[PRCo] Re: pat__service__cuts__2007.01.23-changed to 2/1/07

[Fred Schneider]

BCC:   Phil and Jack:   What can you tell me about what the cab  
operators pay to serve Newark Airport?   What do you know about the  
value of parking lot revenues to the airport?  fws

Joshua:

Some of this "all the way out to the airport" cost is mere crap.    
"What the traffic will bear" is more like it.   The Philadelphia  
International Airport (PHL) is on the site of the old World War One  
Hog Island Ship Yard.   The area aroung it is fully developed ...  
it's not way out anywhere.   Cross the Schuylkill and you're in the  
Navy Yard and South Philadelphia.   Go North and you're right at the  
end of the 36 Eastwick car line.  For years there was talk of  
reextending the car line (back to Hog Island only now it would be the  
airport).  The trains to the airport run past the end of the trolley  
line.   SEPTA has added extra stops on the line to the Philadelphia  
airport .  They may be in zone 1 or 2 but the airport is  in zone  
6.   And the nearest stop to the airport is only a couple of minutes  
away.   It didn't cost a real fortune to build that line either  
because the track was already there.   It was an existing freight  
branch that was electrified.   The only thing that had to be built  
new was the long curving bridge over I-95 and the Industrial Highway  
into the airport property.

Newark Airport is much the same way ... the people mover to the  
station on Amtrak is new.   We soak the hell out of anybody using  
that particular railroad station.   I think it is $28 on Amtrak and  
$14 on New Jersey Transit.   Probably because the parking lot wants  
$14 a day and we have to keep them in business.    Newark Airport is  
sandwiched in between the New Jersey Turnpike on southeast side and  
US routes 1 and 9 and Interstate 80 and the old PRR mainline on the  
other side.   I think the auto traffic is a lot more important to  
PANYNJ than people coming by public transportation because it  
generates a lot of parking revenue.   I would also be curious to know  
what the Taxis pay to do business at the airport.    Maybe I can find  
out.  I'll send this out by blind carbon and see if it provokes an  
answer.

It's a game we play.   But I will still use the Philadelphia Airport  
station because I would rather leave my car at home if I'm going to  
be in Europe for three weeks and not pay the parking lot charges at PHL.

fws


On Feb 6, 2007, at 7:52 PM, Joshua Dunfield wrote:

>
> John Swindler wrote:
>> It's a six zone trip in Philly.  The soaking of the airline  
>> passengers is
>> even more blatent at Newark.  Some have suggested it is to keep  
>> the cab
>> drivers happy.  I suspect it is a management decision not to let  
>> transit
>> interfere with the parking garage cash flow.
>
> The only thing in Zone 6 is Trenton.  PHL is Zone 5.  Which, including
> "Zone C", is technically the sixth zone.
>
> I don't know, the Newark soaking may be an accurate assessment of what
> the market will bear.
>
>> The 28X comments are interesting.  Busways may be ok, but the  
>> buses still
>> get stuck in rush hour traffic.  Looked at experience with  
>> Overbrook LRT vs
>> South busway schedules at city end, then wondered whose decision  
>> it was to
>> go with an Airport busway (to use original selling point) rather  
>> then light
>> rail.
>
> Building anything, LRT or busway, all the way out to the airport  
> would have
> cost a lot more.  And unlike the busway, you can't get a one-seat  
> ride from
> a "partway" LRT.
>
> The Wabash bridge component would have helped a little, but as I  
> recall, 28Xs
> would still have had to traverse downtown streets.
>
> -j.
>