Charlotte's historic streetcar to sit

Charlotte NC - The Charlotte Observer reports on the latest boondoggle by the Charlotte Area Transit System (CATS). This time it was restoring a vintage trolley car before checking on the implications of running it with the new LRT cars.

While a noble act and one that as a transit fan of history I truly appreciate, CATS literally blew $180,000 of tax money to restore Charlotte's last remaining true streetcar. Surprisingly, CATS even admits that they didn't bother to assess the risks before spending the money. In other words, they were in such a rush to spend taxpayer money that they didn't think. They only saw the positives through the rose colored glasses they wear when it comes to rail.

Plans were to run the venerable number 85 in service on the new LRT line. The Feds nixed that idea when they found out about it because the old streetcar could not stand up to a collision with the newer and heavier LRT cars.

Now number 85 will sit and be brought only on special occasions and that will be rarely as it will disrupt the LRT line operations. Basically CATS paid good money to make a static exhibit.

While $180,000 is chump change in the public transit industry these days, this story still shows the desire of transit systems to find new ways to spend taxpayer money on everything except providing service. It also shows the lack of planning and foresight of CATS and why there is currently a push to get the dedicated sales tax repealed.

AC Transit's Van Hools drawing debate

Oakland CA - The Inside Bay Area site reports on a bus that you either love or hate, the Van Hool buses that AC Transit currently operates and has an order in for more.

When I first saw these things, my first thought was "they are going to be expensive as hell to repair if damaged". Well it turns out I wasn't far off as drivers have confirmed this at the most recent AC Transit board meeting.

The critics of the Van Hools, many of whom are seniors and disabled individuals, cited at the AC Transit board meeting a jarring ride, seats that are difficult to reach and narrow aisles. Drivers cited a narrow wheelbase that leaves a large overhang which smacks into objects on sidewalks as well as a ride that jostles passengers.

Proponents of the Van Hools also had their say. They love the looks and praised the reduced noise and emissions. They also cited a survey that gave the Van Hool high marks. Personally, I'd like to see that survey as well as the raw demographic data collected on it as more than likely the results are skewed to reflect the view of the transit system.

AC Transit is to get in the first prototype for the second order in May with many modifications made to it. Additional changes can then be done on the rest of the order if needed.

Now for a few comments from myself. First off, screw the looks of the bus. I can agree with the reduced noise and emissions but when one of the top reasons for proponents liking the bus and wanting more of them is strictly the appearance, they probably don't ride much.

Appearance doesn't get many butts in the seat either. Good, clean, convenient and reliable service does. The bus could look like an old Ford Edsel and people will still be willing to ride if the service is good. You don't need a "Euro" look to attract riders unless your trying to attract the snobs that wouldn't ride even if they were paid to ride.

What I found as a rather ignorant comment from Alameda County Supervisor Scott Haggerty was this. When he chided the Van Hool detractors for not working out their issues with the elected AC Transit board. Excuse me Mr. Haggerty but I've been reading numerous news reports on their attempts at trying to work things out with the board for 5 years over the various issues with the buses. Perhaps you just closed your ears to their attempts and if the AC Transit board is anything like the board of directors at my transit system, the critics would just be ignored anyway.

Hopefully AC Transit will make the needed modifications to settle this issue.

Is Charlotte next on the transit chopping block?

Charlotte NC - The Charlotte Area Transit System (CATS) gave its story of doom and gloom to the public on the subject of the effort to repeal the half cent, transit dedicated, sales tax. The Charlotte Observer reports on this as well as the retort by critics.

CATS is threatening massive route cuts and higher property taxes if the half cent tax is repealed. The critics say this is simply scare tactics. The critics of CATS may have a big surprise coming.

The big problem here is that the rail line is almost complete so guess what, it has to run or a huge repayment of funds to the Feds will have to occur. If the line doesn't run, Charlotte is on the hook for over $300 million that must be repaid (the FTA requires immediate lump sum reimbursement) and I can guarantee you, that line is going to run and the bus service will ultimately suffer to keep the rail line running.

The critics waited way too long to try and do something to stop the line. Hell, many opposed to the rail line now were in favor of it initially. There are also questions about how the signatures on the petitions to repeal the sales tax were obtained which puts a cloud over the critics.

This situation wouldn't be occurring if CATS didn't just have to have expensive rail toys to play with. Now that they have their toys and have the pro-rail crowd wetting their pants in joy over a new rail operation starting up soon, it has to be paid for. The repeal of the dedicated transit tax is a stupid move by the opponents of the system and I truly question why they waited so long to act. They fail to understand that they'll just pay for the line through higher property taxes and higher rental payments for those that rent.

As far as the CATS proposals, they are putting forth the doomsday plans to the public. Yes, it is a scare tactic to a point but cuts will come if the dedicated funding source that provides 60% of it's operating money is taken away. Simply hiking fares won't cover the loss of the funding. Property owners will fight getting their taxes raised but the taxes will go up but not enough to cover the shortfall of repealing the dedicated tax. The critics of CATS are totally wrong to try and pull the funding from the transit system at this late date. It smacks of a child that wants his way throwing a temper tantrum.

What is needed is to pressure the politicians, the same ones that the critics most likely voted for, to stop CATS from continuing with the planning for the expansion of the rail line when the first line hasn't even proven itself yet. The critics that are claiming CATS is just using scare tactics and demand that the dedicated sales tax be repealed will be the first ones whining when cuts do happen and property taxes go up.

While I agree CATS needs to straighten itself out, especially in management, the critics are going about trying to correct the problems in completely the wrong way.

If the critics can get the dedicated sales tax reversed on the ballot, why didn't they just have a ballot initiative saying no more rail after this? After all, the planning of the expansion of the rail system is what got this tax revolt started in the first place.

What is happening is Charlotte is rather confusing and becoming more clouded as time moves on as more and more reasons are being tossed into the pot as to why the tax should be repealed. All I know from following this story for a while is that the critics blew it by waiting so long to do anything. Now it's too late and anything done will ultimately hurt the public. Not just those that depend on transit but all of the residents since repealing the tax at this time will put a stranglehold on a big part of Charlotte's economic engine.

I've been there and done that. Pittsburgh, after years of scare tactics to get money, is finally making massive service cuts (finalized and going into effect in June 2007). Those that say transit systems won't do massive cuts only need to look at Pittsburgh to see that times have changed. Transit systems can't just make threats of cuts anymore, they have to do it as money is tight. Charlotte residents appear to be on the verge of learning a new tactic in public transit, threats can be real.

Low bidder needs to meet the bid requirements

St. Paul MN - A battle is brewing in Minneapolis - St. Paul over a bus order that was awarded to Gillig Corporation rather than New Flyer Industries (NFI) who was the low bidder for the order. How this is being dealt with by the politicians shows a problem that can effect every transit system.

Minnesota State Senator Tarryl Clark (D) has introduced a bill that would force the Metropolitan Council to award the bid to the low bidder, NFI.

Sounds good right? Awarding the bid to the manufacturer that can supply the buses at the lowest cost is how it should be done *but*, there's a hitch. NFI didn't meet the bid specifications.

The bid specs clearly stated that there was to be a 2 year warranty. NFI refuses to honor a 2 year warranty and would only offer a 1 year warranty with conditions. This really doesn't surprise me as NFI has had issues in the past with other transit systems that required a performance bond be posted, something NFI refuses to do and why my local transit system doesn't have any NFI buses running around.

Another issue in the request for bid was training. While this issue is cloudy as the bid asked for 3,000 hours and NFI stated a dollar amount of training it would provide. They could net out but the warranty issue is extremely critical.

While the low bidder should get the contract, the simple fact that NFI didn't meet the criteria, especially on the warranty, should disqualify them. In most cases, it would however NFI has a plant in Minnesota and the NFI union and politicians are howling over this and trying to force the system to award the bid to NFI.

The big problem here is that political muscle is going to be used to award a contract to a bidder that did not meet the bid requirements. This could spell problems down the road for Minnesota transit systems where NFI could low ball the bid without meeting any of the requirements. "Warranty? What warranty? There's no stinkin' warranty".

This is almost an exact opposite of a similar issue in Broward County, FL. There, NABI was low bidder and met the requirements but transit officials kept trying to award the bid to NFI. Here, NFI was the low bidder but failed to meet the bid requirements. If NFI met the bid criteria or was off by a trivial issue, I would be on the Metropolitan Council's case for awarding the bid to Gillig but a warranty is hardly a trivial issue.

Government needs to watch themselves when they push bills such as what Senator Tarryl Clark is putting forth. These types of knee jerk reaction bills tend to back fire badly in the long term and in this case, it'll be all of the transit systems in Minnesota that suffer when it does back fire.

SEPTA is "short shrifted" according to one columnist

Philadelphia PA - The writer of a commentary in the Philadelphia Inquirer obviously hasn't been west of the Allegheny Mountains. I was chuckling while reading Mark Bowden's commentary piece which was claiming that SEPTA was the most "short shrifted" transit system in the United States.

All Mr. Bowden needs to do is take a trip from Philadelphia over to the neglected Pittsburgh area if he wants to experience a short shrifted transit system, both financially and politically. I am still questioning how he can say SEPTA is being shorted when they receive the lion's share of state operating funding.

Approximately 75% of the state operating funding goes to SEPTA. Pittsburgh receives only about 23% with the remaining paltry 2% being split up among every other transit system in the state. SEPTA is short shrifted? Hardly.

In just about every state-wide expenditure, transit or not, the Philadelphia region receives the lions share of the payout. The reason? They have a more population as well as more powerful politicians. Mr. Bowden would probably still complain even if Philadelphia received 100% of the money.

As far as politically, SEPTA hasn't had multiple attempts by politicians to ban buses from the streets of the Center City of Philadelphia as has been pondered by politicians in Pittsburgh when they have attempted to ban buses from Downtown on multiple occasions over the years.

While I agree with Mr. Bowden that public transit across the country gets "short shrifted" as he puts it, SEPTA isn't getting the shaft as bad as he's making out in his article. Please pay Pittsburgh a visit some day and stay for a few weeks to experience PAT in all its glory. You'll leave with a whole new appreciation for SEPTA.

Some frog marching needs to occur at PAT

Pittsburgh PA - As Pennsylvania State Attorney General Jack Wagner (D) continues to dig into the finances of the Port Authority of Allegheny County (PAT), more waste is being uncovered. Lucrative and very questionable payments to top executives continue to be uncovered which are "legal" but highly unethical.

Schemes such as buying back time from other public sector jobs and rolling that time into the PAT pension plan. Double dipping into the pension plan while being reimbursed, with interest, for the initial contribution into the plan. Excessive payments for moving expenses for the new Executive Director. $45 grand of taxpayer money to move??? Get real. Rent a U-Haul Steve and put you and your family to work carrying furniture.

If these things happened in private industry, you'd see key executives being taken to court, tried and convicted. In fact this does happen in private industry and many key executives did the frog march and are now cooling their heels in prison. It most likely won't happen in this case as the local politicians will try to bury this all to protect their personal hides.

Here are just two reports over the past few days dealing with the PAT situation (story 1 - story 2). Torrid tales of management in the public sector getting rich by raping the taxpayer. Oh, and guess what folks, most of the individuals involved in this waste are die-hard Democrats. You know, the party of the working man that always accuses the "evil" Republicans of doing these types of acts.

It's not just upper management, as well as the two former PAT Executive Directors, that needs to be taken to court over this either. The PAT Board of Directors needs to be hauled into court as well as they approved all this nonsense. Again, it probably won't happen as this is a government agency and politicians will be covering their butts.

What is truly sad about all of this is that it isn't limited to just PAT. This is a problem nationwide and extends far outside of the public transit industry. Almost every governmental agency has problems such as this. The misuse of pension plans and raiding the agency is far more common in the public sector than it is in the private sector but the liberal media focuses on the private sector as it tends to be where the "evil" Republicans are. Public sector management tends to have more Democrats in charge.

I have earned a new respect for Jack Wagner over his rabid determination to show the waste at PAT. It's not something I really expected from a Democrat. Maybe there is some hope for that party after all.

Proposal to replace SORTA being floated

Cincinnati OH - The Cincinnati Post reports on a proposal for a regional transit panel to replace the existing Southwest Regional Transit Authority (SORTA) board which oversees the Cincinnati Metro.

Hamilton County Commissioner Todd Portune believes that a new panel is needed to replace SORTA, which focuses on Cincinnati, so that the entire tri-state area is covered. A daunting venture at best.

There are many problems involved in a multi-state regional system, primarily the different laws that are in place in each state. Secondly and probably more important is that you then open the agency up to accusations of favoritism of one state over another. These two issues tend to bog down multi-state operations and ultimately make the transit operation less efficient and more costly.

Dealing with different states instantly turns the process of the proposed panel that should deal with transit issues into nothing but politics. Fights over which state should benefit from funding and over revenues raised in one state being used in another state will be common. Should the smaller Northern Kentucky area and even smaller Southeastern Indiana area pay as much as Southwestern Ohio? If so, will they get the same services and if not, why should they pay more? Criticism of the board over questions like that will be common.

While I agree with Portune that SORTA is not effectively set up, his proposed regional umbrella agency will ultimately be more unwieldy and much less effective in the long term than the current SORTA set up is now.

Portune's goal is a good one, better transit that is coordinated. Much like any lofty goal however, the plan is filled with problems that will ultimately make things worse. The agency will be riddled with internal problems due to the politics of it all and that will give the new agency a public relations black eye.

In the end, it will be the rider that suffers from the politics of any multi-state regional transit board. SORTA needs looked at and streamlined but don't change it into a multi-state political boxing ring.

...the cost continues to add up

Honolulu HI - The Honolulu Advertiser reports on yet another undisclosed cost for Mayor Mufi Hannemann's legacy rail project. A $1 million dollar study to try and determine the effects of the new rail line on city services.

First off, this study should have been done prior to approving the line. The simple fact that it isn't done yet shows how poorly planned the project is. In Mufi's rush to ram his legacy through, he didn't see much of anything except a Utopian vision through his rose colored glasses.

As I mentioned in another earlier Laurels & Lances article, charges such as this are just the tip of the iceberg in regard to nickle and diming the taxpayers with additional costs that will not show up in the total cost for the rail line. Millions more of the taxpayer's money will be spent before the first spade of dirt is turned over on the project. By the time the line is opened, billions of tax dollars will have been spent on the project which will not show on the total cost of the project since they will be considered indirect costs.

Don't think this project and the nickel and diming just effects residents of Honolulu. It effects every taxpayer in the United States. Federal money is being used and Mufi is going to try and pass this latest cost off to the Federal funding which is being applied for.

The pro-rail crowd will never acknowledge things like a $500 million line can actually costs over a billion dollars when all is said and done. They ignore the non-direct costs as though they don't exist and make excuses for direct costs that were not originally reported.

These types of projects need to be much more difficult to obtain funding for. Too many cities have already or are attempting to jump on the rail bandwagon and have no clue as to the true costs. Politicians only see a personal legacy for themselves and the pro-rail crowd spins rail as though it was a gift sent from God.

People need to wake up to reality and soon.

Hybrids too costly

Fort McMurray AB - I came across a news story from the Fort McMurray Today news site which I found interesting. It is basically a discussion over hybrid buses and the costs to buy and operate. It is especially interesting as this is a very small operation and one mistake can prove very costly.

The debate in Fort McMurray revolves around the recent purchase of 3 diesel buses which the city opted for rather than purchasing 1 hybrid bus and 1 diesel. Mayor Melissa Blake correctly stated "In the end, you simply can’t justify the hybrid bus when we can get two (regular) buses for the same price". However, Councilor Carolyn Slade insists that the hybrid would save money in the long term.

Sorry Ms. Slade, the hybrid won't do anything except raise your long term costs to operate, especially given the Canadian tendency to hang onto buses for 20 to 30 years. The current hybrid technology still is in its infancy and has not been proven over a long period. Considering the fact that most manufacturers stop producing parts for buses now after 10 years, how in the world are you going to get the parts for it when the bus is 20 plus years old? Many buses today in the United States (including those manufactured by Canadian firms) wear out before their 12 years old and many get scrapped because you can't get the electronics for them any longer.

This rush to jump on the environmentalist bandwagon by transit systems is going to prove costly in the long term, especially for small systems like Fort McMurray. Clean diesel technology works well and is far less costly in both the short and long term for purchasing and maintaining. Replacing Fort McMurray's diesel fleet with hybrids won't make any difference at all in the air quality but it will hurt the finances of the transit system from the purchase date all the way through the life cycle of the bus.

In addition, hybrids actually cause more damage to the environment to manufacture and dispose of than does the lowly diesel. That's a dirty little secret that the enviro-weenies that are trying to price public transit out of existence don't want you to know.

As far as efficiency, the much touted mileage and fuel savings are greatly exaggerated. You save more petroleum fuel by switching to bio-diesel than you do by paying for hybrid technology. Not to say bio-diesel is the best choice out there as it has its issues as well but it is far cheaper in the long term than buying a hybrid bus and having to maintain it.

Mayor Melissa Blake earns a Laurel for taking her position as the steward of the taxpayer's money seriously and making the right choice. Those 3 diesel buses will serve the city better as it will allow more people to benefit and it cost less in both the short and long term than rushing out to jump on the enviro-bandwagon with hybrid buses.

This shouldn't surprise anyone

Miami Fl - The Miami Herald reported on the recent firing of Roosevelt Bradley, head of the Miami-Dade Metro. The scandals swirling around Bradley shouldn't surprise anyone out there since this type of situation is all too common within public transit circles.

One scandal involved consultants. It's hard to blame Bradley or any other head of public transit on this one. Consultants routinely pull the bait and switch once they are contracted and there isn't much you can do since the consultants on transit projects pretty much have free reign during their contract and the officials in charge rarely will force their hand since they have little clue as to what the consultants are talking about. Consultants are perhaps the worst problem public transit has for inflating prices.

Another scandal involves nepotism. An age old problem and it's not limited to the public sector. In a public agency however, it shouldn't be allowed but the practice is often ignored to the detriment of the bottom line of the operation. Friends, family, former colleagues often follow new managers into the public agencies and many aren't qualified.

What Bradley did was actually no different than what occurs in most medium to large transit systems. Questionable contracts and nepotism? That seems to be the status-quo for public transit these days (as well as any public agency). Bradley was just unfortunate and got caught at it. I guess he needed more practice of being at the top before actually playing the game.