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

[John Swindler]

>From: Fred Schneider <fwschneider at comcast.net>
>Reply-To: pittsburgh-railways at dementia.org
>To: pittsburgh-railways at dementia.org
>Subject: [PRCo] Re: Pittsburgh - think tank blasts possible new transit 
>taxes
>Date: Mon, 10 Sep 2007 09:55:59 -0400
>
>Three million SEPTA old age riders that are questionable ... because
>we don't know how to count?    John, that was no different that the
>state employment offices I audited in Philadelphia (in the 1980s)
>which had work incentive registrants in the active file in order to
>support their staffing levels ... in file along with the guy's death 
>notice.

And yes, they do get paid based on that reported number.

>   When I asked why it had not been inactivated when you knew
>he was dead, the manager told me, "Welfare hasn't inactivated the
>person yet."   Why should SEPTA be any different?   If you can
>convince Washington that there are more people on our buses than
>there are, maybe the politicians will give us more money to pay our
>drivers and office staff and managers (that we don't need but whom we
>might be fleecing to help our reelection campaigns).
>
>A certain person I know was auditing one rural bus line in Monroe
>County, Pennsylvania this week and was amazed to see it hauling more
>people than the average load on all the Port Authority bus lines in
>Pittsburgh.   I think he told me Friday night that he counted 25
>people on the bus and 23 of them kissed the fare box.
>


This trip averaged more then average for 55% of PAT's 214 bus lines, even if 
"apples and oranges' comparison.  But route serving the E. Stroudsburg Univ. 
only had 5, none of whom were college students.

Concerning center city, I remember walking out of the Market St. subway at 
11th St. about 20 years ago.  It was around 9am, and Market St. looked 
practically deserted.  Very few autos, and almost no pedestrain traffic.  
Very strange.  But then the 8:30 a.m. Market Frankford train from 69th St. 
had about a 1/3 seated load.  When I headed home from national archives 
regional site around 5pm, traffic and pedestrain traffic were more "normal". 
  Made trip about a dozen times over next five years, and always the same.  
The thought was:  'I'm seeing something, but I don't understand what it is.'

One senior citizen observation is that the car is still used until the 
husband passes away, then the widow starts looking for public transit for 
shopping, going to mall, etc.  This is a convenience factor.  The desire is 
to maintain an independent life style for as long as possible.

John


>As far as senior citizen riding is concerned, you do get to a certain
>age when you are "incarcerated" in a retirement home and then their
>internal transit system will take you to the doctor or the mall or
>wherever it is you need to go as part of your monthly rental fee for
>your room or apartment.
>
>But Philadelphia does have a problem.   So does Baltimore.  So do
>many other Eastern cities.   They are rapidly becoming NON
>DESTINATIONS.   When the Port Authority's Lindenwold line opened,
>ridership peaked at over 40,000 a day.   It's now down in the 30s
>because people just don't go into Philadelphia like they used to.
>Jobs have moved to the 'burbs.   But you see some strange phenomena
>in "Right to Work" states and in western cities where expansion is
>going crazy.   In Denver, for example, a new light rail line opened
>last year to the southeast in the middle of the I-25 corridor.   That
>one line is hauling 60,000 fares a day with trains running on a 12
>minute headway!!!!!   Astonishing.  The whole system in Denver must
>be moving close to 100,000 daily fares.   Who'da thunk it?
>
>On Sep 10, 2007, at 9:14 AM, John Swindler wrote:
>
> > And how many passengers ride public transit in Pennsylvania?
> > (warning, this
> > is somewhat of a trick question).  It's a deliberately misleading
> > statistic
> > in the report intended to support a point.
> >
> > Pennsylvania has an older population living in cities and towns
> > dating to
> > 19th century.  Yet even the senior citizen ridership is declining:
> > from
> > around 60 million per year about 20 years ago  to just under 40
> > million.
> > And the latter figure includes about 3 million "riders" from Philly
> > that are
> > questionable.
> >
> > PAT has declined from around 120 million during early 1970s to
> > somewhere
> > around 70 million total riders today.  SEPTA has lost about 200
> > million
> > annual riders past couple decades.
>
>

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