CPI changes

[Fred W. Schneider III]

John asks what about today?  How about York, Pennsylvania, John, where YATA has
spent tremendous sums marketing a name change to RABBITTRANSIT.  I must have
seen a dozen billboards today advertising a service that a portion of the public
so small to be noticed uses it that we might just as well say it is useless.  I
was talking today to a friend who is on the transit agency board in York about
their decision to use Rabbit in a name ... seemed somewhat sexist to me ...
something similar to the old airline campaign (was it Eastern?) that went
something to the effect," I'm Melinda, Fly me to Miami."  How about, "I'm
thumper.  Ride me to the Mall."  Larry, Curly and Moe aren't dead.  Not by a
long shot.

John Swindler wrote:

> Fred W. Schneider III commented:
>
> >My favorite story was his about a transit executive preparing for a board
> >meeting by watching Three Stooges comedies ... it was saying that business
> >reality has no place at all in transit any longer.  Because of the
> >operating subsidies and capital grants, and increasing inefficiency,
> >transit costs have increased 50 times while the CPI has gone up 7 times
> >since 1950.  This is critical to our understanding.
>
> As clarification, it was a recently retired executive director of a large
> multi-modal transit system who claimed that he and the operating managers
> watched Three Stooges comedies before board meetings because YOUR local
> politicans have appointed "Larry, Curly and Moe" to YOUR local transit
> systems' board of directors.  Something to keep in mind next time you read a
> newspaper account about how a transit board is spending YOUR tax dollars.
>
> This retired executive also had some interesting comments (which people
> didn't like to hear) about the current state of transit management.
> Essentually, to survive beyond the 1960s, transit had to "get in bed" with
> politicians and labor to secure tax dollars.  The result has been that "the
> price of survival has ruined transit management".
>
> One of his examples was the 1,000 vehicle Pennsylvania bus pool purchase of
> the early 1980s.  The idea was for the state/PennDOT to pool transit bus
> purchases from the state's transit authorities to attract a builder to
> locate in PA.(ie, jobs)  Except PA never even got a reliable bus, insteading
> ending up with the Neoplan "Pennliners".  Premature rusting of an A-frame
> craddle in the engine compartment required millions wasted on rebuilding.
> But his real story was that all the transit managers in PA dutifully lined
> up for this bus-pool purchase with one exception.  Bud Weeks at CAT in
> Harrisburg was originally from ATE Management, which was similar to National
> City Lines.  Instead, CAT rejected the state money and used local funds to
> overhaul a group of ten-year old GM buses.  Today, you won't find any of
> these "Pennliner" (rustliners?) buses on the streets of PA, but Harrisburg
> still uses many of these now-25 year old GM buses in both peak and off-peak.
>
> To get back on topic, much as many railfans would disagree, ATE and National
> City Lines were professional managers.  So was West Penn and probably
> Pittsburgh Railways.  But what about today?????  Yes, we have professional
> fund raisers, and they are needed, but what about the future of light rail
> operations, maintenance and planning?  Or isn't it important anymore because
> of the auto???
>
> Just some clarification, further comments and still unanswered questions.
>
> John S.
>
> ________________________________________________________________________
> Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com