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

[John Swindler]

It's not the complaint to the newspaper, Fred.  It's the complaint to the 
local ward chairman, councilman, etc.

Perhaps it comes from most people wanting to be helpful and liked, and that 
includes politicians.  As we have discussed, it is very difficult to say 
'no', particularly when put on a personnal level.

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 16:40:50 -0400
>
>I think, Joshua, that you are missing my point.   My point is that
>whether or not you provide service to Oakland or Downtown, the vast
>majority of the 1 million people who live outside of Pittsburgh are
>not going to use that service.  And whether or not you provide
>service to University City or Temple University in Philadelphia, the
>overwhelming majority of those people outside Philadelphia County
>will not ride SEPTA's Broad Street Subway or the D bus or the 11 or
>13 trolleys to get there.
>
>They may, fifty years from now, but are not doing today.
>
>And they are certainly not riding from PIT airport to Carnegie on the
>bus.  There are vast numbers of PAT and SEPTA suburban bus services
>that are holdovers from companies they absorbed in the in the
>1960s.   Those routes may have been valid at one time but
>demographics change.   The private companies would have abandoned
>them because no one was riding.   But subsidized transit keeps right
>on running them even if no one rides because it is easier than
>defending yourself when someone complains to the newspaper.   Most of
>those routes existed when we got on a bus and rode into downtown to
>shop.   We rode into Swissvale to go to the doctor.   We went to East
>Liberty to go to church.   We went to Wilkinsburg to eat.   We don't
>do that anymore.   Today everything is in the suburbs for us.
>
>Look at my comments about riders in Lancaster ... one person in every
>other family in 1915 to one person in every 50 families today.
>Would it not just cheaper to send a taxi to pick up the guy?  Yes,
>but there are those who argue that we cannot do that because that
>would be discriminating.
>
>What is wrong with a society that discriminates against you and me by
>charging us to run a 35 foot bus for two people?
>
>On Sep 10, 2007, at 4:17 PM, Joshua Dunfield wrote:
>
> >
> > Fred Schneider wrote:
> >> The problem with this concept is that the people who need the service
> >> are some of the roughly 300,000 out of the 1.3 million people who
> >> live inside the city of Pittsburgh and some of the 1.5 million who
> >> live inside the city of Philadelphia, and no where near the entire
> >> 5.1 million people in the seven-county PAT and SEPTA areas.
> >
> > That's true, but you don't have to ride (much less need to ride) to
> > benefit.  Downtown and Oakland would waste a lot more space for
> > parking (and the streets would be parking lots, too) if PAT didn't
> > run.  Plus, as I mentioned in a response to Bill Robb, you have
> > people who are employed only because there's a bus to get them to
> > work.  Everyone's bottom line is better because those folks can
> > hold down a job.
> >
> >> Some where in this thread ... and I didn't copy it into this
> >> rebuttal ... you mentioned San Jose.
> >
> > That wasn't me...I wouldn't know San Jose if it bit me.
> >
> > -j.
> >
>
>

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