[PRCo] Re: Allegheny County's new Transit Development Plan

[Herb Brannon]

That first paragraph certainly clears up the destination sign conversations.
On Fri, Aug 28, 2009 at 11:24 PM, John Swindler <j_swindler at hotmail.com>wrote:

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> Pre-season games are to 'tune-up' the first string players, and hopefully
> not suffer any injuries, but most of these games involves evaluating rookies
> and free agents.  The first string for both teams called it a night after
> about the first quarter last weekend.  They might play half the game
> Saturday night, then the first string will just make a cameo appearance for
> the final pre-season game.  The real games start in two weeks.
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> PAT went from around 115 million annual riders mid-1970s to around 66
> million last year.  Rail ridership has hovered around 25,000 per day during
> that time frame.  The system loss has not occurred on Overbrook nor
> Beechview.
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> John
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> > From: fwschneider at comcast.net
> > Subject: [PRCo] Re: Allegheny County's new Transit Development Plan
> > Date: Fri, 28 Aug 2009 17:59:24 -0400
> > To: pittsburgh-railways at dementia.org
> >
>  > Chuckle, chuckle, chuckle. Love it Derrick.
> >
> > Having worked all my life as an number cruncher / analyst .... I
> > guess I feel I never wasted too much time looking at numbers if I
> > eventually was able to pull out the right answer. Sometimes the
> > results are misleading but we try.
> >
> > By the way ... passenger counts ... the one thing I could have said
> > and I did not is that we are now pretty much cognizant that mass
> > transit riders do prefer rail over bus ... we can now show that
> > riding went down when we converted lines from rail to bus and came
> > back up again in the same corridors when we went back to rail. In
> > the case of Charlotte, NC, building a light rail line cause such
> > impressive riding that the entire system ridership doubled in one
> > year. But I think it is also very safe to say that, regardless of
> > how much the public may like these new systems, riding levels will
> > never be at the point where they can support a privately owned
> > system. And government has to answer to the tax payers and the
> > voters. The TWU and the NAACP and other civil rights coalitions
> > represent large blocka of voters so when you take over PAT or SEPTA,
> > it is easier to run empty buses over the same old routes for 40 years
> > as long as you can shift the burden of payment to the state and
> > federal governments. And the local boys tried for years to shift
> > that expense until FTA screamed that they wanted fares to at least
> > cover one-third of operating costs and then the locals simply tried
> > to redefine operating costs. Right John?
> >
> > The renumbering of routes in Allegheny County reflects, in my not so
> > silent or humble opinion, a reflection that PAT has finally come to
> > grips with the fact that they can no longer shift to the state and
> > federal government the burden of financing of a bloated transit
> > system that needs to be reduced to a smaller number of lines. About
> > time, guys.
> >
> > Beyond reducing it's size, I don't expect to see any substantive
> > change until we recognize that oil resources are finite.
> >
> > And who is Fred Mergner and if he is a railfan, why don't we have him
> > in the museum and in this group of loony fellows?
> >
> > Urban interstates? Whole different issue than rural interstates.
> > I truly love the scheme of mileage based exit numbers for rural
> > interstates but it does fall apart in places when you are on things
> > like the Roosevelt Highway in Manhattan or the Cross Bronx Expressway
> > or the exits coming off either end of the San Francisco - Oakland Bay
> > Bridge. Jones Falls in Baltimore is another. And Bob Rathke could
> > cite the expressways in Chicago.
> >
> > But for rural interstates, my personal conviction is that mileage
> > based exit numbers is the best scheme the cat dragged home. It's
> > great to get on at 232 and know I can make it to 495 in about four
> > hours with a heavy foot.
> >
> > And to Matt Barry: The fact that I responded to this in the first
> > place is my way of saying thanks for the post. I enjoyed it.
> >
> > And what happened in the last half of the pre-season demonstration
> > game with the Steelers the other night? It went from 10-3 or
> > something like that over the Ravens in the first half to a total
> > upset by the final goal. I thought it wasn't going to change so I
> > was spending most of the time watching something more interesting on
> > PBS.
> >
> >
> > On Aug 28, 2009, at 5:07 PM, Derrick Brashear wrote:
> >
> > > On Fri, Aug 28, 2009 at 5:01 PM, Schneider
> > > Fred<fwschneider at comcast.net> wrote:
> > >> Very interesting ... in some respects one would think there is a
> > >> railfan hinding in the staff ...
> > >
> > > Wonder if Fred Mergner is still there.
> > >
> > >
> > >> 8 Perrysville, 39 Brookline, 78
> > >> Oakmont (gone since the earth was cooling), 40 Mt. Washington, 44
> > >> Knoxville.
> > >> I guess I have two thoughts. The positive one is its good to quite
> > >> confusing the riders with 11A, 11B, 11C, 11D, 11E ... °.
> > >
> > > I wonder why we decided to confuse people on urban interstates with
> > > mileage-based exit numbers which work out
> > > to 1A, 1B, 1C, 1D (quick, which one is Grant St?)
> > >
> > >> The negative is do we really have to mess with what has been in place
> > >> since 1964 ... it's been there for 45 years now. This is as bad as
> > >> PAT screwing with what Pittsburgh Railways had in place for almost as
> > >> long. By now the public has no recollection of 8 PERRYSVILLE but
> > >> they do understand 11D PERRYSVILLE AVENUE.
> > >
> > > In many cases, the routes are not the same anymore, so, your old 11D
> > > may not be your new bus for the same ride.
> > >
> > >> The other thing very obvious to me is that the routes of yore are not
> > >> the routes of today. If you pull out a contemporary transit guide
> > >> and compare it to a 1955 Pittsburgh Railways map, where we run to
> > >> today isn't where we ran to back then. The demand today isn't the
> > >> same as it was then. Almost a half a century has elapsed and the
> > >> PAT service area has lost close to a million people.
> > >
> > > Some are. Many aren't.
> > >
> > >> I would really like to see comparisons in peak hour riding past the
> > >> maximum load point in 1945, 1960 and 2009 for Perrysville,
> > >> Frankstown, Ellsworth, Lincoln, Butler Street, Millvale, routes 18,
> > >> 19 and 20 which is all one route today, and the 2nd Avenue lines.
> > >
> > > Some 2007 numbers were in the TDP documents leading up to this point,
> > > in the alternatives analysis. I wasted entirely too much time reading
> > > it.
> > >
> > > Derrick
> > >
> > >
> >
> >
> >
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-- 
Herb Brannon
On America's North Coast