[PRCo] Re: Fwd: HELP needed - to explain ridership drop in 7 cities

[Herb Brannon]

That's odd. RTA figures (not saying that those figures are correct or perhaps a different 'formula' was used to compile them) indicate that ridership has risen annually since Jan 2002.Ridership seemed to take a big nosedive, along with everything else, after the September 11th attacks. The ridership increases took place on Fixed Route Bus, All Rail Lines, and Community Circulator Routes. It is true, however, that service levels are no where near what they were 10 or 15 years ago.
   
   
  After the 9/11 business RTA began cutting routes, service, and jobs. I had just come back to Cleveland, from Orlando in April 2001. I was hired right back by RTA but had to start over as a part-time operator. During my first period of employment with RTA (1993 to 1996) I was part-time for one year and then became full-time. After I returned in 2001 I stayed part-time until June, 2004 when I became full-time. This was a personal economic disaster for me and others in the same boat as me. Many operators were laid off and many were transfered from Full-time BACK to Part-time. Perhaps a lot of this decline is do to the crap started, mainly by the federal government, after 9/11.
"James B. Holland" <PRCoPCC at P-R-Co.com> wrote:
  --- In LRPPro at yahos.com, Nawdry wrote:

I'm pulling together a response to a recent contention of Randal
O'Toole - and I could use some help from others on this list (as I
indicate below).

In a talk delivered to a forum sponsored by the extremist-right John
Locke Foundation in Charlotte on Oct. 10th, O'Toole claimed:

>>
So expensive are rail lines to build, maintain and operate that most
rail regions have, at some point, been forced to significantly raise
fares and/or curtail bus services, often leading to a loss of transit
riders. Thanks in part to the high cost of rails, transit systems in
Atlanta, Baltimore, Buffalo, Chicago, Cleveland, Philadelphia,
Pittsburgh, St.Louis, and the San Francisco Bay Area carried fewer
riders in 2005 than two decades before.
<<

This prompted me to look into the ridership situation in these cities.
I don't have reports for 1985, but I do have the Sec. 15 reports for
1983, so I used those, and compared with the NTD for 2005 - thus it's
2 decades and 2 years. Here's what I found...

(Trips = rider-trips, or boardings, in millions)

City ... 1983 trips ... 2005 trips ... % change

Atlanta ... 124.8 ... 142.4 ... 13.9% increase (refutes O'Toole)

Baltimore ... 98.7 ... 103.4 ... 4.8% increase (refutes O'Toole)

Buffalo ... 36.3 ... 23.5 ... (35.3%) decrease

Chicago ... 684.9 ... 560.9 ... (18.1%) decrease
(1983 includes CTA+RTA, 2005 includes CTA+Metra)

Cleveland ... 104.8 ... 65.5 ... (37.5%) decrease

Philadelphia ... 369.5 ... 343.9 ... (6.9%) decrease
(includes SEPTA + PATCO; 1983 also includes Conrail+SEPTA)

Pittsburgh ... 91.1 ... 67.2 ... (26.2%) decrease

St. Louis ... 56.5 ... 46.4 ... (17.9%) decrease

San Francisco-Bay Area ... 458.7 ... 399.5 ... (12.9%) decrease
(includes Muni, BART, AC Transit, Golden Gate Transit)

OK ... so O'Toole was correct with respect to most of the cities in
his list. I think he has cherry-picked a handful of rail cities that
have, for one reason or another, fared rather badly. Of the 7 cities
that suffered declines, the majority (5) are "legacy" rail cities, but
2 are basically new-start systems in the modern era (Buffalo, St. Louis).

What I'm looking for is plausible explanations for the declines in
ridership. I fully realize that, especially in a broad number of older
industrial cities, the decline in transit use and system quality is
widespread. (I can handle that issue with comparisons with a number of
comparable bus-only cities.) However, I would also like to analyze the
SPECIFIC reasons for decline in these particular cities.

Here's my off-the-cuff effort toward this - and it's here that I would
appreciate further input from LRPPro.

* Buffalo: Decline of transit (35.3%) has followed population and
employment loss. This is described by several references:

>>
Buffalo, once a thriving, commercial hub for western New York, has
experienced higher unemployment and seen residents leave the city in
recent years, even during the boom of the late 1990's. Each year, its
government has spent more money than it has taken in, becoming
dependent on state bailouts and borrowing to make ends meet.
<<
[New York Times 29 May 2003]

Lisa Foderaro, writing in a New York Times article (18 September
2006), described how "the heavy industry that had sprung up with the
[Erie] canal traffic collapsed"; thus, dozens of factories in the
region, mainly steel and grain operations, closed in the mid-1970's
alone. The economic decline was so severe that half the people left —
the population sliding from 580,000 in the mid-20th century to about
290,000 today.
<<

* Chicago: There has been a slight decline in central-city population
since the 1980s, and this might partly account for the 18% transit
ridership decline. The elimination of streetcars and trolleybuses
certainly represented a sharp decline in transit quality - but that
happened decades earlier. Was there a further drop in transit services
since the 1980s?

* Cleveland: Industrial decline and a fairly steep loss of
central-city population might help explain some of the 37.5% decrease
in transit ridership.

* Philadelphia: Core city has also experienced some population loss
(and probably industrial loss?) since the 1980s. In addition, haven't
there been more rail abandonments and suspension of trolleybus
services? This could account for much of the 6.9% ridership decrease.
What would account for decrease in PATCO ridership?

* Pittsburgh: Core city also saw significant decline in population,
plus loss of major industrial activity such as steel. In addition,
while Pittsburgh converted streetcar and older trolley system into
modern LRT, much development focused on busways, and streetcar service
was suspended on some lines for over a decade. This might help explain
26.2% ridership decrease.

* St. Louis: I think I've got this one covered. St. Louis transit was
in free-fall decline in the 1980s (much of it a result of
dismemberment of the streetcar network) - that's why the city opted to
install LRT. But LRT didn't open until 1993. Since then, ridership has
grown, but not enough by 2005 to offset earlier decline, Thus, the
17.9% nominal decrease from 1983.

* San Francisco-Bay Area: The ridership loss here is particularly hard
to explain. Both core city and urban area have grown since 1980s.
Ostensibly, transit quality has been improved. 
Nevertheless, SF-BA shows a 12.9% ridership decrease, in both SF and
Oakland.

Thanks in advance for input on these issues.

LH

--- End forwarded message ---







Herb Brannon