[PRCo] Re: Heard on PBS

[John Swindler]

>From: Fred Schneider <fschnei at supernet.com>
>Reply-To: pittsburgh-railways at dementia.org
>To: pittsburgh-railways at dementia.org
>Subject: [PRCo] Heard on PBS
>Date: Thu, 03 Mar 2005 08:45:02 -0500
>
>Food for thought.
>Two rather curious things on Morning Edition on National Public Radio
>this morning:
>
>1.  Did not catch all of this ... but it was a proposition to raise the
>cable car fares in San Francisco to $5.00 a pop in September.   If my
>calculations are correct that the average cost of a transit ride
>(including all subsidies) is in the $7 to $8 range, then charging the
>tourists a premium to ride makes sense.  Maybe not the federal share,
>but billing the tourists for the state and local share sounds reasonable
>to me.
>


Aren't cable car cash fares twice the MUNi base fare???   There are a lot of 
locals using the cable cars.   Will there be any change in the policy on day 
and weekly passes???

When we visited a couple years ago, got a day pass at one of the Market St. 
subway stations, used it on the F line to Fisherman's Wharf, then used the 
pass on the cable car to return to Market St.  I don't recall there being 
any supplemental fare on the cable car - just show the pass.

Could also be that $5 is a lot easier to collect then dealing with one 
dollar bills.  I've noticed this on the local bus to Hershey, where the fare 
is $1.85.  The usual cash payment is two $1 bills.  (Most riders use monthly 
passes or 35 ride tickets.)


>2.  The convoluted paths our money takes was exemplified by a
>sponsorship announcement on Morning Edition ... brought to you by the
>American Public Transit Association.  So that's how we get tax money to
>fund public radio?  The government subsidizes transit, which pays dues
>to APTA, which in turn forwards part of it to National Public Radio.
>How many transit properties have we heard complaining that they are
>underfunded?
>


You must be referring to Port Authority Transit, which relys on the public's 
short memory.  The answer to your question was covered in the November 27, 
2002 WTAE-TV's Jim Parson's report.  The title is "Team 4 investigates PAT 
spending" if anyone is interested in looking it up.

John



>Fred Schneider
>
>
>