Let them eat cake at the taxpayers expense

Santa Clara CA - The InsideBayArea news site had a little article showing how the taxpayers are further being fleeced by wasteful transit agencies.

In the report, we hear of the Santa Clara Valley Transit Authority (VTA) using tax money for cakes for various parties at the agency.

I must ask this. Why are taxpayers paying for cakes for various office parties? Let me tell you how it's done in the private sector. Employees make a voluntary collection and go out and buy a cake. The traditional manner of doing this seems to be lost on the bureaucratic leeches in government agencies.

While 20 to 30 cakes a year may not add up to very much in the big picture, they shouldn't be paid for with operating money or any other tax money. This is a transit system, not Party Central which it seems the VTA is turning into.

What is funny in this article is the complicated bidding procedure to get the cakes. The bidding procedure was a whopping 33 pages long!

What ultimately happens is that a $20 cake that could be purchased by taking up a collection among the employees now can cost thousands of dollars due to the bureaucratic red tape and staff needed to put the cake up for bid, review the bids and award the cake to the lowest bidder. The process also involved a "tasting panel" who's job it was to determine the best tasting cake.

The only high point is that there were no bidders so the VTA has to run out to get a cake now when needed, most likely with taxpayer's money however. At least it will reduce the cost of the cake to the taxpayer since there won't be miles of red tape to wade through to get one like before.

The VTA earns a Lance for wasting tax money. If you want to have a cake, take up a collection among the employees like is done in offices across the country and stop sponging off the taxpayers. People at the VTA obviously have way too much time on their hands and not near enough work to do if they can come up with ridiculous regulations like this one. And Liberals think we need even more government involvement in our lives...

Too many riders...Not

Las Vegas NV - The Las Vegas monorail that officials said would be so popular is continually losing ridership and has posted it's all-time low ridership numbers in December.

The Las Vegas Sun reports on this and the fact that Clark County is planning on pumping more tax money into the troublesome monorail to extend it in hopes it will increase ridership.

In a poor attempt to pass the buck on why ridership is low on the monorail, the Las Vegas Monorail Company (a private entity that is funded by public tax dollars) is blaming a fare hike and the local bus system for the ridership decline.

Now wait a minute. I thought nobody wanted to ride in smelly old buses. People only want to ride in expensive toys like rail lines, maglevs and monorails. Well that's what we always hear isn't it? Then why doesn't the monorail have record high ridership levels then?

So now, the push is on to make the taxpayers foot the bill to expand a rather useless monorail line in hopes it will attract more riders. It's the typical liberal way of doing things, if it doesn't work then it didn't have enough tax money pumped into it.

Some in Miami are determined to spend money

Miami FL - The Miami Herald had a story on 01/30/07 telling the saga of trying to get streetcars in Miami. Apparently there were some sane people on the City Commission that have stalled Mayor Manny Diaz's (of course it's a Mayor who wants a legacy for himself) plan for streetcars.

Like most of the other streetcar proposals out there, this is strictly for development purposes as well as for a political legacy for the Mayor.

I'm beginning to wonder if there are any places in the United States that doesn't have some form of streetcar plan. There hasn't been one plan I have seen yet that uses the streetcar for actual transportation purposes. Every plan I've seen is designed to use it to fuel development at the cost of taxpayers who have to pay for both the streetcar as well as the development.

I've written so often about this subject that you can easily find more cities that are scrambling to jump on the rail bandwagon on this blog.

Take a look at the past to see the future

Pittsburgh PA - The Port Authority of Allegheny County (PAT) has more advice coming in from people than it can handle these days, myself included in the offering of opinions.

One thing I have noticed in many of the various commentaries on what PAT should do is this. Everyone is busy looking at how other cities run transit and nobody looks to PAT's past to see that their advice has already been tried and it failed, multiple times.

There have been many "proposals" from concerned citizens that PAT should use a multiple hub and spoke system with local community routes feeding main trunk routes to maintain local service while cutting down on the perceived duplicate service along major corridors. It sounds logical but guess what? It's been tried at PAT for decades and the concept has never done well.

Bellevue, Coraopolis, Monroeville, McKeesport, the LRT line and the list goes on. From the first day of operation in 1964, PAT has had various routes that were feeder routes that circled the local community to feed the main trunk routes yet most are history today for one simple reason: Few people would ride the local community routes.

A recent article in the Sunday Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (file is in PDF) that was more or less made into a cartoon strip urged PAT to adopt a circular route set up to save the system and presented it as though it was some kind of new idea. The authors of this strip failed to look back to the past. If they did, they would see that it has been tried in Pittsburgh many times and failed just about every time it was tried.

The Pittsburgh area has a unique topography and road layout that literally funnels everything through narrow corridors. It is impossible to eliminate the duplicate service on the main trunk routes within the city limits. The city residents are the main complainers about duplicate service within these corridors and that is because they fail to understand that once out of the city limits, these "duplicate" routes branch out to various suburban communities.

I will always maintain that PAT needs to look at each route uniquely. They need to extend running times between various trips on many routes and eliminate individual trips if they are not being utilized. The topography and road layout of the region makes it so you can't just eliminate a route because the next nearest bus is only a half mile away as the crow flies. In reality, that half mile translates to miles when having to walk to the nearest route due to the twisting and winding roads.

So please, all of the people that trumpet what works elsewhere as the cure-all to PAT's problems, do some research on PAT's history first. In most cases, you'll find that it has already been tried and failed.

Smartcard a flop, says bus industry

Sydney Australia - The Sydney Morning Herald has a story on the problems of the roll out of the Smartcard technology in the Sydney area. Much of it mirrors the roll out issues for US transit systems.

US systems have been plagued with issues related to Smartcard technology as well. From card readers simply rejecting the card to glitches that effect how much money is on the card, I really believe that this is another attempt at rolling out technology before its time.

While the technology has become more reliable, it still is problem plagued and costs the US transit systems millions of dollars annually.

I do see the need for such technology but I will always maintain that it was introduced before it was ready to be introduced. Most every transit system that implements such a system ends up with years of delays in implementation and years of ironing out the problems once it is introduced.

Where are the leaders at?

Pittsburgh PA - More on the Port Authority of Allegheny County (PAT) and the fiscal saga they are in was reported in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. It brings up a very important point which is where are the business, civic and political leaders at the public hearings?

While transit may seem an unimportant issue to business, civic and political leaders, it effects them as much as it does the daily transit rider. They should be present so they understand the impact on the proposed route cuts and how it will effect them.

PAT's Executive Director, Steve Bland, asked that very point. "It's time for [leaders] to step up," he said. "I don't know that they appreciate the impact [of public transit] on the community, business and the economy."

What the recent transplant from Albany is tasting is a bit of Pittsburgh. If it doesn't involve sports, the arts or pandering to the United Way, screw it. I grew up in and continue to live in the Pittsburgh area so I am more than qualified to say that the entire Western Pennsylvania area is totally backwards in its thinking and in its priorities. This goes from the individuals that live here all the way up the ladder to business and politics. It's no wonder the Western Pennsylvania region continues to stagnate, and even slip downhill further, while other areas of the country are moving forward.

In most every other city, business, civic and political leaders step up when it comes to public transit. Generally, they understand the importance of public transit to the region's economy. Not in Pittsburgh. From a City Council that periodically floats bills to ban buses from downtown to businesses that fail to even try to remotely assist the employees that depend on public transit through scheduling or reduced cost transit passes that literally don't cost the employer more than a few cents an employee, you have all the ingredients of a city that doesn't have a clue to the importance of public transit to the well being of the area.

Granted, PAT has been crying wolf on this for several years in a row now and perhaps the leaders are just tired of hearing it. Earlier doomsday plans did bring in a bit more input from the community leaders than the current plan is but it was still way under what you get in many other areas of the country.

If you tax for rail, some should go to buses

Milwaukee WI - The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports on a symbolic vote by the Milwaukee Common Council which is sure to ruffle the feathers of pro-rail advocates.

In the strictly symbolic vote, the council wants part of any tax for the proposed Kenosha-Racine-Milwaukee rail link to be reserved for the County's bus operation.

It's good to see some politicians starting to wake up to the fact that you can't just focus on rail when the bus system is faltering. All too often, the bus service is ignored in any rail proposal funding.

While the vote is meaningless in the long run, it does show that some out there are actually trying to look at the whole public transportation picture rather than just a narrow aspect of it.

Another unneeded trolley proposal

Lancaster PA - From a city that has a transit system screaming for more operating funds or they'll have to cut service and raise fares, we have yet another mayor looking for a political legacy by trying to saddle the transit operation with an unneeded transit project. The Lancaster New Era reports on this latest trolley plan.

They will be applying for Federal funding in the coming weeks, already have state funding secured from Governor "Fast Eddie" Rendell yet have no idea if people will even ride the line.

And again, it's the same old reasons being cited from the pro-rail handbook. Cleaner air, less congestion and all the development that will happen. The Lancaster plan is doing exactly what shouldn't be done which is to literally build the line in an empty field and hope people will come.

There are no real plans to pay for the operation of the line. One can easily figure out that Lancaster's Mayor, Rick Gray, is planning on dumping the trolley line onto the local transit system as soon as possible.

The fact that Lancaster's TA is screaming for more operating money, the last thing they need saddled with is an expensive toy that is designed strictly for development purposes. That development, I might add, will be heavily taxpayer subsidized as is the case with just about all of the other rail development and is never admitted until it's too late to stop the project.

The pro-rail crowd is already rallying around this plan since it will slap a rail line down. The rhetoric has already started about how much better things will be if the residents just support this plan. What they aren't telling the residents is that their taxes will skyrocket to help pay for it.

I've ridden Lancaster's buses and they don't have riders tripping themselves to get on board. Building a trolley line that runs in empty fields isn't going to boost ridership on the system. All that will happen is that bus service will be cut so that the trolley line (which has to run since Fed money is involved) can be operated.

A Lance goes out to Lancaster Mayor Rick Gray for pushing a project that is designed more for political legacy than moving people. It won't bring the development he claims unless he forces the taxpayers to heavily subsidize private developers through tax breaks, grants and often unpaid low interest loans.

LTD's on-time rules gives it's new EmX a black eye

Eugene OR - A story in the News-Review tells of a problem I knew was going to happen on Lane Transit District's (LTD) new EmX Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) system.

The tight schedules the LTD has for their EmX line simply don't allow for any type of delay. Well, what happened on Tuesday, January 25th on the EmX line shows that they need to rethink their schedule.

A father took his young kids on a ride on the new EmX line and while departing the bus, the doors closed and his 5 year old son and 2 year old daughter were on the outside while he was on the inside. Even through pleas of the father and other riders, the driver followed the rules and refused to stop and let the father off until the next stop which is 2 blocks away.

The driver is getting the bulk of the blame in this mess however, the LTD should be where the bulk of the blame is directed at. If the driver did what common sense called for, he would have risked his job for failing to obey the rules and delaying the precisely timed route.

The issue in this is the precision timing of the route that does not allow for any delays. You also have the fact that many of the stops along the line are left hand station stops along a busy road median strip and once you pull out of the station, it is unsafe to discharge anyone.

The LTD needs to allow for delays in service. The situation that happened on Tuesday should not be allowed to happen again because the drivers have to meet a strict schedule. I called this problem of not allowing for delays in an earlier Laurels & Lances column.

The LTD needs to remember that delays happen and drivers need to be allowed to be able to make judgement calls without fear of any reprimand being placed in his employee file.

At least both kids were safely reunited with the father so there is a good ending to that part.

PAT riders blast route cut plan

Pittsburgh PA - Two samplings of the coverage of the first route cut hearings for the Port Authority of Allegheny County (PAT) appeared in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. It wasn't a pretty sight and left transit and Allegheny County officials squirming in their chairs.

There were the typical sob stories that accompany every public hearing for route cuts and fare hikes however, this time there were also pointed statements directed at the management of the system, the County as well as the method used to come up with the route cut plan.

The big issue at the first public hearing is the fact that the PAT route cut plan will literally isolate entire neighborhoods that do rely on public transit. I have maintained from the first time I saw the proposed route cut list that PAT was performing a hack and slash to the service rather than a structured attempt to "right size" the service as they were claiming.

PAT and County officials have claimed that these cuts are needed to "right size" the system and should have been done all along for the past 20 years. While I agree that PAT should have been on top of their routes and weeding out the non performing routes, what they are proposing is to eliminate many routes that do perform decently. What PAT and County officials fail to understand is that you can't do 20 years worth of service cuts overnight and you can't use the "as the crow flies" type of distance measurement which they did in coming up with this poorly conceived plan.

Many things which I have long said should be done were brought up in the first public hearing. Items such as extending running times on routes so that instead of running every 20 minutes, you run every 40 minutes as well as trimming non-performing trips from routes as well as dealing with the core issues within PAT's management structure.

It is interesting to note that Allegheny County Chief Executive, Dan Onorato, failed to attend the hearing and sent a representative instead. Given that Mr. Onorato has been so vocal about that these cuts will happen even if the State gives PAT all the money they need, I find it interesting that he didn't attend. Onorato should be required to attend these hearings given that he personally is pushing for this hack and slash plan to go through as is.

PAT and County officials will get more of an ear beating as 7 more public hearings are scheduled through February 7. Hopefully, PAT will see the error of their hack and slash plan and go back to the drawing board and come up with a more structured plan to deal with the situation.