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

[Fred Schneider]

I think what John and I really understand is probably three things  
because we've both been there, seen it and done it.  John has worked  
in transit for PennDOT.   I worked in Labor in Industry in labor  
statistics and other L&I functions including management.    The three  
things:

1.   Really big cities are transit dependent.   They are New York,  
Toronto, San Francisco, to a much lesser degree the inner cores of  
Washington, Philadelphia, Chicago.  Some really large cities can be  
almost totally auto dependent such as Miami.    It all depends on how  
tightly compacted the city is ... how many people live in it per  
square mile determines how effective transit can me.

San Francisco can be a transit city because it measures about 7 miles  
by 7 miles (47 square miles) and houses about 744,000 people or about  
16,000 people per square mile.   When you get that many people in a  
city, you have no room for automobiles.    New York City has 8.2  
million residents in 322 square miles or over 25,000 per square  
mile.   There are sections of the city with over 50,000 in a single  
block.   No wonder transit works.   It's essential.    The problem is  
often with the suburbanite who wants to drive his car into town to  
work, and he will do it as long as parking is cheap enough and he can  
get in and out fast enough.   Toronto only has about 6800 people per  
square mile but Canadians tend to have a different mentality than the  
people south of the 49th parallel ... they tend to be more  
environmentally conscious ... smaller homes on smaller lots ... more  
transit dependent.    Washington DC is transit dependent because  
government needs to be centralized because government needs meetings  
to confirm they are doing everything right ... they work by  
concensus ... and the lobbyists need to be there too ... so the  
entire U. S. government save for a few agencies is in one downtown.   
Unlike other areas where businesses moved to the suburbs, the  
business of government couldn't move to the suburbs.   Some museums  
did.   The FBI moved to Clarksburg WV.   The National Bureau of  
Standards claimed they were unable to get good help and moved to  
Frederick MD.   But most agencies stayed right in downtown DC.

2.   In the smaller cities transit is totally optional and seldom  
used.   Where I live we have fewer than 10,000 people per square mile  
in a small walkable city and a metropolitan area with maybe 3,000 per  
square mile overall.   Transit doesn't work under those conditions.    
Suburbs are generally transit independent.   If you live in the  
suburbs and work in the suburbs and don't go into the city, you will  
not understand Jim Holland who lives in the city and works in the  
city.   You will not understand any better than someone living in  
Mandan, North Dakota.

If you as a subscriber to this list live in one or the other (city or  
suburb/rural) and have seldom left it, you don't understand the other  
side of the coin.   New Yorkers or San Franciscans or people from  
Toronto seldom understand the small town mentality and vice versa.    
I think John and I understand both because we've looked at both  
extensively but it isn't always easy convincing someone that we  
believe you.

3.  John and I both understand politics because we both lived and  
worked in a political arena for 35 years or more.   Ed Lybarger  
understand politics, because he has worked as a hearing aid  
association lobbyist and a Pennsylania Trolley Museum lobbyist for  
years.   I think Ed Tennyson is on this list; he was the Deputy  
Secretary for Local and Area Transportation in Pennsylvania for many  
years and actually hung in as a Democrat in a Republican  
administration, being the last of Governor Shapp's staff to be fired  
by the incoming Governor Thornburg.  Before that Ed worked for the  
transit division of the City of Philadelphia.   Do not for one minute  
undersell his understanding of both transit and politics.   Tennyson  
also worked for Pittsburgh Railways and was also an part-owner of  
Milwaukee Electric Railway and Speedrail Company in the 1950s, so he  
also understood private sector management.

As an aside to defending John and Ed and trying to point out some  
fundamental difference, Fred is not against the concept of subsidized  
public transportation any more than he would be against subsidized  
fire companies or health care.   Any of these concepts have reasons  
for study.   They have good points.   They have bad ones too.

The unfortunate problem is that historically we have given out money  
on the simple basis that it is better to allow a lot of useless  
projects so that all 100 senators and 435 representatives in  
Washington can mail out press releases saying we have given money to  
your community rather than having a few  large sensible projects that  
allow credit to go to only a handful of politicians.   Therefore  
buses for hundreds of cities including small towns where people will  
not ride those vehicles, and subsidies for those lines, are always  
better than providing $500,000,000 for a subway from Santa Monica to  
Hollywood where 200,000 people a day might actually ride it.

Furthermore, because politicians use transit like any other public  
works project, i.e. a place to hang a (imaginary) plaque with their  
name(s) in order to get reelected, money is given out without any  
reality check.   If it were 1927 and we had political subsidizes for  
transit then, it certainly is not difficult to picture that continued  
operation of trolleys on the Fairchance and Smithfield Traction,  
which didn't even have money to pay its trainmen, would have the same  
political weight as the 88 Frankstown line, which hauled 15 million  
people a year and was Pittsburgh's most profitable operation.   That  
guys, is what John and I have been saying.   Local politicans only  
want to keep handing out money and keep everything running to keep  
everyone happy but they want to do it with federal and state money so  
they can't be blamed for raising your taxes.   They presume you are  
too dumb to know that if they passed the bill along to Washington or  
Harrisburg, that they had a role in pushing up your taxes or causing  
the value of the dollar to collapse on the international markets.    
Getting reelected is all the matters.    You are not supposed to  
realize that when your Toyota goes up in price that it might just be  
related to their borrowing to pay this bill.....  You probably won't  
know it because the Chevy has so many international parts that it  
went up in price too.




On Sep 10, 2007, at 11:41 AM, John Swindler wrote:

>
>
>> 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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