[PRCo] Re: Pittsburgh 7-Charles Street abandonment

[Shirley Tennyson]

   San Francisco Muni has such high costs that they do not compare with
any other  Light Rail system except Santa Clara where wages are very
high, but that is not the entire reason for the high cost. I do not know
why costs are so high in S.F. and at VTA.
I agree that your "J" line is wasted west of 30th Street or wherever the
wye used to be, except it s a very handy car house access and egress
route.  If I were in charge, only every other car would run the full
length so that operators coud get re- lieved at minimum cost.
Toronto has almost no private right-of- way so their Light Rail averages
less than ten (10) miles per hour. That may be a good number for San
Francisco street operaton, but Pittsburgh (city) averaged 12.5 mph. They
pushed them hard and fast with plenty of recovery time at the end of the
line.                                              Using the same costs
as are typical else where, with the bus at ten (10) miles per hour and
62 passengers, the cost was $ 1.29 per passenger (oversimplified). Light
Rail at $ 150 per car-hour and 130 passen gers in articulateed cars
would be $ 1.15 per passenger, still a small saving even at ten miles
per hour (oversimplified)      While less incentive to invest in LRT
than with higher speed, there are still three major light rail
advantages:                   (1) through running without transfer into
the subway, or the median on the "F" line.     (2) Greatly increased
patronage as evi- denced on your "F" line, or in all of the other light
rail systems with few exceptions.
(3) Fewer injuries per million passenger miles. (I have not checked Muni
for this but that is the national average)                     There may
be a fourth advantage. A college professor has reported, after study
that property values near Dallas Light Rail have increased 25 percent
more than the rest of the city. Here where I iive, with MetroRail,
property taxes dropped forty (40) percent from before rail to afterward
bt we are more like BARTD.
     As for Pittsburgh, You must under- stand that one major local
objection to Sky Bus in 1975 was that it would eliminate too many local
transit stops. Two separate and independant surveys found that 83
percent did not want SkyBus     Since LRT was modernized to keep SkyBus
out, the taxpayers are entitled to their stops. They are not entitled to
block two-car trains. If I were running Pat, I would turn single-car
peak trains at Mt. Lebanon every six minutes, to run i9n front of 42-S
two-car trains following by three minutes. This would provide 30 cars
per hour for 3,,600 passengers 7:45am to 8:45am and 4:45pm to 5:45.
That will cost less and increase revenue. Library as you point ot will
run via Ovebrook at 47-L. Maybe there should be a 47-S from South Hills
Village via Overbrook so that 42-S would have only one-car trains and
47-S would get the two-car peak trains.                 Pittsburgh's
high rail costs can not be blamed on slow speed, or operators on every
car,  Prior to 1997, Pittsburgh charged hugely excessive manpower to
track maintenance that was paid for with capital grants. When Pau;
Skoutelas took over, he reduced the track and wire staff from 155 to 85,
still more than most prop- erties per mile. In 1998, the gear replace-
ment program cost millions but appears to be charged to one year.
Pittsburgh light rail costs are more like San Francisco and Santa Clara,
rather than all of the other systems.  I do not believe they properly
reflect true light rail efficiency, but without an audit, I must rely on
what I just said. No other Siemans car users had the gear problem. We
think Pittsbrgh put a bus man in the shop and he had no clue about the
need to keep wheel diameters in very close tolerances with the monomotor
trucks, which will soon be replaced with traditional American practice
with motors on every axle.  They also bought a wheel trueing machine too
late to avoid the prob- lem.  Years ago they did not check PCC cars for
failing electric circuits resulting in two serious run-aways (brake
failures) and scrapping of the PCC cars.                      In all my
life, P.Ry.Co and Pat running times from Greyhound Staion downtown to
Castle Shannon were 27 minutes inter- urban and 30 minutes local,
perhaps 14 miles per hour local and 15.5 mph inter- urban over some
single track.   With the subway, those times would be four minutes less,
but there was no express or interuban.  With Stage II, it should  be
faster as there will be all double track (a waste) and fewer stops with
less curves, cutting off three minutes.
The last time I rode 42-L in the rush hour, it arrived at Library five
minutes ahead of schedule which was obvioulsy set too slow. P.Ry.Co
time-studied the trips using a supervisor to operate and al- lowing the
signed up regular operator to watch and file a grievance if an corners
were cut. I do not think Pat does that, but I am not sure.
     To my knowledge, Routes  35, 36 and 37, now 42-S and 42-L  never
lost passen- gers after Worfld War II when they carried 24,000 weekday
passengers in 1953 after the interurbans were gone. Mid-day may have
lost riders, offset by more com- muters in the peaks.
(Riders were lost when buses replaced route 42/38 during reconstruction,
but they came back when rail service was restored     Just before the
Sixth Avenue Subway opened, ridership was still 24,000 but bus rdership
had gne way down over the years.
After the "T" got running right about 1988, ridership grew to 36,000 in
1991, but was sharply curtailed by a strike, then the shut down of the
Overbrook Line in 1993. It is back to 24,000 again without Overbrook but
it had been 24,000  with Overbrook before the subway
If I remember anywthing wrong, I am sure you will remind me. I think I
have it right.
E d   T e n n y s o n