[PRCo] Re: PRC Ridership Figures 1940-1962

[Schneider Fred]

NOTICE TOO THAT THE STRIKE LEVELS IN 1954 AND 1957 BECAME NEW  
THRESHOLDS.  THE COUNT FOR 1955 WAS ONLY MARGINALLY BETTER THAN 1954  
AND 1958 WAS LOWER THAN 1957.  The company understood that every time  
they had a strike the riders bought automobiles and they lost them  
for good.   (Remember, I had a friend in the Superintendent of Power  
and Inclines in those days (he was my second father like Baxter was  
to John S.) and he was pretty close to Palmer ... he knew what was  
happening.)

Between 1910 and 1945 the automobile drivers were largely men.   But  
between 1945 and 1950 state motor vehicle registrations went from 1.7  
million to 3.2 million vehicles, and they were largely aimed at  
women.   Remember that in that period the manufacturers were  
introducing automatic transmissions.   Automatics first appeared in  
Oldsmobiles in 1940 and Chryslers in 1941 but the bombing of Pearl  
Harbor stopped that.  Buicks first got them in 1948.   Borg Warner's  
design went to Ford and Studebaker in 1950.   The GM design went on  
other manufacturers such as Hudson and Nash in 1950.   Lincoln  
initially had a GM product.

The fact that the six day strike in 1959 caused a drop not less than  
1960, 1961, and 1962 suggests to me that their ridership had dropped  
to the captive audience level by 1960 and that much of the drops  
after that were reflecting just population declines.   I went to  
Wikipedia, knowing that they show city population data, and found  
that the city lost 15% of its population between 1960 and 1970.   The  
numbers that PRC was loosing suggest that they would loose 54% of  
their passengers in 10 years.   That rules out the captive audience  
theory.   However, if we looked at motor vehicle registrations, I  
think we might find that we were getting into a generation where the  
teenagers felt they absolutely had to have a car when they turned 16,  
and that may account for the loss of PRC's passengers.    We had  
probably already lost the adults and now we were loosing the kids too.

fws





On Aug 31, 2008, at 12:36 AM, Phillip Clark Campbell wrote:

> PRC Ridership figures from pg.8 of Mr.Springirth's book.  The %  
> following the count is not in the book is it but represents the  
> change in the current year as measured against the previous year:
>
>
> 1940 __ 159,126,191
>
> 1941 __ 172,500,720 __ 08.4%
>
> 1942 __ 213,910,001 __ 24%
>
> 1943 __ 274,820,071 __ 28.5%
>
> 1944 __ 277,545,056  __ 0.99%
>
> 1945 __ 279,998,372  __ 0.88%
>
> 1946 __ 275,525,709  __ -01.6%
>
> 1947 __ 288,962,016  __ 05%
>
> 1948 __ 278,323,341  __ -03.7%
>
> 1949 __ 254,075,897  __ -08.7%
>
> 1950 __ 220,715,487  __ -13.1%
>
> 1951 __ 191,830,870  __ -13.1%
>
> 1952 __ 169,051,065  __ -11.5%
>
> 1953 __ 153,949,293  __ -08.9%
>
> 1954 __ 108,009,827  __ -29.8%  (35-day strike)
>
> 1955 __ 110,974,676  __ 02.7%
>
> 1956 __ 106,112,834  __ -04.4%
>
> 1957 __ 85,483,662  __ -19.4%  (55-day strike)
>
> 1958 __ 84,706,185  __ -0.9%
>
> 1959 __ 80,201,489  __ -05.3%  (6-day strike)
>
> 1960 __ 75,845,639  __ -05.4%
>
> 1961 __ 70,592,000  __ -06.9%
>
> 1962 __ 66,513,000  __ -05.8%
>
> Please double check the figures if you have the book and the  
> calculations; it is easy to make a mistake isn't it.
>
>
> Phil
>
>
>
>
>