[PRCo] Re: Shoulda, Coulda, would

[Jerry MATT Matsick]

Thank you Fred, this is one email for my PTM/PRCo file, so sad to see what was a vibrant bustling
city go down hill and probably never to return!    But Pittsburgh is just an image of alot of other
cities in the northern states  and that is sad!    I live in a city (Jacksonville)that is so spread out that I doubt if we ever see a rail line put into service, we have a number of key located rail lines which go out to where
the population lives, but we are an automobile driven people, and so far $ 4.00 a gallan at the gas pump
hasn't deterred any of these drivers., however in the editorial pages there are people yelling for a
LRV.    Hope so.
Thanks again FRED you are fantastic with PRCo and Pittsburgh knowledge

Jerry Matsick
Still wishing for a shoulda, coulda would a for Pittsburgh
a rail system put in place although there is talk about it.
--
>From the RIVER CITY by the Sea! 
Jerry "Matt" Matsick 
J A C K S O N V I L L E, Florida ! 


-------------- Original message from Fred Schneider <fwschneider at comcast.net>: -------------- 


> Interesting question. Remember that the county politics at the time 
> consisted of two commissioners who were in bed with Westinghouse 
> Electric Company over Skybus and one (Dr. Hunt) who was opposed to 
> it. Westinghouse was the hometown industry. Industries buy 
> politicians. Politicians put the people they want on the transit 
> authorities. Therefore, I do see any question that the Port 
> Authority structure would have been any different than you saw it 
> when it was created in 1964. 
> 
> Now let's assume that Pittsburgh Railways had lasted another ten 
> years ... hardly likely because the state had passed legislation 
> allowing transit authorities and Johnstown Traction Company was the 
> last private operator and it went public about 1978. But let's 
> dream. In our dream anything is possible. In the next ten years 
> the owner of the railways would have been continually hounded by the 
> city to do what the city wanted. 
> 
> The West End was already gone because PRC didn't want to spend any 
> money fighting the state highway department to keep the money loosing 
> West End lines in operation. Read the 1948 Louge Report, Jerry. At 
> that time the West End lines lost $365,000 a year (that's about $4 
> million in today's money). 
> 
> The Millvale Route was the only one that carried that Division and 
> the State was crowding them out because of proposed construction of 
> the Allegheny Valley Expressway. Of course it took 30 years after 
> abandonment for the expressway to be finally built and my uncle was 
> wearing a T-shirt that said "I lived long enough to drive the 
> Alegheny Valley Expressway." Troy Hill, Etna and Spring Garden only 
> had a very marginal profit in 1948 and probably didn't earn anything 
> by 1950. 
> 
> The Manchester routes were quite profitable ... with Western Avenue 
> alone bringing home almost half the bacon for the entire division. 
> However, that area was rather depressed and remember the city wanted 
> to redevelop Manchester. While the bus garage was still there when 
> PAT took over and it later became PAT's headquarter's site, all of 
> the Manchester car lines except for 6 and 13 were already gone under 
> Pittsburgh Railways before PAT was formed. So we know what would 
> have happened there. 
> 
> What about the Keating routes? Perrysville Avenue was a strong 
> route. In 1958 it banked about $40,000 profit. That was about $5 
> million in today's money. But the other Keating routes lost $198,000 
> in 1948. Kind of hard to keep one route, isn't it Jerry, when the 
> city is redeveloping the lower north side and eliminating Federal 
> Street from North Avenue down to Ohio Street. PRC would have had to 
> lay new tracks around the west side of the Allegheny Commons. Would 
> the revenue have held up enough to justify it? Let me start off by 
> saying that I am not a racist but I've been told that you do not 
> Perry Hilltop is not the worst neighborhood in Pittsburgh today but 
> you do not drive through it with your doors unlocked. My 
> grandmother's old home off Perrysville Avenue is owned by a black 
> family and it look better now than it has in many years. But the 
> question remains, has ridership (or ridership as a rail line) have 
> held up enough to justify rebuilding the tracks around Allegheny 
> Commons. 
> 
> The Glenwood routes were not totally gone under Pittsburgh Railways. 
> However, routes 56, 57, 58 were scheduled to go under Pittsburgh 
> Railways and the project was concluded by PAT. Why? Because of the 
> new Glenwood Bridge. So it would not of mattered who was sitting 
> behind the desk, they would have been gone. 
> 
> Tunnel Car House: The money loosing routes were Castle Shannon, 
> Pittsburgh-Mount Lebanon-Castle Shannon, Brookline and Beltzhoover. 
> Interesting, is it not, that most of these form the nucleus of what 
> runs today. In 1948, they lost over a quarter of a million 
> dollars! Why? Long distances and limited revenue. The allocation 
> formulae might also be suspect because it might have been allocated 
> car mile and not by car hour. But it does show that under politics 
> we have chosen to keep a high speed alternate to highways even though 
> the allocation method used in 1948 showed money was being lost 
> providing a service. 
> 
> Carrick Car House: This is an anomaly. Route 47 Carrick via Tunnel 
> showed a profit of $70,000 while 53 Carrick via S. 18th showed a loss 
> of $19,000. Why, because the rush hour business and the full cars 
> were on route 47. Taken collectively, Carrick made money ... about 
> $50,000. It was on par with Perrysville. If we want to dream, it 
> might have been a keeper. But then if there had been no Port 
> Authority, then Brentwood Motor Coach might have more aggressively 
> fought to take away the business. 
> 
> Craft Avenue, Bunker Hill, Homewood, Plummer Street and Herron Hill 
> Car Houses: Now this is where the company made it's money. These 
> routes offset the losses everywhere else. Only routes 60, 62, 66 and 
> 68 lost money. Everything else raked in the coins. These five 
> divisions raked in more than $1.5 million dollars profit (that's 
> about $18 million today). The heaviest or most profitable routes 
> were 85 Bedford ($361,000 profit ... shortest route with incredible 
> population density), 88 Frankstown ($339,000 profit), 82 Lincoln 
> ($263,000 profit), 75 Wilkinsburg ($150,000), 50 Carson St. 
> ($136,000), 87 Admore ($130,000). Note the common thread here, 
> Jerry, all of these routes have closely spaced row houses ... 
> tenements ... block deep on either side of the tracks. We're 
> talking the most densely populated part of the city. While we do 
> know where the passengers went, the combined total for the 60s and 
> 70s except for 60 and 62 was slightly over 50 million fares a year 
> which would be about 70,000 individual riders or 150,000 fares a day 
> on the routes that went through Oakland. That suggests that if you 
> wanted to keep anything, the place to do it might have been (and 
> still might be) the spine line into Oakland. 
> 
> However, well meaning politicians in the 1970s converted East Liberty 
> from a vibrant commercial center to a place where no one goes by 
> forcing motorists to drive around the core of that part of 
> Pittsburgh. Homewood, Brushtown, Point Breeze and Wilkinsburg, 
> which were once served by routes 64, 65, 66, 75, 76, 87, 88 are what 
> I would consider non-destinations today. Wilkinsburg Borough was 
> forced into bankruptcy, I believe, when they could not pay their 
> power bill for street lighting. So would those routes or 71 and 73 
> have lasted beyond the late 1960s as rail lines? I doubt it. They 
> would have lasted until the very first paving project or bridge renewal. 
> 
> I'm not sure that politics would have changed it too much Jerry. 
> 
> One of the key points was that steel turned down in 1982 and dragged 
> everything with it. On one Friday alone, U. S. Steel handed out 
> 20,000 pink slips in Allegheny County. The wages within U. S. 
> Steel, Bethlehem Steel, Jones and Laughlin, and Wheeling - Pittsburgh 
> Steel were sufficiently high that if you fire one steel worker, some 
> one, somewhere else in the nation is also going to loose a job 
> because of what that steel worker does not buy. Of course, if they 
> were able to go on pension, that rule doesn't hold true. U. S. Steel 
> was the largest employer in Allegheny County at one time and it is 
> still in the top ten ... but there are a who lot of hospitals that 
> are larger today. When steel went down, it also dragged a lot of 
> ancillary suppliers with it like Mesta Mlachine Co. In addition, 
> all bars or tap rooms outside the mill gates went out of business 
> Eighth Street in Homestead began to look like a ghost town. So did 
> 5th St. in McKeesport. So did downtown McKees Rocks. Pittsburgh 
> lost about half it's population, down to under 350,000 people today. 
> The old towns around it also lost volumes: McKeesport, Duquesne, 
> Homestead, Braddock, Rankin, North Braddock, Wilmerding, Wilkinsburg, 
> etc., etc., etc. 
> 
> With that as a backdrop, Jerry, I doubt that any politician was going 
> to do any more with PAT in the 1980s and 1990s than a custodial 
> role. If the Federal government is going to give you free money, 
> that's one thing. But they have been having enough trouble just 
> finding money to run what they have (and as some of you have noticed, 
> they are still trying to run what they had in 1960 even though half 
> the people are no longer there to ride it). 
> 
> I would like to be able to come back in 100 years and see how America 
> has changed. 
> 
> Have we awakened? 
> 
> Are we still a democracy? 
> 
> How many people are riding horses? 
> 
> Is W's great great granddaughter President and lying to us that there 
> is still oil? 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> On Jun 11, 2008, at 4:39 PM, Jerry MATT Matsick wrote: 
> 
> > If in fact there were people with a mind for Rail Transit on the 
> > initial PAT board of directors like some 
> > of you good men, what would the PAT PRCo be like today as far as 
> > street car lines, what would or 
> > should have been kept, a streetcar line to Oakland, Wilkensburg, 
> > North Hills or to the West End? With the gas costs so high 
> > today, would in fact modern street cars have been less expensive to 
> > operate, just was 
> > wondering what should, coulda or would have happened if the right 
> > people were in charge. 
> > Your comments are appreciated. 
> > -- 
> > From the RIVER CITY by the Sea! 
> > Jerry "Matt" Matsick 
> > J A C K S O N V I L L E, Florida ! 
> > 
> 
>