[PRCo] Re: Protesting Washington & Charleroi Conversions

[Herb Brannon]

But just think what a really great transit corridor that would be today. If
upgraded to double track light rail standards it would be a viable
alternative to using a private auto and I-79.
On Tue, Aug 18, 2009 at 7:40 PM, Schneider Fred <fwschneider at comcast.net>wrote:

> Barry and the rest of you:
>
> The fallacy in this story (the link that Barry provided) is that the
> PUC would have allowed the conversion no matter how many people
> protested the Washington and Charleroi conversions if it could be
> proven it was in the corporation's  best economic interest to make
> the change.   The man in the news article suggests that it might be
> possible to prevent the conversion of the interurbans in 1953 and I'm
> saying that it was truly impossible.   All Pittsburgh Railways had to
> do was hold up the record of continuously declining riders since 1945
> and the PUC was going to override any and all opposition.
>
> Unlike regulatory bodies in some states, the Pennsylvania PUC and the
> PSC before 1930, served to protect the interests of the utilities in
> the commonwealth from extremists who believed they should give
> services away for nothing.
>
> There were cases in the past where protesters came to PUC abandonment
> hearings demanding that rail service be retained.   Two examples I am
> thinking of were West Penn's McKeesport city service, where the
> complainants said that it would be an undue burden on the community
> when it snowed because the warm and comfortable trolleys were much
> safer in such weather.  [As a sidebar, you might need to be told that
> heaters were a option in automobiles in the 1930s.]   Of course the
> PUC was not going to force West Penn to run its vehicles 362 days out
> of the year so those people could have streetcars the other 3 days.
> The other example involved parents complaining that West Penn cars
> would be safer between Larimer and Irwin than school buses.   If my
> recall is valid, the judge then asked how many of those attending the
> hearing came on the trolley and of course none of them did.
>
> The difference between Pittsburgh Railways and any other private
> transit corporations and today's public agencies is that those
> private companies had to obtain enough money from the fare box to (1)
> pay all operating costs, (2) pay all capital costs, (3) pay all debt
> service, and (3) pay all taxes and franchise costs that the federal,
> state and local governments threw at them.
>
> The public agencies of today only need to recover, according to the
> Federal Transportation Administration (FTA), 30% of their operating
> costs from the farebox and they (the local agencies) keep changing
> the definition of what operating costs are.   Day to day maintenance
> items keep getting pushed out of operating costs into capital so we
> can turn around and then ask the feds for money for a midlife
> overhaul of your bus or trolley or subway car when it collapses like
> a one horse shay ... so simple repairs suddenly got kicked out of the
> 30% bracket into the 70% bracket.   In other words, 30% shrinks to
> 20%.      Your fare of about $2.00 covers a miniscule portion of the
> total.   The typical transit ride probably costs somewhere between $8
> and $12 today.   I don't think we can really tell how much because
> none of the federal bonds that were issued in the 1960s for buses or
> MARTA's subway cars or Washington's subway or PAT's first LRVs are
> ever going be paid off, there will simply be new bonds issued to
> cover the cost plus accumulated interest over the years.
>
> We cannot state for certain what the true fare today really is
> because don't depreciate anything.   We live in a dream world.   The
> federal government gives us a subway.   We do not write of a portion
> of it every year.   We wait until it totally collapses and then we
> point fingers.   Suddenly we need to add another $115 million to the
> infrastructure cost which should have been proportionally added a
> little each year.
>
> In a real world we would buy a bus and depreciate it until we scrap
> it and then we would write off any remaining depreciation from the
> books.   In this dream world, we get a grant from the federal
> government.   The feds issue bonds ... series EE or whatever.   When
> they run out, the feds issue new bonds.   The bus they financed may
> have been scrapped 20 years ago but the debt service is still paying
> it off.   (I guess it is sort of like the woman that makes the
> headlines tonight who is pregnant with 12 babies.   Or like the
> consumer who uses Visa to pay off MasterCard to pay off Discover to
> pay off American Express to pay off Visa to pay off MasterCard to pay
> off Discover to pay off American Expr....)
>
> The cost of the ride in the private sector gradually became less
> because of efficiencies and because periodically the companies went
> bankrupt and wrote off some of the capital costs.   The public sector
> doesn't write off anything ... it just keeps rolling over old costs
> into new ones and increasing the basis for tomorrow's fares.
>
> However, as unfortunate as this sounds, the oil is running out so we
> need mass transit.  The idiots are in command.   I haven't a clue
> what our grandchildren will do about it.
>
> I should add that I have the e-mail list for all the kids in my high
> school class (we're 70 years old now).   The big topic on this list
> now is health care.   I'm amused by the number of them who like
> Medicare but will tell you they don't like socialized medicine.   I
> guess it's socialized if you have it ... but not if I have it?   I
> guess transit is the same way.   It social goodness if it helps me.
> It's terrible if it helps you?      :<)
>
> I would love to read Ed Lybarger's rebuttal to this....   And Derrick
> too.
>
> And Barry ... how do you print these news items?   They appear to be
> blocked so you cannot do anything but read them.
>
> Fred Schneider
>
>
> On Aug 18, 2009, at 3:20 PM, Barry, Matthew R wrote:
>
> > http://news.google.com/newspapers?
> > id=tiUNAAAAIBAJ&sjid=6WoDAAAAIBAJ&dq=millvale&pg=4884%2C3082759
> >
> >
> >
>
>
>


-- 
Herb Brannon
On America's North Coast