[PRCo] Fred and John bantering

[Fred Schneider]

Hi back, John,

You once "suggested" (off the record of course) that SEPTA was adding  
"x" percent to the registered senior citizen counts to get a derived  
total which they were turning in to Harrisburg for reimbursement.    
Is there any chance that the some smaller municipalities in  
Pennsylvania have learned to do the same trick and others have not?

The passenger counts make no sense when you look at the economies of  
these small cities!

Lancaster has had no change in population of the city over the last  
40 years while the county has gone up 300,000.   The city, which is  
the focus of the bus system, lost about 6000 manufacturing jobs and  
maybe 1000 retail jobs but it was not hit to the same degree that  
many other downtowns in other small cities were devastated.  One of  
the local transit authority's strong points is that the strongest bus  
routes are new routes that connect four city neighborhoods and  
Millersville State College (in the suburbs) with Park City Mall (in  
the 'burbs).  Those routes did not exist under private operation.

Reading's downtown was almost totally wiped out.   It is a collection  
of parking garages hunting an anchor today.   It also lost the  
Reading Company railroad shops, Western Electric's plant, and several  
other large factories but factories seldom resulted since 1945 in any  
transit dependence ... those people all owned cars.   If anything,  
the loss in Reading might be crime related.   I used to kid the  
business editor of the Reading Times / Reading Eagle that the front  
page of the paper was the "Murder of Week Page."   He would say, "We  
didn't plan that way but it's the way things happen."

On the other hand, LANTA (the successor to LVT) in Allentown,  
Bethlehem and Easton is dealing in a market place that is almost as  
difficult as Reading and yet their ridership is up.  The worst  
economic loss, like Pittsburgh, was the closure of Bethlehem Steel  
Company.    Downtown Allentown is almost as devastated as Reading.    
Kind of reminds one of Berlin or Nurenburg in 1945.   There are  
jobs ... a tremendous number of new jobs taking place of the old  
ones.   Unemployment is very low.   But the jobs and the stores and  
traffic is all in the suburbs.

Williamsport is up by 200,000.   That could simply be adding 900  
strokes on a tablet for senior citizens in a day, ten per trip on a  
bus, or two or three people on each of three routes.   That's no big  
deal.

But what happened that Erie crashed by 57%?   I think the major part  
of the problem is that the population has aged and they're not  
riding.   The total MSA population has only increased from 263,000 to  
281,000 over 30 years from 1970 to 2000.   Erie was a one industry  
town.   General Electric's locomotive, car and equipment department  
crashed.   There were a lot of other machinery operations too that  
fell on hard times.   Employment and labor force have actually  
dropped over the last ten years; I can't find anything on line  
earlier than 1997 but I know the city crashed along with Pittsburgh,  
New Castle, Youngstown and so forth back in the early 1980s.    Maybe  
the operations manager in Erie doesn't know how to fake senior  
citizen fares?

It makes no sense to me, John.

Now would you like to make comparisons with the past and have some  
real numbers?

You are telling me that Red Rose Transit Authority in Lancaster today  
(or in 2002) was hauling 1.8 million passengers a year out of a  
population of 500,000 people in the county.  In 1945 Conestoga  
Transportation was hauling about 6 million a year out of a population  
of 220,000.   And in 1918 the Traction Company collected 11 million  
fares when the county had 170,000 inhabitants.

By the way, 11 million fares is about 30,000 a day or 15,000 actual  
people.   That's close to 1 out of every 9 people in the county every  
day rode a trolley, or about one person in every two families was  
transit dependent.  Of course many walked and many lived on farms and  
only came into the city several times a year.

6 million is about 14,000 a day or 7,000 actual people.   Now about  
one person in every four families was transit dependent every day of  
the week.

And 1.8 million today is about 5,000 fares a day, or 2500  
individuals.  And today 2500 individuals out of 500,000?   Even if  
the family unit is 4 people, that's still 2500 out of 125,000 or one  
family out of every 50 has someone that needs to take the bus.

It was still small potatoes when 88 Frankstown was moving 40,000 or  
so on a weekday ... maybe 50,000 at its peak.

I'd love to see figures for 23 Germantown 10th and 11th Streets in  
Philadelphia around 1944.   Or for route 56 Torresdale about that  
same time.   And imagine how many riders came into the PRT station at  
48th and Parkside via routes 38, 38A, 43 and 70 to transfer, go to  
Woodside Amusement Park or elsewhere in Fairmount Park, or work for  
the Pennsylvania Railroad at 48th and Parkside enginehouse.   Or for  
routes 20 and 79 going into the Philadelphia Navy Yard about 1944.

On Sep 10, 2007, at 2:23 PM, John Swindler wrote:

>
> Hi Fred
>
> Make that a 100 million decline in Philly transit ridership 1975 to  
> 2005,
> which is what I thought it was.  For 1975, I didn't notice that PAT  
> was at
> top of the large urbanized area listing.
>
> I have to go to 1975/76 to compare person trips (originating  
> passengers)
> against 2002/03.
>
> PAT has gone from 98,823,600 to 63,778,441
>
> SEPTA-City transit:  237,870,000 to 172,596,879
>
> SEPTA Red Arrow:  18,776,000 to 11,152,227
>
> SEPTA Regional Rail:  29,756,900 to 28,058,238
>
> (vindicates Ed Tennyson's claim that rail transit tends to hold  
> ridership)
>
> Some additional:
>
> Erie from 5,296,299 to 2,264,908
>
> Allentown from 4,055,698 to 4,114,637  (yes, has gone up)
>
> Willliamsport from 801,569 to 1,028,913 (also gone up from very low  
> base)
>
> Wilkes Barre from 4,853,024 to 1,360,843
>
> Reading from 3,842,969 to 2,394,704
>
> Lancaster from 1,413,715 to 1,762,851 (gone up from end of  
> Conestoga days)
>
> Suspect a lot of the above represents a loss of jobs within cities.
> Regional rail avoids traffic congestion.  That's also why the South  
> Hills
> rail lines have hovered around 25,000 per day.  And Jim Holland  
> probably
> sees the same thing with the MUNI metro light rail lines.
>
> John
>
>
>
>
>> 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 13:17:58 -0400
>>
>> John,
>>
>> When did the SEPTA numbers first include suburban rail?   Or is this
>> CTD, Frontier and RAD only?
>>
>> What has happened to suburban rail riders?
>>
>> I know that PATCO is way down simply because Philadelphia jobs are
>> way down.  Jobs in the Metropolitan Area (8 counties) are up about
>> 20,000 in the last 20 years but Philadelphia City is probably still
>> down.   If it continues to drop, then suburban rail as well as PATCO
>> will continue to decline.
>>
>> fws
>>
>>
>> On Sep 10, 2007, at 9:14 AM, John Swindler wrote:
>>
>>> 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.  Public transit just isn't as
>>> important
>>> anymore.  The automobile is just too convenient and provides too  
>>> much
>>> independence.  But the highway systems (roadways and parking) can  
>>> not
>>> support unlimited auto travel.  At the extreme, that is why transit
>>> does so
>>> well in New York City.  It should also do well in Pittsburgh with
>>> the rivers
>>> and hills limiting roadway space.  That it does not .....  well,
>>> let's not
>>> go there.
>>
>>
>
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