[PRCo] Re: New Systems

[Fred Schneider]

The difference is that 98% of the public use private transit for  
every trip they take and only 1% to 2% use mass transit for to work  
trips or any trips during the week or month.   Therefore any highway  
is perceived as good by a majority.    Even if it means my house will  
be demolished in the process, most people will think its a good idea  
that I be evicted or at least they will be blase to the whole process  
of my eviction.     But I might just be able to muster support to  
kill a railway if they try to build it through an expensive  
neighborhood.

If I live in Coudersport or Warren or Altoona or Lewistown or Butler  
and my taxes are used for a railway project in Philly, I might complain.

But if I live there and my taxes are used for highways, I won't  
complain because someday I want the people in Pittsburgh and  
Philadelphia to pay to improve my roads.

Therefore highways are good, railways are bad.

Are we playing good cop, bad cop John?


On Mar 17, 2006, at 8:43 AM, John Swindler wrote:

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> And how is this "filling a need" different then a lot of highway  
> projects??
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> John
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>> From: Fred Schneider <fwschneider at comcast.net>
>> Reply-To: pittsburgh-railways at dementia.org
>> To: pittsburgh-railways at dementia.org
>> Subject: [PRCo] New Systems
>> Date: Thu, 16 Mar 2006 17:10:46 -0500
>>
>> I think there may have been some new systems that were honestly
>> created to fill a transit need and others that were built simply
>> because cities A, B and C were getting money and therefore, we too
>> must get some of that green folding stuff.   Of course the planning
>> documents filed with UMTA for the FTA will never honestly disclose
>> the motives.   Therefore we can only go back and look with 20-20
>> hindsight at whether or not the project made any sense at all.
>>
>> PATCO's Lindenwold line made a lot of sense in 1968 and it recovered
>> initially about 95% of its operating costs.  It worked because there
>> was only one congested bridge into downtown Philadelphia.   Its
>> utility has declined because of politically inspired fare increases
>> to support non-transit issues in Philadelphia and because of
>> declining employment in the city over the last 40 years.   Ridership
>> peaked at 40,000 and has declined to 32,600 causing PATCO to use
>> start up riders of 20,000 to make themselves look good today!
>>
>> San Diego's initial line was an excellent choice.   The same goes for
>> the first Houston line.   I would have trouble panning Calgary when
>> you see the share of the riders in the city that use the rail
>> system.   One would have a hard time proving that DC's Metro isn't a
>> success when you find that they are moving nearly a million riders on
>> a typical weekday and are number two in the U. S. to New York City.
>> Why are they successful?  Simply because government tends to locate
>> all its offices near each other where they can have meetings.  And
>> Lobbyists need to be there to tell government types how they want you
>> and I to be governed.  They make downtown work.    Outside of New
>> York and San Francisco, it is probably the only real downtown in the
>> United States.   Maybe we can include Chicago...   Maybe...
>>
>> For those of you who have no idea how bad DC has gotten:   my friend
>> Dick Kotulak (and I think he is on this list) told me two weeks ago
>> that his wife will not come home from Norfolk on weekends any longer
>> to suburban Virginia.   She waits for a lull in traffic in the midday
>> on Monday.   My wife scheduled a Daughters of the American Revolution
>> tour from Lancaster, PA to Williamsburg VA and the bus company routed
>> it northwest to Harrisburg, then southwest on US 15 through
>> Gettysburg to Interstate 64 and then east through Richmond to
>> Williamsburg in order to avoid traffic in Washington.   And I'm
>> seriously considering the next time I have to go to western North
>> Carolina, using the Pennsylvania Turnpike and I-70 to Washington PA
>> then I-79 to I-81 to avoid the traffic that backwashes over onto I-81
>> north of Roanoke.    Why, because metropolitan Washington's
>> population grew by as much as dumping a city of Pittsburgh on it
>> since Metro opened.   (You knew I'd get on topic, didn't you.)   And
>> they're all people dedicated to telling us how to live our lives.
>>
>> On the other hand, if you asked me to justify Edmonton, Tacoma, San
>> Jose, or Los Angeles' Green Line without access to an airport, or
>> Buffalo with passenger counts that don't match what I see with my own
>> eyes, or Miami with 40,000 people on a double ended line in a Metro
>> area the size of Toronto ....   I don't think I really need to
>> elaborate, do I.
>>
>>
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