[PRCo] Re: "sawmills" - correction

[Shirley Tennyson]

 Thank you for  the report from Fred Schneider.
   Don Duke is wrong. The Blue Line hauls 70,000 per weekday, 73,000
before the strike and fare increase  Pacific Electric hauled 17,000 to
Long Beach in 1960.
    Light Rail in LA is not all  captive riders as they did  not have
that many passengers on the previous buses.  LeRoy Demery has all of the
data year by year,   The Red Line is not 120,000.  They said it was
135,000 but that was an office error.   The honest correct count was
98,000, but they did have 15,000 more before the Rapid Bus # 720 on
Wilshire. When the Red Line was new, they gave free transfers from buses
to it but bus-to-bus cost a quarter.  With Rapid Bus, they removed the
free subway tranfers and gave them to the bus line, 25 miles long.  That
permitted them to brag they got forty percent more riders (out of the
subway mostly)  It ran their costs up  $ 12 million an year, hennce the
fare increase. 
    Dallas did not eliminate  their street cars because of suburban
expansion. I was a stockholder of Dallas Ry & Terminal at the time. The
Annual Report makes it very clear. I still have it.  Post WWII inflation
had pushed wages and costs way up so fare increases were needed  The
City Council was not subtle.  No fare increase unless you abandon street
cars, even new ones, They had 25 PCC. Boston got them.   Ridership
evaporated despite the buses into the suburbs.  Now it has come back.
                  E d    T e n n y s o n