[PRCo] Re: Pittsburgh - think tank blasts possible new transit taxes

[Fred Schneider]

What John is saying, Joshua,

is that SEPTA, PAT and the other agencies are not being forced to  
take a hard look at the service they are running and the people who  
are using the service.   It is simply business as usual.   Simply  
politicians providing jobs of bus drivers.

I remember back when Charlie Schauck retired from the Port Authority  
in the middle 1960s.    He was a long time employee of Pittsburgh  
Railways and a very dedicated man.   He retired well before age 65.    
I asked him why he was retiring early.   His response was simply that  
quality of staff and service no longer mattered.   Now that it was a  
government agency, the politicians were coming to him and asking him  
"to provide lineman's jobs to men who couldn't even tie their own  
shoes."   He said he didn't want to be party to that kind of  
lunacy.   It has only gotten worse.

When the state finally came through with money, instead of figuring  
out a reasonable way to provide service, SEPTA (or INEPTA if you  
would rather) simply announced a 10% increase in service.  In other  
words, lets hire 10 percent more drivers so we can look good and get  
elected.   It doesn't matter if the buses running along US 202 in  
King of Prussia are empty.   We simply provided more jobs.

Both PAT and SEPTA are running systems today that existed in 1965.    
PAT absorbed 28 independent bus companies and most of those routes  
still exist just as they did 40 years ago.  They simply have PAT  
route numbers today.   SEPTA is the same.   The Frontier Divisiion is  
the old Schuylkill Valley Transit Company.   The City Division is  
PTC.  The Red Arrow Division is the former Philadelphia Suburban and  
Southern Pennsylvania Bus Company.   It doesn't matter if there is a  
redundancy.

  The object is to provide jobs.  Politicians don't care if the buses  
are empty as long as Harrisburg or Washington is paying to keep them  
on the street.   Problem is, you and I are paying to keep them on the  
street every April 15th.  Understand that?    You and I are paying to  
run empty buses.   You and I pay for the Lititz bus that runs through  
my neighborhood every hour with two or three people on it.   If  
Harrisburg hadn't come up with the money, it too was going to be  
removed.

End of sermon.

fws3

On Sep 9, 2007, at 6:32 PM, Joshua Dunfield wrote:

>
> John Swindler wrote:
>> The Transportation Reform commission recommended no new spending on
>> transportation until a number of reforms implemented.  Instead,  
>> you (any
>> resident of PA) are getting $300 million in additional taxpayer  
>> spending on
>> transit operations without any reforms.  The recent legislation  
>> might as
>> well be called the Bus drivers full employment act of 2007.
>
> Could you explain how not making even more service cuts means full
> employment for bus drivers?  And even if it did mean that, how is that
> worth mentioning?  The main issue is the service itself.
>
> BTW, the TFRC also said:
>
>     Comparative analysis shows that Pennsylvania transit agencies  
> receive
>     less public funding on a per passenger basis than the average  
> of peer
>     agencies across the country.
>
> Less.  Not more.  What do bus drivers elsewhere in the country have,
> 120% employment?
>
> -j.
>