the success of rail operations, São Paulo has quietly turned the bus into something even more successful.

"People won't ride smelly buses" and "Rail attracts the riders" are just a few of the comments made by the pro-rail crowd however, they become silent when São Paulo is brought up. Why? Perhaps it is because São Paulo has turned Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) into a low tech as well as low cost art form that works extremely well in a city of over 18 million people.

While there are problems with the São Paulo BRT operation, it really is no different than what one can easily experience in the US and Canada. It doesn't matter if we're talking bus or rail, the problems are the same and can even be found in Europe. Outmoded equipment, facilities that need expanded and/or improved, better speed to move riders, etc. effect every mode of transit. The big difference is the cost, both short term and long term.

While São Paulo does have rail operations as well, which are larger than the dedicated BRT operation, it's the buses that do the vast bulk of the passenger hauling. Plans are in the works to expand both bus and rail in the city with emphasis being placed on the less costly bus operation.

The BRT operations in the US and Canada are a joke compared to what is in place in São Paulo. Here, everyone and their uncle are trying to hop on the rail bandwagon which drains money out of bus operations when all is said and done. BRT is often times the last resort when a city can't even meet the relatively easy Federal standards to get a rail line. São Paulo views BRT completely different and that attitude is paying off.

Granted that São Paulo and North American cities are totally different in terms of transit usage, the fact remains that bus operations are not overlooked in São Paulo and are treated as an important part of the cities transportation infrastructure.

A few quick facts on São Paulo's operation.

Population: 18.3 million
Number of buses: 26,391
Daily bus passengers: 10.5 million
Bus: 1,908 routes & 34 transfer stations
BRT length: 146.5 km
Rail length: 270 km
Subway length : 60 km

It seems the common folk have the right idea

2007-05-29T02:10:00.000-04:00

Montreal PQ - In a letter to the editor in the Montreal Gazette, Dolly Tiger of Montreal states rather well that rather than spending billions of dollars on a new transit plan for Montreal, they should spend that money to fix what they have in place already.

It's a sentiment I have long held when dealing with anything political, especially public transit. Politicians and activist groups are hot to trot to spend money to roll out new and expensive toys while ignoring the infrastructure already in place. This is perhaps one of the main reasons public transit is falling apart today.

Just imagine how popular public transit could become if the transit agencies and politicians would invest in fixing what is already in place rather than building more things that puts further strain on an already strained system. The Port Authority of Allegheny County in Pittsburgh did just that in the early 1970's with very successful results. Over time it failed as they fell into the trap of ignoring what was in place and began focusing on expensive new toys and wasteful spending habits.

Having politicians and transit system administrations actually embrace fixing what is already in place most likely won't happen very often in our times. They can't get the face time in front of the media for ensuring proper funding is there to fix and improve the existing infrastructure. Because of the political treatment of transit, which is geared for new things rather than maintaining what's in place, it's easy to get government money for new transit projects but rather difficult to get money to actually run and maintain what is in place already.

While there are some flaws in Dolly Tiger's idea such as 20 minute service on every route, she is headed in the right direction. Fix what you have first before adding more. I often see letters like Dolly's and it makes me question why those in charge are so dense when the general public gets it.

Is Toledo next on the LRT bandwagon?

2007-05-28T03:59:00.000-04:00

Toledo OH - Planners are envisioning light rail for the Toledo Ohio area even though the Toledo Area Regional Transit Authority (TARTA) is in a funding crisis and has a lackluster transit operation.

This desire for rail has spurred a long article in the Toledo Blade touting the benefits of rail as well as an article in the same paper that dredges up the National City Lines (NCL) conspiracy once again even though it had little to nothing to do with Toledo eliminating their streetcars back in the 1940's.

The NCL conspiracy is another trick used to generate support for rail operations and is usually greatly exaggerated. An interesting and well documented article on the NCL conspiracy was written by Cliff Slater for the Transportation Quarterly back in 1997 (HTML or PDF available) and dispels many of the conspiracy theories. Naturally Slater's article has been condemned by the pro-rail crowd because it sheds light on the myth they love and disproves many things they have come to believe.

In Toledo's case, the rail operations were eliminated because the Community Traction Company (CTC) couldn't afford to run the aging and ever increasing costly streetcar lines and local political pressure was heavy on the company to get rid of the streetcars so they could pave over the tracks. NCL had nothing to do with the CTC's decision to dump the streetcars yet what does the pro-rail Toledo Blade bring up to generate public support for the light rail proposal?

Toledo is just another city that wants to jump on the rail bandwagon when it can't afford what it has already. I was surprised that they weren't trying to push it for development although it was brought up. The proposal was discussed more in terms of actually moving people. That's a rarity these days as using rail for actual transportation is down the list behind development and political legacy reasons.

In addition, the manner in which TARTA is funded is unstable. Ohio transit systems rely heavily on voter approved tax levees to fund their operation. Some systems have come and gone based on voters rejecting a levy. Also, TARTA has issues with communities wanting the ability to pull out of the system with little advanced notice. This situation places TARTA's funding on an even more unsecured footing.

To add an expensive rail operation that will not serve all the outlaying communities will spell major problems for TARTA. As costs go up to operate a rail line, communities that don't benefit from the rail line will balk about having to pay for it. Levy rejections and pull outs from the TARTA system will likely happen which will leave TARTA struggling even more to find the money to operate.

TARTA General Manager James Gee acknowledged the all important point which is how would TARTA pay to run a light rail line. Most systems ignore this point but Gee seems to be looking more at the whole picture rather than putting on a pair of rose colored glasses.

Toledo would be better off starting with a Bus Rapid Transit operation similar to Lane Transit's EmX operation in Eugene Oregon to establish a corridor and build up ridership. While Toledo's ridership has increased, it is still not very strong and isn't even remotely close to being able to justify a light rail line, even with falsified ridership projections.

NJ Transit employee newsletter is costly

2007-05-28T02:52:00.000-04:00

Newark NJ - The Cherry Hill Courier Post had an interesting article about the NJ Transit employee newsletter and the costs involved to produce and distribute it. While the article was clearly biased against the costs involved with the newsletter due to the upcoming fare increases, the article provided a good look into one of the rarely considered costs that are helping to drive up the price of public transit.

The cost to produce and distribute the "En Route" employee newsletter is over $400,000 a year. While hardly a large amount considering that $400,000 is a drop in the bucket to the overall total budget, it is something that should be looked at.

I've seen many of these employee newsletters from various transit systems across the United States and only an issue or two is worth the cost of producing. Most are simply a waste of time, resources and money. Most employee newsletters from transit systems that I have seen are on the more expensive glossy paper, multi-color printing and multi-paged.

Most of what is included in these employee newsletters are management spin on issues effecting the system and many fluff pieces to fill up the newsletter. I have seen a few employee newsletters that literally were little more than free political advertising that was paid for out of the operating funds needed to run the system.

The cost of the "En Route" newsletter is rather high in my opinion. Many places can kick out a quality newsletter for less than a quarter of the $400,000 plus that NJ Transit pays to produce their employee newsletter. They're usually a little more informative as well.

NJ Transit seriously needs to look into trimming costs in this area as do all transit systems that issue employee newsletters. With the cost to provide service continuing to rise, every penny counts and these employee newsletters do nothing to keep service on the streets.

Rendell pushes for his windfall profit tax

2007-05-27T15:11:00.000-04:00

Philadelphia PA - Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell pushed hard for his proposed 6.17% windfall oil profits tax at the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority (SEPTA) board meeting. Claiming his tax will save SEPTA, Rendell urged the SEPTA Board to lobby State Legislators to pass his tax.

Rendell projects that his tax will generate $720 million each year from any profits by oil companies that operate or sell within Pennsylvania's borders.

What this tax will do is be the catalyst for skyrocketing fuel prices and fuel shortages across the state. This will adversely effect public transit and keep them in the same exact situation they are in now while the citizens of the state have to pick up the tab through higher costs for everything.

The cost of the tax will be passed onto the consumer through higher fuel prices. In addition to costing even more to fuel a private auto, public transit as well as trucking and rail companies will be hit hard. This will force transportation costs to rise and that will be passed off to the consumer through higher prices from food, clothing, electronics and everything else the public takes for granted.

Also, given the long term history of tax money being funneled off for other things, much of this "windfall" won't end up in the public transit coffers but into political pet projects and other governmental agencies that will be screaming for their fair share of the pot of gold.

Fast Eddie's proposal is not sound. Even the spendthrift State Legislature and people from Rendell's own party see this. If rammed through, all Pennsylvanians will feel the sting from it and public transit will not be saved.

Let's face the facts here. Oil companies will pass on the costs and if the tax proves too expensive to operate in the state, they'll pull out. Shortages will then occur that will spur even higher prices due to the shortages.

This tax isn't just on "Big Oil" either but the entire oil structure within the state border. From the small wells to the retail outlets and everything in between, all will be taxed under Rendell's windfall profit proposal. Small mom & pop operations all the way up to BP will be effected and nobody will be spared.

This is just another "feel good" law that plays off the public outrage over higher prices. Punishing "Big Oil" for being greedy is a big business these days in Liberal circles and is based not off of facts but feelings. These knee jerk reactions will only serve to further destroy this state.

To quote my favorite radio host, Jim Quinn and Quinn's first law: "Liberalism always generates the exact opposite of its stated intent." Fast Eddie's windfall profit tax is a perfect example of this.

Political Perks - Busway permits

2007-05-26T05:20:00.000-04:00

Pittsburgh PA - A story in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette tells of an unwritten policy that gives selected politicians and government agencies permits to drive on the Port Authority's 3 busways.

The story was brought to light when Post-Gazette transportation writer Joe "Softball" Grata apparently found out that former PAT Executive Director and former Allegheny County Chief Executive Jim Roddey (R) had such a permit.

This story does bring up an important issue regarding the use of the busways. The issue is that the busways should be for buses and not for politicians and selected government agencies. The method in which PAT hands out and regulates the busway permits is ripe for abuse since there are no official regulations regarding the permits.

When built, the busways were supposed to be used for transit vehicles as well as the PAT non-revenue support vehicles. Emergency vehicles such as fire, police and ambulances responding to emergencies could also use the busway. Permits initially were issued for out of county operators to utilize the busways.

Over time, the permits began to be handed out selectively to politicians and government agencies to utilize the busways. Given the list provided in the article, the vast majority of the 73 permits should not have been issued. Most appear to be political in nature.

As there is no clear policy on who is eligible, all permits should be revoked in my opinion. Not one of the permits issued is vital for emergencies and marked vehicles responding to an emergency are already allowed to use the busway without a permit. The one rule in place is that the permit is for official business only but we all know how that goes in politics. Everything is official to them, from going to a meeting to wanting to get home after a day at work.

Roddey's permit should have been revoked when he left. There is no question about it but given PAT's reluctance to state the other individuals who hold and use the permits, it smacks of an abuse of the permits that PAT doesn't want to acknowledge.

Granted, 73 permits is a rather small number but it is still 73 people that have been given preferential treatment on the taxpayer's dime by a public agency. The politicians can sit in traffic like everyone else or hop on the bus if they want to be on the busways.

A few of the permits issued do raise flags. Why are there 4 permits for the Monroeville Police Department? What makes them so special that they need permits for unmarked cars when the East Busway isn't even in their jurisdiction? What about the other police departments that also have to have officers go into the city on business but have to sit in traffic?

Then there are the 3 PAT board members that have special permits. Why just those three?

How about the permit issued to the Federal Reserve in Pittsburgh? I'm more than sure that permit isn't for the armored truck carrying money but for one of the top management of the FRB.

PAT needs to come up with a clear policy on who gets issued permits and then keep tabs on those permits. The current method is selective and easily abused and amounts more to political pandering rather than an actual true need.

Personally I believe no special permits should be granted to any politician or agency. The only permits that should be issued should be to other transit systems for their buses. Marked emergency vehicles going to an emergency should continue to be exempted as well.

The busways are designed for bus transportation, not as a private highway for select politicians and agencies just so they don't have to sit in traffic. There is nothing that important that the select few should be granted special privileges that the rest of the public would be immediately ticketed for.

Detroit City Council narrowly approves placing deputies on buses

2007-05-25T13:12:00.000-04:00

Detroit MI - In a narrow 5 to 4 margin, Detroit City Council voted Thursday to approve the expenditure for placing Wayne County Sheriff Deputies on board the city buses.

As I predicted the other day, there were plenty of council members that voted against this. I have not found any news story as of yet which tells why 4 of the council members voted against this measure. I can make an educated guess however and that is that these council members were afraid that it would pull money from the pet projects they have in motion in their voting districts.

This is not a political issue yet the Detroit City Council has made it one. The issue at hand is and always has been the safety of the drivers and ridership, in other words, their constituents. The claim of needing clarification on liability issues does not take that long to resolve and this was simply foot dragging by the City Council.

For the record, the Detroit City Council Members that voted against putting the safety of the drivers and transit riders above politics in Thursday's vote were JoAnn Watson, Alberta Tinsley-Talabi, Brenda Jones and Shelia Cockrel.

PAT shows its true colors

2007-05-24T05:35:00.000-04:00

Pittsburgh PA - The head of the Port Authority of Allegheny County (PAT) showed the total disregard for the ridership PAT has when he made a comment in the PAT's finance committee meeting.

"Right now, if I lived in Troy Hill, I'd be buying a pair of good walking shoes," quipped PAT's CEO, Steve Bland.

Troy Hill residents are outraged over the comment as well they should be. The comment takes a slap at the residents complaints over PAT's route cut plan that left the heavily transit dependent Pittsburgh community virtually isolated from service.

Bland's comments also show the total disregard that PAT management has for providing transit service. PAT management has always had somewhat of an attitude that came off as uncaring but over the past 10 years, this attitude has gone from one of indifference to outright contempt for the ridership.

It reminds me of comedian Lily Tomlin's Ernestine character which lampooned the telephone company arrogance of the time. "We don't have to care, we're the Port Authority *snort*" could easily come from Ernestine's lips these days.

Dan Onorato, the transit loving Democrat and Allegheny County Chief Executive who pushed hard for the cuts and wants to get out of paying the County share of financing for PAT, demands Bland apologize for the Troy Hill comment. While Bland should apologize for the comment, the hypocritical Onorato should apologize as well for demanding the residents of Troy Hill be isolated by insisting on the original hack and slash route cut plan.

Steve Bland, you've earned a Lance but you do show that you fit right into PAT's management structure. The complete arrogance of the comment as well as the total lack of understanding of how the route cuts will effect communities completes your assimilation into the PAT culture.

Detroit operators walk out

2007-05-23T13:41:00.000-04:00

Detroit MI - In response to Detroit City Council's foot dragging on the issue of placing sheriff deputies on the buses, Detroit's bus drivers walked out Wednesday. This move has been long in coming as the violence issue on Detroit's buses has been increasing for years yet the city has been reluctant to address the situation.

I have seen walk outs for ridiculous issues over the years at various transit systems but this is a serious issue and one that I do support the transit union on. City Council's lack of action for well over a year (a story I located in an archive search indicated the problem went back much further than that) spurred this move and perhaps it will motivate them to address the issue.

Then again, perhaps not. The procrastinating City Council immediately got on it's high horse and talked of intimidation by the union. "There is a way to lobby" stated Detroit Councilwoman Barbara-Rose Collins. Well Ms. Collins, they did lobby for well over a year and the City Council wouldn't listen.

A temporary fix went in to get the drivers back starting on Thursday. The fix is a one time deployment of the sheriff's deputies for 24 hours to "give Council the time to discuss the matter". There is no guarantee that the City Council will vote in favor of permanently placing deputies on the buses and I feel safe in saying that if there is actually a vote tomorrow on the issue, there will be plenty of council members that will want more time to drag their heels so they don't have to address the problem.

The drivers did what they had to do in this situation. The number of driver and passenger assaults is continuing to rise yet the politicians want to stall. Why? Most likely because the money used to pay for security will have to come from their pet projects and bus security won't generate the face time that pet community projects will.

Is PAT really trying to save money?

2007-05-23T04:12:00.000-04:00

Pittsburgh PA - In yet another desperate bid to stay in it's new expensive downtown digs, Port Authority of Allegheny County (PAT) officials have latched onto a new idea of leasing out it's old Manchester headquarters to State agencies displaced by the closing of the State office building in Downtown.

PAT officials whine that the old Manchester building, built in 1973, needs rehabilitated and asbestos removed before they could even think about moving back yet they have no qualms about sticking others into that environment.

Then PAT announced officially the end to metallic paints and excessive amounts of decals being slapped all over the buses to save a few bucks. This still won't end the rainbow fleet nor the inventory expenses of having multiple colors of paint stocked.

The cost provided to repaint a bus now compared to the original stripe livery is based strictly on direct labor and parts cost. It ignores the indirect costs of inventory, additional labor and their oh so precious image.

If PAT were truly serious about cutting costs they would move back to Manchester. If it's good enough, as is, for other people then it's good enough for their them. Also PAT would adopt 1 single paint color with minimal embellishment as the standard livery rather than being determined to keep a rainbow of colors stocked for repainting. A single color livery would save more than they think they are saving with the non-metallic rainbow fleet.

Granted this is nickel and dime nitpicking but all the same, PAT needs to clean up its act before it turns to cutting service and raising fares. PAT has decades of finding new ways to waste money built into its thinking. Nickel and dime issues do add up and PAT officials need to address them rather than trying to justify the them because they don't want to change their ways.

The Port Authority of Allegheny County officials earn themselves yet another Lance for trying to spin their way out of doing everything they can to save money beside cutting service and raising fares.

Bill Millar "softballed"...

2007-05-21T03:26:00.000-04:00

Pittsburgh PA - Bill Millar, president of the transit industry lobby group known as the American Public Transit Association (APTA) came back to Pittsburgh recently. He had some pearls of wisdom for the area concerning the Pennsylvania transit funding crisis. As the Port Authority of Allegheny County's (PAT) former Executive Director for 13 years, he does have a unique view of the problems facing PAT. Some of his thoughts I agree with, others he's way off base on.

Millar's stance is pretty much "mo' money, mo' money and even mo' money" is needed. Not once in the interview with Pittsburgh Post Gazette transportation writer, Joe "Softball" Grata did he say that public transit needs to run efficiently and watch its expenditures. Given APTA's leanings toward wanting to saddle cash strapped transit systems with expensive transit projects, this doesn't surprise me at all.

One must remember, many of the problems PAT faces today in terms of wasteful spending were set up during Millar's tenure as Executive Director. A later Executive Director at PAT took the wasteful spending practices to a whole new level and made Millar look like a penny pincher.

In a typical comment to try and pin the funding crisis on Republicans, Millar took a swipe at former Pennsylvania State Governor Tom Ridge (R) for not constantly giving transit systems more money on demand when Ridge was Governor between 1995 and 2001. He made the claim that the Ridge administration refused to come to the rescue of PAT and other Pennsylvania transit systems during those years and that is a false statement. As was the case when a Democrat was in the Governor's office, additional state aid did come after the decades old annual ritual of threatening the public with fare hikes and route cuts.

Millar is correct in that the State Legislature and Governors over the years have not placed a priority on a proper funding mechanism for public transit in Pennsylvania. It's just not the Republicans that didn't act however, the Democrats also stalled on this. The transit funding crisis has been effecting public transit in Pennsylvania since the early 1970's and was nothing new when Millar first sat in the PAT Executive Director chair in 1984.

Millar then went on about the "success stories" in several cities. I almost fell off the chair laughing. Many systems he mentioned are having major problems and a few examples are below:

Denver has built itself into a fiscal black hole through transit projects it can't afford.
Salt Lake City is facing major route cuts and fare hikes as well as attempts to dissolve the transit system.
Atlanta is having major funding issues while looking for new ways to spend money.

Then he went on about Smart Growth. For those unfamiliar, Smart Growth is designed to incorporate public transit into development plans. It sounds good but it's loaded with expensive problems which is why Liberal Democrats love it, it wastes tax money. In reality, Smart Growth policies cost taxpayers billions of dollars each year through things like sweetheart deals that use public money to benefit private developers. It's basically the modern day version of the expensive 1960's Urban Renewal fiasco that destroyed more areas than it ultimately helped.

"I'm shocked to see that Allegheny County is not putting any more money into the Port Authority today than it did 10 years ago. Local folks are major beneficiaries of the service, so it's not unreasonable for the county to support it" states Millar.

There is no mention of the fact that Allegheny County government is controlled by transit loving Democrats and the current transit loving Democrat in charge, Dan Onorato, is trying to get out of financially supporting PAT completely. Mr. Millar and "Softball" Grata are fully aware of this yet no mention of it. I must question why there was no mention of this little tidbit of important information.

"The issues were very much the same then (1984) as they are today," Millar recalled. The issues were very much the same in 1973 as well, Bill. The problem isn't Republicans as you and Joe attempt to make it out to be. The problem is with the politicians in general, regardless of party. No politician really wants to deal with the problem as it will take money away from their pet projects. Sure the Dems talk a good talk about wanting to support public transit in Pennsylvania but when push comes to shove and that support threatens their pet project money, they scatter like cockroaches when the lights come on.

I will give Bill Millar credit for this though, he did ride the bus when he was Executive Director of PAT. That act alone brought about a big change in the PAT 17B route which always had the oldest and most dilapidated buses assigned to it until he was placed in charge. Suddenly the 17B received the new buses that were actually clean since he rode the route. The old and dilapidated buses were then scattered around the other routes.

APTA needs to concentrate more on getting transit systems to run more efficiently. Instead, under Millar, APTA is pushing for more wasteful spending through unneeded transit projects and Smart Growth projects. In all the years Millar has been in charge I have yet to hear APTA mention that in order for public transit to succeed, it must run efficiently and focus on the basics. I did hear those words out of APTA prior to Millar but once he became head of the group, the whole focus became on helping transit systems find new ways to waste money.

NYMTA's new approach is congestion

2007-05-19T04:07:00.000-04:00

New York City NY - The New York Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA) is adopting an old concept for trying to improve public transit service. The Villager reports on the MTA's use of bus "bulbs" to facilitate the flow of bus traffic in the city.

In theory, bus "bulbs" should allow for a faster flow for buses by allowing them to pick up and discharge passengers without having to get out of the traffic flow. In reality, bus "bulbs" tend to create more traffic congestion without really speeding up the service.

The reality is what is happening along Broadway in the Big Apple. The bus "bulbs" are also generating many complaints from residents and businesses in the area. The only ones who seem to like them are the MTA brass, city officials and mass transit advocacy groups who claim the bus "bulbs" reclaim the street from cars and gives it to the buses and pedestrians.

Like many things related to public transit, bus "bulbs" have their place but often are not properly utilized. "Bulbs" technically narrow a street and space that was once used by trucks unloading at businesses will move to the street from the curb when that is all that is available.

Pittsburgh has one as well from the time when South Hills routes still used Oliver Avenue. After placing the bus "bulb" in, the buses faced a much harder right hand turn as well as more problems with vehicles in a legal loading zone because of the narrowing of the street.

Bus "bulbs" do work well in residential areas with lower volumes of traffic but transit planners love to place them in already congested areas rather than where they would work best. The idea is to keep the bus in the traffic flow to speed the ride but as I mentioned, the reality is that is just makes a congested area even more congested which ultimately slows the service down as buses behind are slowed down as well. When all is said and done, everything is slowed down by the incorrect usage of what should be a valuable transit tool.

Study shows how SEPTA effects the surrounding economy

2007-05-18T01:15:00.000-04:00

Philadelphia PA - A report on the phillyburbs.com site tells of a study done by The Economy League which seeks to show how massive service cuts by SEPTA will effect the economy and traffic in the greater Philadelphia area. While I am somewhat dubious of the "worst case" scenario painted by the study and news report, it does show how transit is intertwined with the regional economy.

The real effect will be on jobs. Without an effective transit system, major employers will not come into the area. Also, some existing employers will pull out due to not being able to get people into work.

Traffic will increase, property values will drop and SEPTA will go into a death spiral of increased fares, lower ridership and less service in addition to the effect on jobs.

Too often, the general public and the politicians fail to understand the important link of public transit on the area economy until it's too late. Even employers are often dense when it comes to the link.

Transit is important to the regional economy and needs to be funded properly. Cutting service because politicians won't allow it to be funded properly effects much more than a small segment of the population that is dependent on the system.

As the Economy League study shows, public transit effects many more things than most people believe. Public transit is perhaps one of the top 5 items to effect the regional economy. It is tightly interwoven into the economy and to decimate the a transit system due to improper funding will only result in cutting ones own throat. In Pennsylvania's case, the politicians are cutting their own throat by ignoring the transit funding crisis. When companies pull out of the cities and even the state for greener pastures, the politicians will be left with failing cities that will hurt the state in the long term.

While the importance of public transit does not give a green light to wasteful spending by transit systems, *cough* PAT *cough*, transit systems need to be properly funded with a reliable source of revenue. Without proper funding, the doomsday scenarios presented by this study and various transit systems will happen.

Houston forced to switch LRT plans to BRT

2007-05-15T01:03:00.000-04:00

Houston TX - Due to over-zealousness in trying to get rail, the Houston Metro is being forced to go with Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) over the much more expensive Light Rail Transit (LRT) system it had planned on. The KPRC-TV2 website reports on the change.

The primary reason is something I have long complained about, greatly inflating the projected ridership numbers to get funding. Now that the current line isn't meeting projections, the Feds are slashing the amount of available money to Metro on their rapid transit expansion which has forced them to take a more subdued approach to rapid transit and that is with BRT.

Houston is planning on doing this right however they are jumping the gun a little bit. The line will be constructed to accommodate LRT at a later date if the ridership numbers warrant the changeover. While Houston doesn't need to go as far as laying tracks on the bus-only roadway, it will as a symbolic gesture to show voters that it wants to get rail going as soon as it can.

The rail installation will actually cost more in the long term as 10 years from now, it will have to be dug up and new track installed. Pittsburgh did similar and all the prep of pre-laying streetcar rails was wasted as the tracks had to be ripped up and new tracks installed on the Palm Garden bridge. Houston should design the BRT line to accommodate LRT in the future but not waste money on adding tracks until the tracks are in fact needed.

This change from LRT to BRT is already causing a stir. Houston attorney Andy Taylor says the switchover is illegal and goes against the wishes of the Houston voters. I'm sure he's already prepping a lawsuit to force rail to go through even though it would mean a loss of the Federal funding since the Feds will not pay for a rail line in Houston now. In other words, rail or nothing and if a lawsuit is successful, it'll be nothing.

While I'm not going to really go into my thoughts regarding the legality of switching from LRT to BRT, I will say this. The original line should have been done as a BRT and switched over at a later point in the future if ridership warranted as the current rail line is lackluster at best. Metro blew it by vastly over-estimating the projected ridership numbers and now that projection has come back to haunt them.

This is a good sign that the Feds are at least starting to realize that cities are greatly inflating the projected ridership numbers to get rail funding when they can't really justify the line. Hopefully, Houston won't be just a single odd occurrence of fiscal discipline by the Feds and other cities that are planning rail with greatly exaggerated projected ridership numbers will be called on it.

Can BRT find respect?

2007-05-14T07:43:00.000-04:00

Washington DC - The Cox News Service reports on the Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) advocates attempts to break through the pro-rail lobby and get noticed.

It won't be easy to do given the government's support of Light Rail Transit systems in the tune of $18.2 billion dollars for FY-2008. By comparison, the Feds are only planning on spending $1.4 billion during the same time period on BRT.

Construction and engineering firms are pushing hard to keep rail projects at the head of the line simply because they stand to make much more money off of a government contract for rail than they would for a BRT line. These firms, added with the various pro-rail advocacy groups have formed a very strong alliance which literally stifles BRT proponents.

Successful BRT operations are often overlooked and even ridiculed by the pro-rail lobby in the attempt to ram rail through. Thee pro-rail lobby also take rider complaints on BRT operations and literally blow them out of proportion while burying the exact same rider complaints on rail operations as though the complaints were without merit.

I have long advocated for a two-tier method for rail lines due to so many cities that can't even run a bus system trying to hop on the rail bandwagon. This two-tiered method would require cities that insist on having rail to build a BRT line first to justify if a much more expensive rail line is warranted. If the BRT is successful after 10 years, the line could be easily converted to rail use. If not successful, billions of tax dollars could be saved.

The right of way for rail would be secure and much of the development costs would already be done through the BRT project although the transit loving environmentalists have succeeded in getting things changed already so that much of the work would have to be repeated to help drive up the cost.

Pro-rail advocates I know hate my plan. Why? Because they are afraid that the BRT line wouldn't generate the ridership required to convert the line to rail. They are well aware that the vast majority of new rail lines being planned aren't being designed for transportation but strictly for development purposes and therein lies the rub.

The vast majority of rail startups aren't designed for transportation and if the route being used for development has to prove itself before being converted to rail, the number of rail startups would drop dramatically. The pro-rail crowd can't have that.

The Orange Line in Los Angeles, the EmX line in Eugene and don't forget Pittsburgh's 3 busways are among the BRT successes in the United States. In Pittsburgh, even with the Port Authority's ability to mess up a one car funeral, they haven't been able to royally screw up the BRT operation on the busways (yet).

The article also mentions one of the pro-rail crowd's favorite arguments about the safety of LRT over BRT. That's a red herring if I ever saw one. I can easily shut that argument down by saying one word, Houston. Houston Metro was trying for the record of the most unsafe rail operation in the world with several accidents each month for several years after it opened.

BRT is also much more flexible than rail operations. Buses can get around problems on the line while LRV's and streetcars must sit and wait, disrupting the entire operation. I rarely see in the news a story regarding major delays along a BRT line yet daily there are articles regarding major delays on rail lines due to power outages, derailments, maintenance, etc.

The bottom line in all of this is that transportation is taking a bigger and bigger chunk of tax dollars to build, run and maintain each year. While rapid transit is important, it needs to be done with cost in mind. The build it and they will come philosophy of rail advocates just doesn't cut it, especially when most new rail lines are being built strictly for development and/or political legacy purposes. Rail needs to be built where it will work for transportation and unless a rail proposal is forced to prove itself, rail will ultimately price public transit out of existence.

Transit is important as long as someone else pays

2007-05-11T03:34:00.000-04:00

Pittsburgh PA - The Pittsburgh Post Gazette reports on Allegheny County Chief Executive Dan Onorato's (D) latest pledge to not use money the county has to help bail out the Port Authority of Allegheny County (PAT).

What is troubling over Onorato's actions of late is that he is talking out of both sides of his mouth. On one hand he states that public transit is important then on the other hand he's trying to weasel out of the paltry small amount of funding the county does provide to PAT.

The latest move is putting arts above needed and important infrastructure. The Regional Asset Development tax that was saddled onto the taxpayers of Allegheny County is designed to be used for the improvement of the area. Well that was what it was sold to the public as at least. What Onorato refuses to understand is that without a viable public transit system, the city and county will continue to die.

Arts and culture will not save the area. Jobs will and to get many to those jobs, you need a viable transit system. Hell, to go see a play funded by the RAD tax, many take transit because it's easier and cheaper than fighting to get an overpriced parking spot in town.

While PAT has its problems and needs to clean up its act, Onorato is doing everything he can to shove the problem onto everyone else. He supports PAT as long as someone else picks up the tab for it. Another typical politician.

What Onorato needs to understand is that more of the burden of providing service will be shifted back to the local government. The State Legislature had made that more than clear yet Onorato continues to try and shift the small amount it pays onto the state. All this move does is keep the funding crisis alive so that no resolution will happen.

Don't forget, Onorato, along with many other Democrat politicians in the Pittsburgh area, is trying to saddle PAT with a new trolley line it can't afford to operate. He wants the line because he "supports" transit yet all his actions to date have shown the exact opposite.

When PAT announced the original route cut plan, he was adamant that the original plan go through which would have literally isolated entire communities from transit service. He kept claiming he supports transit but was doing his best to ensure the destruction of it by insisting the original hack & slash plan go through as is. Luckily saner heads prevailed and a much more palatable, albeit still bitter, plan was adopted.

Democrats get it wrong again

2007-05-10T04:39:00.000-04:00

Washington DC - Democrats are poised to further screw up mass transit across the nation through their latest boondoggle known as the "PROGRESS Act" (H.R. 1300). As usual, they have good intentions but gave absolutely no thought to actual long term costs that they would saddle public transit operators with. A typical move. The Hill has an article by Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-MD) regarding the PROGRESS Act that he introduced.

The big problem is that the PROGRESS Act provides a one time stimulus grant to transit systems to expand service. The Democrats (as usual) fail to understand that these same transit systems can't afford to run what they have now, even if everything was a peak capacity on every trip. What good is expanding service on a one time grant when in the following year, the transit system can't afford to run the expanded service?

While I agree that public transit is important in playing a key role in America's energy independence, the Democrats (once again) fail to acknowledge that you have to get what you have working first. Expanding service based on a one time grant that will run out after a year will only further cause the transit systems across this country to collapse even more.

Also, if the Democrats want energy independence, let drilling occur in the United States instead of blocking it and keeping us dependent on foreign oil.

Another part of this PROGRESS Act is that it it will "create a bipartisan National Energy Security Commission to develop consensus national goals on energy". Excuse me while I laugh. When Liberal Democrats start talking about a consensus the only thing I can think of is Al Gore and his "consensus" on global warming which, as each day passes, is shown to be a big lie. There is no consensus on the man-made global warming except by the environmentalists that have a political agenda to control the throttle of the United States economy and put us back in the dark ages.

If the Democrats really want to help public transit as they always claim, they'd find a way to fund it properly, including the extremely expensive but completely unfunded mandates they've slapped on the public transit systems over the years which is driving up the cost to provide service.

They won't though. All politicians, especially the transit loving Democrats, are nothing but lip service. They're great at sounding concerned when it comes to transit service but they've done everything they can to drive up the cost of providing that service.

Steny Hoyer, you earned a Lance. While you meant well, your bill just doesn't cut it. Good intentions is not going to improve anything. Your bill is nothing but another feel good measure that will do nothing beside further strain the transit systems while you get to feel powerful for introducing it.

Transit fails to hold ridership

2007-05-08T01:40:00.000-04:00

San Francisco CA - While there was a great improvement in ridership numbers following the I-80/I-580 connector ramp disaster, transit systems are failing to hold onto the ridership surge. The Insidebayarea news site reports on the slip in ridership numbers even though the melted interchange has not been repaired.

Many are drifting back to their cars even though they are more likely to sit in traffic. This trend of commuters going back to their cars is dumbfounding the public transit advocates who are off in their own little world when it comes to reality.

The problems in keeping the new ridership are many and the main problem is that public transit is not designed to haul everyone. It never has been nor can it be made to.

This is not meant to be critical of the transit operations in the Bay area. They've done a commendable job in adapting to the influx of new riders however the simple fact that bus or rail service is not anywhere as flexible as the private car needs to be understood.

In such events where there is a sudden surge of ridership, the transit system will be very lucky it retains 10% of the initial flow of new riders after 6 months. The reason is that public transit is designed to flow into a central business core. With urban sprawl and businesses relocating outside of traditionally higher tax base areas, transit systems can no longer compete successfully.

"All you need to do is add more routes and the rider can transfer to get where they're going" say the transit advocates. Wrong. Each forced transfer to get a rider to their ultimate destination reduces the chance of them becoming a regular rider by more than 50% and greatly increases the cost of providing service. Riders that have to transfer more than once to reach their destination are 80% more likely to avoid public transit as long as they have alternatives open to them such as a car.

In general, most of the choice riders are willing to make some adjustments to their travel plans as long as they can get quickly from point A to point B. This usually works fine when dealing with suburbs to the downtown core but even then the system must make itself somewhat flexible by providing sufficient service for the rider to make choices. I used to live in an area where I had 1 bus a day. One trip in the morning and one in the afternoon. If I missed that single inbound or outbound trip, I was screwed.

Another big problem for public transit is the modern trends in the business industry. Many companies are no longer just 9 to 5 but have a 24 hour work force with staggered hours. This makes it far easier for a person to justify taking a car to work rather than transit.

As mentioned earlier, businesses that are relocating outside of the higher taxed urban core play into the transit problems also. Most transit systems, even those with rail, have very poor reverse commuting. In other words, a reverse rush hour.

Transit advocates need to understand that they are never going to get 100% of the people to ride. The automobile will always be a competitor that will win out when push comes to shove. The best transit systems can hope for is to retain as many choice riders as they can. That is done by the basics which is providing clean, safe, reliable and convenient service to as many riders as they can. This is something many systems are doing a poor job at.

The transit advocates need to stop their hand-wringing about the private automobile and concentrate on getting what is in place already for public transit in their area working. I doubt that will happen as most advocates are too busy trying to saddle transit systems with expensive and unneeded transit projects rather than dealing with the basics.

MUNI assaults increasing

2007-05-06T02:45:00.000-04:00

San Francisco CA - The Examiner.com site had an interesting report on assaults against MUNI employees. The issue of assaults against transit personnel is something that effects all transit systems and the problem seems to be increasing.

MUNI employees (drivers, station attendants, etc.), experienced an average of 71.4 attacks a year for the last 5 years. That number is actually low as many assaults are not reported. Assaults often not reported are slapping, throwing things, spitting and yelling at the operator. These types of non-reported assaults often happen multiple times a day in every system.

The same trend is occurring at most every major transit system and there is no sign that the assaults will begin to drop off anytime soon. On the contrary, it appears the number of assaults on transit personnel will continue to increase.

The only reports the public usually hears of are on the severe end of the scale. In a few cases over the years, I've found that even these severe side of the scale reports from the Liberal media lean toward blaming the operator rather than the "innocent" rider who started the confrontation. I recall a recent story out of Canada where a driver was dragged out of the bus and beat up. The dyed-in-the-wool Liberal reporter asked in their report what the driver did to provoke such a response as though the peaceful rider that beat up the driver would never do something like that unless the operator provoked it.

Many states have a law similar to what California has where assaults on a transit worker are considered a felony. The problem is that the courts and District Attorneys often reduce charges or dismiss the case all together. This literally make the felony law a feel good measure that does little and puts the transit drivers at greater risk in doing their job.

Those who follow the transit industry will remember when on-board transit security cameras first came out and were being put on buses across the country. Unions complained about them invading the privacy of its members but over the past several years, the unions have done an about face and are demanding security cameras be put on transit vehicles to help protect the operators since the courts won't.

Management also doesn't often support the operators, even when the taped security video clearly shows the operator did nothing wrong. Management is so concerned that they'll be labeled anti-rider by the various activist groups and scare off riders if they start prosecuting the riders that assault the operators that they help put the operators (as well as other passengers) at an ever increasing risk.

Even back in the past when people were more civil toward each other, being a transit operator wasn't an easy job. Today the operators literally risk their lives with some of the nut cases that ride. Until the transit systems and courts start getting tough with the riders that violate the law and assault transit personnel, the risk will continue to increase.

While there are some bad apples in the transit system, the vast majority of the assaults originate from the rider that was never taught how to behave when they were growing up. I have witnessed more than a few of these operator-rider incidents in my life and every one of them was caused by a rider that was in the wrong.

The politicians don't help matters either. Madison Wisconsin operators were screaming for security cameras to be installed on the buses for safety reasons and that was met with politicians debating the expenditure for over a year (yet they can come up with money to study building an unneeded streetcar line). Detroit Michigan operators and riders have been demanding that police be assigned to ride the buses for over a year and the politicians keep voting it down because of the expense yet are talking at the same time about rail lines.

It's time to knuckle down on the misbehaving rider and lower the risk that the operators and other riders that know how to behave have to take. While I'm not known for advocating for spending more money on transit, operator and rider security is one area that must be addressed. It's not cheap to do but it is something that must be done if you want a transit system these days.

Chicago in crisis

2007-05-04T06:15:00.000-04:00

Chicago IL - The Chicago area transit network is in crisis and literally on the verge of collapse. The Chicago Tribune reports on the frustration being expressed by the transit systems in the Chicago area over insufficient funding.

The problem is a lack of adequate state funding claims the RTA who oversees and divides the existing funding among the CTA, Metra and PACE operations.

There is more to the story that isn't being reported on. The funding crisis goes beyond public transit and effects the road infrastructure as well. One must ask, what are the underlaying causes and the answers aren't simple.

The CTA has an old rail infrastructure that is in desperate need of repair. Rail operations inherently are more expensive and far less flexible than bus operations to start with. This often leads to putting off needed repairs to the infrastructure.
The CTA also has had far from stellar management over the years. Internal waste at the CTA is rampant.
Having an "umbrella agency" structure also doesn't help. The RTA who distributes the funds among the 3 operating agencies takes a slice of the operating pie to run the show.
Look at the city itself. There are 5 major transit systems in critical and dire straits currently. Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, Boston, Chicago and San Francisco. A common thread among all 5 of these cities is that they've been controlled by Democrats for decades (all also have well established rail operations).
Chicago's transit ills have recently gotten worse as they have been selected as the city for the United States bid to host the 2016 Olympics. What does this mean? More strain on the system due to required transit projects that will have to be done. While this may get them some funding to fix the infrastructure, it also means less money will be available to operate.

While adequate and reliable funding for public transit is needed, little is usually done to stem the internal hemorrhaging of money within the system. In a sense, increased funding is little more than a Band-Aid being placed on a torn artery with how public transit is run currently. The core problem that creates the need for increased funding is rarely repaired and that leads to more problems in the following years.

The funding crisis in Pennsylvania, for example, is forcing PAT and SEPTA to finally start addressing many of the core problems within their agencies. The RTA in Chicago is still trying to ignore the core problems and address it with another financial Band-Aid with the hope that the influx of funds will balance out the cash hemorrhage.

With public transit being turned into a social service thanks to years of government ownership, nobody in charge is willing to do what has to be done for fear of the backlash. All 5 cities I have mentioned have another common thread which is that they run mostly on historical routes and all systems need a complete route overhaul to streamline the operation. Such route overhauls are never popular but if the system is to survive, it is something that has to be done.

While I disagree with Illinois' state government for putting transit funding on the back burner, it may be what is needed to force the RTA and the three Chicago transit operations to clean house and start addressing the cancer that has been slowly killing them for years.

Tieing funding to performance

2007-05-02T06:25:00.000-04:00

Galveston TX - The Gavleston County Daily News reports on a problem occurring between the University of Texas Medical Branch (UTMB) and Island Transit. The problem is how much should the UTMB pay for the service.

Currently the UTMB pays $200,000 a year to subsidize the route for Island Transit and in exchange, Island Transit allows UTMB employees and patients to ride free on that route. It is a deal similar to what many universities across the country enter into with the transit system in their area.

Although there is no problem with the service that Island Transit provides, the UTMB has decided to base future payments on the systems performance. Under the new arrangement that Island Transit reluctantly agreed to, the base payment moved from $200,000 a year to $160,000 a year but the transit system can stand to make up to $240,000 a year if it performs well.

At first glance, that sounds like a reasonable deal. The problem I see is that as time goes by, it will force Island Transit to focus on that one particular route due to this one fact. Performance is based on the UTMB's assessment alone. Too often I see such arrangements go bad as more demands are made on the transit system by the paying agency.

Contracts such as this should be based on the cost of providing "X" amount of service, not strictly on performance. By entering a contract based strictly on performance, it can start the process ignoring the rest of the operation to focus on one particular route.

Given the fact that the UTMB had no problem with the current level of service, nor the quality of that service, the change demanded by the UTMB is not warranted. The excuse being used that the lowering of the base payment will ensure that Island Transit won't let it's service to the UTMB slip is a red herring in my opinion.

That red herring is that the UTMB wants more service without paying more for it. While the UTMB stated that if service remains the same the payment will remain at $200,000, I don't really believe that. When the time comes to pay for the contract, the UTMB will find fault in order to cut its own costs and save $40,000. This move will also force Island Transit to increase service just to try and keep the $200,000 payment.

As I see this, the UTMB agreement will ultimately end up hurting Island Transit by driving up costs. Already extra expenses are being spent to check for problems on the route, which by the way is not being done with the rest of the system.

Politics over purpose

2007-04-25T06:04:00.000-04:00

Honolulu HI - The Honolulu Star Bulletin reports on the dismissal of two critics from key positions just before a vote to finalize the routing of Mayor Mufi Hannemann's legacy line.

Donovan Dela Cruz and Ann Kobayashi were removed from the Council Transportation Committee which will keep them from sitting on the Oahu Planning Organization Policy Committee that will be voting on the key route for the project. The move comes at a time that raises suspicion of political meddling to quiet the critics of the rail project.

While this move is perfectly legal, it is suspicious due to the timing. The move was requested by Committee Chair Nestor Garcia with no reason being given for the request. Given the fact that Garcia was not listed as a critic by the media, it is safe to assume that he is in favor of the project. While City Council Chairwoman Barbara Marshall downplayed any meddling by the Mayor's office, once again it is rather safe to assume there was some.

In politics, there is a long history of moves such as replacing critics with people more favorable toward an issue. Given Hannemann's almost rabid desire to get this transit project rammed through, it wouldn't surprise me that at all that this move to replace Dela Cruz and Kobayashi was strictly political rather than because they weren't performing well on the committee.

Critics are an important part of making sure the best plan moves forward. They bring up points often ignored or glossed over by proponents however, transit systems and politicians pushing transit projects have recently started following a new trend to shut the critics up using whatever means necessary. It appears that new trend is being followed in Honolulu by removing two critics from a key committee and replacing them with what appears to be two individuals that are sympathetic to the cause.

The move to replace Dela Cruz and Kobayashi just brings more shadows to Hannemann's legacy project. It comes across as an attempt to quiet the critics so that the already highly questionable plan can move forward. The move also shows me that the pro-rail crowd will do whatever it takes to ram through rail projects.

Security or just trying to hide something?

2007-04-24T03:12:00.000-04:00

Portland OR - The Oregonian reports on a Tri-Met decision that would allow the transit system to further isolate itself from the public. This move is being repeated across the country as well and has allowed public transit systems to literally make up data that it spoon feeds to the public.

Light rail critic Mel Zucker recently asked Tri-Met for ridership data for analysis on a proposed rail line. He was denied for security reasons. What Zucker was requesting was the raw data, something most transit systems are reluctant to give up to start with, but the excuse of security is a rather new method of refusal. The excuse is one that is sure to come up more often in our post 9/11 world.

The problem as I see it is this. The new cover for public transit gives the transit systems a free pass to make up any data they wish and there will no longer be any way to verify it's accuracy. This data, such as ridership numbers, are used by transit systems to justify costly transit projects as well as the running of routes.

Public transit systems have always manipulated their data and have been reluctant to reveal the true raw data. Under various state and local laws, this data could be obtained if you were persistent enough. Now by using the catch-all term security, these systems can keep critics at bay and ram through expensive transit projects as the critics no longer will be allowed any access to the needed data to show that the project is not needed. In short, a critic now can only state opinion and observations and have no real data to back them up and the transit system is free to greatly manipulate its data to fit whatever they wish to do.

This move to hide behind the shield of security comes at a time when public transit systems are all finding themselves in a cash crisis. They are demanding more of the public's money and now can freely manipulate the data they spoon feed to the public through the media without the fear of being caught manipulating the data.

Even the media will be effected by this new method. Currently the media can get much of this information but sometimes needs to go to a local or even state court to get the release of data. Now the stakes are raised and the media will be forced to go to the Federal courts to get any information from the transit system beside the manipulated data that the system wants to spoon feed to them. A much more costly and time consuming proposition.

I can see the need for heightened security towards the data, even as far as a background check to obtain the requested data. What Tri-met is doing however is blocking off all access to the data and thereby giving itself the autonomy to make the data fit what they want it to fit without any chance of being discovered.

My take on this move by Tri-Met is this. Tri-Met has been caught with its pants down a few times with manipulated data that they used to ram projects through with. They now are ducking for cover and using a Federal law to hide behind so that they no longer have to answer their critics and can be free to spend whatever they wish on whatever project they wish.

The taxpayers who have to foot the bill for public transit spending sprees and the critics that look for waste in the industry have now had an important avenue of checks and balances closed off to them.

Tri-Met earns a Lance for trying to keep the public in the dark while they continue to pick their pockets to fund their operation and various spending sprees.

Another rail fight in Madison

2007-04-24T03:11:00.000-04:00

Madison WI - The Wisconsin State Journal reports on the battle between two competing rail proposals. A commuter rail proposal that would connect Madison to outlaying communities and the streetcar proposal that is championed by Madison Mayor Dave Cieslewicz.

The problem is that both plans are taking the steam out of each other. Mayor Cieslewicz suggested that the proponents of the commuter rail plan cool it so his plan can go forward. While both sides agree that both types of rail need to be done, the order in how it is done is what they are fighting over.

The Dane County officials that are spearheading the "Transport 2020" plan for commuter rail responded to the Mayor's suggestion with a comment that "the mayor is out of sync with the broader community here". Mayor Cieslewicz was a part of the "Transport 2020" task force before throwing a temper tantrum and pulling out because the focus of the panel wasn't on his personal legacy streetcar line in Madison.

The fear of both sides is that competing projects will kill off both projects by making it too expensive to proceed. Neither side wants to budge and both projects continue to compete with each other for attention.

Putting aside the fact that Madison can't afford to run what it already has, I admit that the commuter rail proposal would be more beneficial and serve a much broader population (if done properly) than the streetcar proposal being done primarily for personal legacy reasons. The Mayor is so desperate for his personal legacy line that I truly expect this fight to become rather nasty as each side escalates tactics to get their proposals pushed forward.

Cash strapped MUNI throws party for T-Third line opening

2007-04-23T05:12:00.000-04:00

San Francisco CA - A commentary piece sent to me tells of the MUNI parties they held to celebrate the opening of their new T-Third rail line. The cost of these parties to the cash strapped transit system: Approximately $158,000.

MUNI hosted two parties, one for the general public and one for VIP's which included politicians, career bureaucrats and activists. A harpist, uniformed servers passing around quiche and salmon treats, and a red carpet were the highlights of the indoor VIP party.

The $158,000 paid for catering, tables and chairs, entertainment, sound and video systems, portable toilets and a number of other items that go into putting on big celebrations. While no cost breakdown can be found, it's easy to guess that the VIP party took the biggest chunk of the money.

While I have no problem with celebrating a grand opening, MUNI went overboard considering their financial situation. I have been to many grand openings of various transit projects and the celebration cost was usually budgeted anywhere from a few hundred dollars to $35,000. Spending $158,000 while at the same time screaming for more money to operate just tells me that the operation is looking for ways to waste money.

I'm sorry but a harpist is not needed nor is a separate party for the politicians given the financial situation at MUNI. A much more subdued approach would send a message that MUNI is trying to watch its finances. All this did was send a message that the agency is not financially responsible.

I'm awarding MUNI a Lance for wasting money when they can't afford it. They could have done a satisfactory celebration for far less and put the difference into actually running the service.

I won't even get into the problems the new line had on party day...

PAT's CEO posts contract for all to see

2007-04-20T05:51:00.000-04:00

Pittsburgh PA - In a long overdue move, the Port Authority of Allegheny County Executive Director, Steve Bland, has posted his contract on-line for all to see. The move, reported in the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, is aimed at making the transit agency more transparent to the public. This is something that all public and non-profit agencies should be doing.

I also see a hidden motive behind Stave Bland's move to post his contract. This motive is to take a jab at the union and force them to accept concessions, something the union is fighting.

PAT's union has stated for years that they don't feel they should make concessions when the management doesn't. A complaint that I have to agree with. Well now, PAT's management is making concessions and the big boy took many concessions himself. The union complaint is no longer valid and by Bland publicly posting his contract, as well as the concessions he took, it will put added public pressure on the union to make contract concessions.

I have stated for decades that the various contracts at PAT should be made public when the taxpayers are paying for it. This goes for the management contracts as well as the union contracts. The taxpayers deserve to know what they are being forced to pay for. I am so tired of hearing that these types of items are "confidential" when the money to pay for these "confidential" contracts are paid for by the public.

Steve Bland earns himself a Laurel for allowing the public access to view his contract, especially since his paycheck and benefits are paid for by the taxpayers.

Passing the buck (or in this case, not passing the buck$)

2007-04-19T03:33:00.000-04:00

Harrisburg PA - Pennsylvania State Republicans pretty much told the various transit systems in the state that they need to look towards their city and county to provide them the additional funding they claim they need to continue operating. The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reports on this important stance by the State GOP regarding the public transit crisis in Pennsylvania.

While I tend to lean towards agreeing with House Republican Leader Sam Smith in terms of the philosophy of what he states, what I actually see here is hypocrisy and passing the buck. The buck I see being passed is from the tax and spend State Legislature to the local municipal level of government. The hypocrisy I see is that these same politicians have no problem porking out and earmarking tax money for their pet projects that benefit far fewer than public transit does.

Representative Smith correctly states that transit systems in the state already receive $900 million each year in state funding. He also correctly states that it is time the city and county start ponying up more. In Pittsburgh, for example, the City of Pittsburgh and the surrounding suburbs provide absolutely no funding assistance and Allegheny County provides a small amount of funding but even at that, they are trying to get out of providing that funding.

Out of the $900 million already provided by the state, a far from insignificant part of that funding is squandered by the transit systems in paying to operate various unneeded transit projects that they just had to build and didn't need as well as what seems to be the transit industry goal of finding new ways to waste money. The remainder is used to pay the workers, keep service on the streets and various other operational activities.

While I strongly oppose Governor Rendell's "Big Oil" windfall tax he is proposing to help fund transit systems as it will do nothing but punish Pennsylvania residents and the transit systems in the long term, it shouldn't be used by the State Legislature as a way to pass the buck in the transit funding crisis. The State Legislature needs to come up with a new funding structure as well as a funding mechanism that works. By attempting to blame the Rendell plan, no matter how ill-conceived it is, and using that to avoid doing what needs to be done, the politicians of Pennsylvania are only helping to destroy an important part of the State's infrastructure.

The Port Authority of Allegheny County is cleaning up it's act and eliminating waste as well as scaling back operations. SEPTA, is more efficient than PAT is but they are saddled by having a large rail network (pre-dating SEPTA) which is sucking down money. Neither the city or county in either area can fully fund the deficits and Rep. Smith knows this but I do agree that both the county and municipal governments need to start contributing more to running transit in their jurisdiction.

We won't likely see the State (or even local) politicians curtail their spendthrift ways on pork projects nor are we likely to see enough of an increase in local level funding to cover the deficits incurred by rising fuel and health care costs.

This poor attempt to pass the buck by Rep. Smith is simply a ploy being used by both political parties in Pennsylvania to avoid dealing with fixing the problem of a lack of a proper funding mechanism for public transit. I will give Smith credit for this, at least he isn't giving us political lip service about the situation like the Democrats routinely do.

The State Legislature needs to understand that public transit is an important part of the economic infrastructure of the State. It helps bring people to the jobs that haven't been chased out of the State by the business unfreindly environment in Pennsylvania. Public transit also is an important tool for emergencies, especially in the post 9/11 environment, to get people out of an area.

Even though Pennsylvania State Representative Sam Smith (R) pulled no punches and made the situation clear without the political spin, he earns a Lance for trying to pass the problem of public transit off onto someone else to deal with. It is the lack of a proper funding mechanism which the State Legislature refuses to allow that has helped spur this problem and it's been going on for 40 plus years. Deal with it already and quit trying pawn the problem off onto someone else.

Pro-rail crowd has a new tactic

2007-04-18T04:17:00.000-04:00

Myrtle Beach SC - One of the many places you wouldn't expect to find a streetcar is in Myrtle Beach but pro-rail backers are hoping to change that.

The Sun News reports on plans that were presented to the city recently to showcase a $6.6 to $10.4 million dollar "test line" that is approximately a quarter of a mile long. The test line proposal wouldn't do much of anything except sit in the open and wouldn't connect any two things together.

This news report brings up an important new tactic in the pro-rail movement. A test line is the newest method in the pro-rail playbook for getting rail into a city that can't justify having rail. They convince a city to build a small test line at the local taxpayers expense that really doesn't connect anything. Once built, the city is forced to try to extend it so their investment isn't just pure waste. Now that they have something built, they can more easily justify to the Federal and State government the need to get funding to extend it so it will be useful.

In the past, the method was to get a city to build a "starter" line that actually was somewhat useful but the desperation within the pro-rail movement is sinking in now because funding is getting harder to get. This has resulted in the new push for rinky-dink test lines just to get a rail toe-hold in place so it will be easier to get the Feds to cough up taxpayer's money to extend the line.

The news report is filled with the typical code words of the pro-rail crowd such as "the vision" and the "cool factor" as well as "development and rising property values". Of course, the Holy See of the streetcar movement, Portland Oregon, just had to be mentioned also as the streetcar success story. Myrtle Beach is hardly Portland Oregon, no matter how far you try to stretch the comparison.

There is no word as of yet if the struggling local bus system will be stuck running the line if it is built. Most likely it would be as that would be the only way the city could get the Federal money to extend the test line to the point it could actually be useful.

Tax dollars spent to support tax hike

2007-04-17T04:32:00.000-04:00

Milwaukee WI - The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports on a regional governmental transit authority using tax dollars to support a tax hike it claims it needs to institute a commuter rail operation between Milwaukee to Kenosha and Racine. The Southeastern Wisconsin Regional Transit Authority (RTA) is spending $496,000 of tax money in the attempt to woo support from the public to increase a tax for itself.

Three separate activists groups, Citizens for Responsible Government, Club for Growth Wisconsin and Americans For Prosperity's Wisconsin are fighting this use of public money to lobby the public for support of a tax hike on the already established rental car tax. These groups claim that the three-county government agency is wasting tax money and that the RTA has no legal authority to use the money for lobbying and publicity efforts.

What we actually have here is a government created transit authority looking for something to do. They've latched onto the commuter rail concept for that purpose but now they need to further dip into the taxpayer's pocket to fund it's dream. The current $2 rental tax is insufficient and the RTA wants to boost it another $13.

I question the expenditure breakdown that the RTA made available. 23% for lobbying efforts and the remainder went to research is the claim. From seeing the numbers on other lobbying groups and the amount of research they did, I tend to think the bulk of the money went to lobbying and the small remainder went to producing slick reports based off of previously done research. I also feel safe in saying that much of the research is probably on researching on how to market the tax hike plan to the public and politicians before the lobbying started.

This story does bring up a point that I see periodically in the news. That point is should public transit authorities, whether operational or administrative as the RTA is, be allowed to lobby the public or politicians with taxpayer money. I often see news reports where groups criticize a transit system for lobbying for a tax hike with taxpayer money.

Personally speaking, the transit system needs to get its side out there as to why they need a tax hike or new tax but this can be done through press releases and news conferences. Every city has transportation reporters that can bang the system's drum to get the word out. The expenditure to the system needs to be kept to a bare minimum however. No glossy brochures, no media ads, no gift buying for politicians.

If the transit system's plans are solid, a low cost press release will sell itself. The problem I see is that there are few solid plans out there these days. Most plans today are the visions of a few that want a legacy for themselves on the taxpayer's dime.

While commuter rail may be a good plan in concept, it obviously isn't selling itself on its merits so that makes me lean towards the side believing that the plan isn't really needed. If it was, it would sell without a big fuss. I've seen it happen enough to know it is true: The more you have to market something, the less it really is needed.

Knee Jerk Reaction = Higher Costs and Less Funding

2007-04-16T04:00:00.000-04:00

Bay Area CA - The Oakland Tribune reports on a bill introduced by freshman assemblyman Mark DeSaulnier (D) of Concord, CA which would effect how transit systems are funded. The bill could effect the operating funding received as well as raise costs to the transit systems.

The bill he introduced would give reduced price rides to low income people to get around to work, school, shopping and medical care. It sounds good, right?

That's the problem. It's another knee jerk, feel good measure that wasn't researched to see the effect it would have on the transit systems in the Bay Area or how it would be paid for. Why politicians fail to understand the concept of "cause and effect" still amazes me.

Beside the fact that California is struggling for money and the money for DeSaulnier's subsidy bill would have to come from somewhere (and don't forget that the Governator has already stripped millions from the public transit funding pot to pay for other programs), nobody even mentioned the fact that you would have to create a whole new department to review low income applications for the reduced fare as well as do the accounting for the program. That isn't a cheap proposition and of course, it was never given a thought.

The way the California State laws are set up for funding transit, this additional subsidy could further reduce the amount of funding received from the State. This also was never given a thought when the bill was introduced.

At least DeSaulnier admitted he was "a little bit naive about this" although I'd say he was extremely naive about it. He was also bending over and grabbing his ankles for the activist groups who wear blinders when it comes to cause and effect. A hint for the politicians, the more vocal an activist group is, the smaller percentage of the population they really represent regardless of who or what they claim to represent.

Even though DeSaulnier admitted he didn't think things through when he introduced his bill, he still earns a Lance. Next time, do the research before trying to further bankrupt public transit.

Pittsburgh politicians want expensive toys for PAT

2007-04-15T01:50:00.000-04:00

Pittsburgh PA - On the heels of a 15% route cut with promises of many more cuts to follow, and associated fare hikes, Allegheny County and City of Pittsburgh officials are now pushing to add more rail to the cash strapped Port Authority of Allegheny County (PAT).

The Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA) of Pittsburgh is now pushing for a rail link between Downtown Pittsburgh and Oakland. City Mayor, Luke Ravenstahl (D) and County Executive Dan Onorato (D) are fully in favor of this of. State Senator Jim Ferlo (D) who is on the URA board is spearheading the effort.

Let's stop for a minute. These Dummyrats know full well the system can't afford what it has already and most likely won't be able to afford the scaled back system. What's their response? They are all in favor of further stressing the finances by adding expensive toys to the mix at a time PAT just can't afford it and neither can the City or County.

Now, let's rewind the clock a bit. Pittsburgh had it's chance to have a rail link to Oakland in the early 90's. Political fighting by the Democrats in charge at the time prevented the "Spine Line" from happening. Now that PAT is in a major fiscal crisis and is cutting service, these political clowns are proposing this again but are leaning towards streetcars.

While Pittsburgh needs a Downtown to Oakland transit link which could easily support a rail link as these two destinations are the 2nd and 3rd biggest transit generators in Pennsylvania, the bottom line is that PAT can't afford it. Period.

Those readers unfamiliar with Pittsburgh need to know this. The Pittsburgh region is rapidly losing population. The city is in dire financial straits as is Allegheny County. The city has been controlled by Democrats for over a century as the brain dead population here just can't bring themselves to vote for anything else but an incumbent Democrat (regardless of how poor a job they're doing). The transit system has been mis-managed for years and it's caught up to them.

With all of the above, the politicians here just have to find a new way to spend taxpayer money. So now, the push is on to build more rail so they can further destroy the transit system which can't afford what it has now and have an excuse to stick their hands in the taxpayer's wallet again.

These stupid Democrats just can't understand the concept that while you may get grants to build the rail line, it takes money to operate it and rail is inherently expensive to operate. Where are they going to get the money to run this when the system can't afford to run with what they get already? Where are they going to get the money to match grants for this new toy when they can't afford to run the City and County and vital services (police, fire) are being trimmed back.

This is just another example of stupid politicians that can't think past a legacy for themselves. They refuse to even consider the long term implications of their actions as they're too busy looking through rose colored glasses so they can ignore the problems.

State Senator Jim Ferlo, you earned a Lance. City of Pittsburgh Mayor Luke Ravenstahl, you earned a Lance. Allegheny County Executive Dan Onorato, you get 2 Lances as you of all people know the financial situation of PAT yet support this ill-conceived and poorly timed plan.

A city headed for crisis because of rail

2007-04-13T03:25:00.000-04:00

Honolulu HI - The Hawaii Reporter has a commentary piece by Don Newman which points out a very important matter that has Honolulu Mayor Mufi Hannemann upset. It is the fact that Honolulu is letting its city infrastructure fall apart while the mayor pushes for his "Mufi Express" rail project.

The US EPA has recently ordered the city to upgrade its sewage treatment plant after a large sewage spill last year. The mayor is upset by this because the city can't afford to upgrade the sewage treatment plant and build his rail line. He calls the EPA decree "unreasonable, untimely, unfair and unnecessary."

Honolulu also has other crumbling infrastructure related to the sewage system and that is the pipes underground. This brings me to ask if the sewage system is in such dire straits that it can't handle the requirements of its residents, what else on the island is falling apart and being put off so that Mufi can build his rail line?

This goes back to the point I have made so many times. too many cities are jumping on the rail bandwagon when they just can't afford it. It appears that in Honolulu, the mayor plans on paying for the rail line by risking the residents health. Let's all agree here, a large sewage spill from a waste treatment plant is hardly a healthy and sanitary event. Crumbling sewage pipes don't exactly conjure up images of sanitary conditions either.

Yet that seems to be what Mufi wants as he's at the point of having to choose between his legacy line or repairing the sewage system. He can't get the face time or anything to hang his brass plaque on by repairing the sewage plant and is now whining to put the sewage project off so he can continue on with his rail line. I'm waiting now to read headlines like "Mayor mandates no more than 2 flushes a day", "Mayor decrees rail will solve sewage problem" and "Mayor says turds won't hurt you".

In all seriousness, what is happening in Honolulu is happening in every city. Crumbling infrastructure and politicians that are finding new ways to spend money on everything except on what it needs to be spent on. In Honolulu and many other cities, that new way to spend money is on a rail line. The phrase "fix what you have before adding more" just doesn't seem to be understood by the politicians in their rush to spend taxpayer money.

Pennsylvania's misplaced priorities

2007-04-12T01:23:00.000-04:00

Lackawanna County PA - An article in Scranton's Times-Tribune just irritated me. It seems that while the state can't properly fund public transit or even maintain its roads and bridges, it's giving away money to private non-profit groups to restore their equipment.

As I belong to a private non-profit bus museum in Pittsburgh and love the preservation of our transit history, I'm in a bit of a quandary. That quandary is this. Should the state be paying tax money out of the transportation funds to various private museum groups while they have a major transit and road crisis?

The honest answer is no. The state should not be shelling out taxpayer money to the museum groups, or any other private group for that matter, regardless of the fact it will help preserve Pennsylvania's transit history.

This misplaced priority by PennDOT and supporting politicians is part of the reason why Pennsylvania's transit systems are in crisis. It shows why the bridges and roads are falling apart in the state. The politicians are too busy trying to get taxpayer money earmarked for everything except the transportation infrastructure which the state needs to survive.

In the past I previously belonged to a private non-profit streetcar museum in Washington, PA which also has been getting PennDOT funding for various activities of the group. I was opposed to that group getting the tax money back then and I'm opposed to the Electric City Trolley Museum in Scranton getting it now. I would oppose the bus museum I belong to getting a state transportation grant as well even if it would solve the group's lack of a permanent home. It is appalling that when the state can't even come up with a funding plan for transit and the bridges are in poor repair that the politicians and PennDOT continue to give money away to private museum groups while ignoring the transportation infrastructure.

These private groups need to work towards obtaining private grants from corporations and foundations.

I have no idea which politician spearheaded this plan. If I knew, they'd get a Lance awarded. While preserving our transportation history is important, it shouldn't be done by private groups slipping on the public feedbag and going on the dole.

A bus riding cat in the UK

2007-04-11T01:45:00.000-04:00

Wolverhampton UK - The Sun reports on a pleasant little story of a bus riding cat.

Macavity, the name given to the cat by the bus drivers, has been riding the bus since January. He rides a few times a week and knows exactly where he's going, a bus stop near a fish & chips store.

Drivers and passengers now think of this as normal. Macavity is also a well mannered passenger beside the fact he doesn't pay to ride. He hops on, sits up front quietly and then hops off at his destination.

The skeptic in me wonders how long before some whiny busy body complains about Macavity's bus riding habit. It's bound to happen, especially in this day and age of people looking to be offended by something. I hope it doesn't happen as I'd rather ride with a bus full of Macavitys' than ride with most of the riders on my local bus route.

Atlanta wants to downplay streetcar overhead

2007-04-11T01:27:00.000-04:00

Atlanta GA - In the latest spin by the pro-rail crowd, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports on Atlanta's attempt to jump on the streetcar bandwagon and the spin taking place regarding the overhead wires.

What I found interesting in this is that the pro-rail backers are trying to downplay the impact of the overhead lines in a modern system. A task force report that had artist conceptions of modern streetcars on Atlanta streets was even lacking the overhead in the drawing. These drawings will end up being a key tool in the promotion of the concept.

While overhead wires for streetcars today are much less intrusive than it was in the old days, the attempt to dismiss questions on the overhead and even outright ignore the overhead is a tactic used by the pro-rail crowd to make the concept more palatable to the public.

Now, one must ask this. Can Atlanta afford this wonderful, life changing concept known as a streetcar? The answer quite simply is no. The local transit system, MARTA, is constantly screaming for more money to operate. The heavy rail system they have in place now is sucking down the money faster than people can pay fares to ride. Their bus service needs improvement as well.

All that will happen in Atlanta is what will happen in most cities that have jumped on the streetcar bandwagon. Taxpayers will be forced to shell out hundreds of millions for sweetheart deals to lure private developers in and the very residents that were conned into supporting the concept will get forcibly displaced. No economic boom time will arrive. No flock of tourists besides a few nerdy rail fans. No improvement in air quality or traffic congestion. All the promises made will be just costly words, nothing more.

Add to this the fact that this streetcar line isn't being done for a transportation reason. The whole proposal is based on the hope of future tourism and development along the line and that spells a fiscal disaster in the making that all taxpayers in the U.S. will have to shoulder.

Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin earns a Lance for spearheading the move to bring an expensive toy to a cash strapped transit system and cash strapped city. Atlanta can't afford it and all the "benefits" being touted will end up just being very costly pro-rail spin.

The RTA in Chicago looks to the wrong solution

2007-04-10T03:06:00.000-04:00

Chicago IL - A report on WBBM-780 tells of stagnant transit growth in the Chicago area despite increases in ridership in other cities. While I am dubious of the nationwide transit growth numbers to start with, Chicago does have a problem attracting ridership.

The RTA has part of the answer but are looking towards the wrong solution. RTA Chairman Jim Reilly said, "Public relations can do only so much," and said a more flexible and reliable system would draw more riders. Part of that is having the money to build additional projects, to operate additional routes. I understand all that," he said.

Reilly is partially correct, they need a more flexible and reliable system but building more expensive transit projects is not the answer. Even running more routes is not the answer. The answer is running a service that takes people where they want and need to go on clean and reliable vehicles with reliable and convenient service.

For years I had thought my home city ran garbage on wheels until I saw Chicago. They had buses on the road that my local transit system wouldn't put out even if it was the only thing they had that ran.

Another part of the problem in Chicago is that they are running mostly historical routes. The entire operation needs an overhaul from the route standpoint. Routes that worked well 40 years ago may not be running as well today and that is due to changing demographics of the city. Most transit systems are very slow to react to population shifts and other demographics that effect service.

Adding more to a system that isn't working properly to start with will not solve the problem. All it will do is put further strain on the system, both financially and operationally.

Chicago can promote transit until the cows come home and it won't have much of an impact. The transit network in Chicago is falling apart, literally, and the major inefficiencies in the operation aren't helping matters. People are well aware of this.

Mr. Reilly, you need to fix what you have before adding more. Considering the budget crisis for transit in Chicago, the last thing the area needs are things added to the mix to suck down the money. It will be far cheaper and attract more riders if the routes in place were overhauled to reflect the current population demographics than building more projects and adding more routes.

The buck stops at the Board of Directors

2007-04-09T13:37:00.000-04:00

Pittsburgh PA - At first, I thought my favorite columnist, Joe "Softball" Grata (I actually do enjoy reading his columns) was going to actually lay the part of the blame for the Port Authority of Allegheny County's (PAT) fiscal disaster where it needs to be, at PAT's Board of Directors but it ended up being more of a defense piece of PAT's Board instead.

The simple fact of the matter is that the buck stops at PAT's Board of Directors. They approved the budgets, projects, policies, etc. that have gotten PAT into the fiscal disaster they are in now.

Joe does point this out but then he goes into how hard it is to be a director of PAT and that it's a thankless job with no pay. Where did I put my violin at? I have to play it when I read that fluff.

Wake up Joe and stop trying to defend the indefensible. I know you need to be on somewhat good terms with PAT to get information for your articles but let's not coddle the group that rubber stamped PAT's fiscal crisis.

The board itself is politically appointed. While there have been some good appointments made over the decades, most were mediocre at best and some were downright bad appointments. There are no "at large" elected positions on the board to put a riders viewpoint or transit industry viewpoint into the decisions made. The vast majority of board members have little to no understanding of transit.

The big problem at PAT and at most transit systems is that the board of directors are made up of people that are lucky they know what the inside of a bus or rail vehicle even looks like. These board members, with little understanding of transit, then depend on the key executives of the system to give them the information to make an informed decision.

This leads to the second problem. The key executives give them a marketing spin to get what they want rather than the raw data to let the board come to its own conclusions. The board then votes based on the information given to them by management. Joe comes across as though this makes the PAT board somehow not responsible because they only acted based on what was told to them.

This common practice does not excuse the board of directors at all. As board members, they have the responsibility to investigate whatever is placed before them and not just accept what the key management tells them as gospel. This was PAT's problem, the board rubber stamped most everything placed before them and didn't bother themselves to take the extra step of questioning it and investigating it to see if they were being sold a bill of goods by the management.

Wake up Kansas City residents

2007-04-08T23:46:00.000-04:00

Kansas City MO - There is a man, Clay Chastain, who is on a one man mission to destroy public transit in Kansas City. He is managed to get the residents to approve a poorly conceived plan at the polls to build a light rail system in Kansas City and he's willing to destroy the city to get it built.

The simple fact is this. Kansas City can't afford light rail and Chastain is unwilling to comprehend that little but very important fact. He has more or less admitted in this report from KMBC-TV9 that he's willing to decimate the bus system to get the line built. He is now demanding that the city take the dedicated transit tax used to operate the bus system to help pay for building the rail line.

He refuses to wait in line with the other cities that are jumping on the rail bandwagon. His precious plan is too important to wait. What a moron. The plan you demand needs Fed money and you refuse to wait. I know why you won't wait too. You know full well the Feds won't approve your Utopian vision, regardless of what party is in control as it is so blatantly flawed that even spendthrift Liberal politicians refuse get behind it.

Then there's this. If the city makes any changes to his plan, he'll sue. If the city doesn't move fast enough for him, he'll sue. If the city doesn't destroy the bus system to pay for his precious rail line, he'll sue. This man isn't just out to destroy the transit system, he's on a crusade to bankrupt and destroy the city.

Simple fact here Clay, the city can't afford your luxury rail line complete with gondola rides, regardless if the voters approved it or not. Your numbers are bad and your planning is greatly flawed and you smooth talked over the major flaws like a professional con man.

Your after one thing Mr. Chastain, a personal legacy that you hope and pray will be viewed in a good light after your passing. All at taxpayer expense I might add. Your as bad as the politicians are with spending other people's money.

There is a well written commentary piece also on this in the Kansas City Star which basically states, it's time to back down. The writer of the commentary piece is correct, Chastain needs to back down but he won't. He's determined to ram-rod his personal rail dream into reality.

What is funny in all of this is that Chastain thinks it's all about him as to why the city and transit system are saying they can't afford it. He stated, that the city won't accept the plan because he thought of it. That right there tells me this is all about his ego and he wants something that can be his legacy. Something that future generations will look at and say "gee, Clay Chastain fought to get this for us". Sorry Clay, it's not going to happen. That brass plaque with your name on it will be ignored by the masses if there's anyone left in the city after it goes bankrupt building your personal rail line.

Considering that Bedford, Virginia is Clay Chastain's current residence, I am curious as to why he is so intent on pushing this plan in Kansas City and why the residents of the city blindly follow this light rail pied-piper. Obviously he no longer lives in KC yet is strutting around as though he owns it. Given the sorry state of our legal system, I'm sure some whacked out Liberal judge will give him the city when Chastain sues to get his penis envy line built.

The citizens of Kansas City need to wake up, get a referendum on the next ballot to shoot Chastain's plan down. Your city will end up being a bankrupt ghost town that has a rail line and gondola ride that sits and looks pretty if his crackpot plan moves forward. It won't be able to run since there won't be money to run it under his poorly thought out plan.

You know, on second thought maybe the residents of Kansas City do deserve what will happen to them if the line is built. They just had to have a new ice arena built and no hockey team to go in it in their attempt to keep up with the Jones'. Perhaps they do deserve every tax increase, boarded up business and job loss they get as the city hemorrhages money and picks the resident's pockets to pay for Chastain's personal legacy that they voted for.

A sweetheart deal in the making

2007-04-06T01:01:00.000-04:00

Houston TX - At taxpayer expense, the Houston Metropolitan Transit Authority (Metro) is spending $7.2 million of taxpayer dollars to buy 2 blocks of land along it's light rail line according to the Houston Chronicle. This land was bought from a developer and will be sold back to the same developer at the same price at a later date.

In short what is happening is that the Metro is holding land, tax free, for a developer that just isn't ready to start building anything yet. The purchase of the property back by the developer will be for the same price and literally amounts to a tax break of millions of dollars to the developer as well as a free loan of taxpayer dollars. The developer will also earn interest on the $7.2 million received from the Metro. Metro will make absolutely no profit from this transaction and millions in lost real estate tax revenue will have to be made up for by the taxpayer.

These types of shady transactions are all too commonplace when it comes to development associated with a transit project. They are never mentioned by the pro-rail crowd either since it makes one question the true cost of having rail. Usually the city does these shady deals but now we're seeing the transit systems themselves getting involved directly.

Transit systems should not be involved in this type of activity. This is not what they were set up to do. It is a waste of taxpayer money that should be stopped immediately. Cities should not be involved in these deals either but I'll save that rant for another day.

This story shows well how public transit systems have lost their focus on what they should be doing, moving people from point A to point B. Millions of tax dollars are spent each year by Metro just to have a real estate department. And guess what, the money to staff and run the office comes out of operating funds.

As I have said many times before, the management in the public transit industry is on a mission to find new ways to spend the taxpayer's money on anything and everything except providing good service and Houston's Metro is proving my theory is factual. As a reward for proving my theory as a fact, the Houston Metropolitan Transit Authority earns itself a well deserved Lance.

RTD could be $1 billion or more in the hole

2007-04-05T03:36:00.000-04:00

Denver CO - The Rocky Mountain News reports that Denver's Fast Trax program could be $1 billion in the hole due to overestimating the revenues from a 0.4 percent tax hike approved in 2004. This is hardly a surprise to me as transit systems, as well as any government entity, always wildly inflate projected revenues and underestimate costs.

The $1 billion number is the projected deficit over 25 years but still accounts for 11 percent of the total. This 11% reduction in the tax hike isn't the only loss either, the dedicated sales tax that pays to operate the system is also taking a $1.63 billion dollar hit over the next 25 years.

This reduced revenue not only effects transit projects, it effects the operation of the transit system. In other words, Denver overestimated the revenues so they could justify building various transit projects and now they'll be screaming soon for more money or they'll cut service and raise fares.

This is a big problem throughout the transit industry. Too many operations rely on wildly inflated revenue projections to justify building rail lines and other costly transit projects. When the economy takes a hit, the hit to the transit system is greatly amplified due to using heavily tweaked revenue and cost projections.

The RTD is on an ambitious building campaign to extend its rail system and they may end up with major problems running what they have in place already. With the projections based on the current as well as planned operation over the next 25 years, this negative change in revenue predictions will have one of two effects as the projections may come down even further.

First is that the Fast Trax program, which millions have been spent on already, may be shelved which would be just tossing tax money away. Second is that they'll continue on building the entire plan, cutting corners where they can, and then do a major hack and slash of service on the bus side of the operation.

The taxpayers need to understand this important point when they hear about their transit system going on a building spree. Projected revenues are always greatly inflated as is projected ridership and project costs are always vastly underestimated. When the public remembers this simple fact, they begin to ask the tough questions about expensive transit projects. By blindly following the politicians and transit officials, you'll end up with a transit system that has a bunch of pretty and expensive transit projects but no money to operate them.

Did you ever notice...

2007-04-04T05:11:00.000-04:00

One thing I've been noticing over the years of collecting the Transit News for the AMCAP web site's discussion board is the number of transit systems that are screaming for money.

What is interesting in this fact is that just about every one of the transit systems that are screaming the loudest for money and threatening massive route cuts and fare hikes all have some form of rail operation. This is not to say the bus only operations aren't in a cash crunch too but they don't seem to be in as critical of a cash flow crunch as those systems that have rail or are hopping on board the rail bandwagon.

This observation tells more than you may think. It shows that rail is draining the treasuries of these public transit operations at a much faster rate. It also shows that systems with bus operations only generally tend to be more resilient to cash flow issues.

Not every system that has rail is on the verge of a complete financial collapse but the vast majority of them are. On the flip side, not every system that is a bus only operation is safe from a financial collapse but it sure seems that those operations that don't have rail aren't in that bad of shape.

While rail has its place, not every city needs it and even fewer can support it. The pro-rail crowd never mentions this little fact in their quest to get every Podunk town, population 2, set up with a rail line.

Rail is inherently expensive to build, operate and maintain. Residents need to start asking the hard questions when politicians and pro-rail activists start pushing rail as the saviour of the city. The main questions need to do with long term costs as well as how many millions of dollars extra will be spent in unrelated costs such as sweetheart deals with developers and other non-direct costs to the project. Most important, don't back down and demand proof of their numbers.

Public transit is at a critical point. The cost to provide service continues to climb and transit systems need to provide the most efficient type of service available if public transit is to survive. Buses provide that efficient service and they have the added benefit of being able to be quickly adjusted to meet demand.