[PRCo] Re: PAT's cuts

[Derrick Brashear]

I have had just enough to drink tonight to open my mouth further than
is prudent, but not enough that I will not pre-emptively apologize.

Sorry.

On Thu, Dec 2, 2010 at 5:05 PM, Fred Schneider <fwschneider at comcast.net> wrote:
> http://www.thepittsburghchannel.com/r/25995668/detail.html
> I think this needs to be put into perspective.   The locals always blame the state and federal people for their own problems.   Remember that the trolley fares in Pittsburgh were 35 cents in 1961.   That would suggest that now, a half century later, they should be around $3.50 assuming that riding, fuel, wages, unionization, insurance and all other costs were constant.   Right.   We know they were not.   Economies of scale disappeared.   For one thing, as soon as government sticks their hands in it, we have far more labor than we had previously to do the same job.   (Remember that I'm a retired government employee.  I've seen how they work.)


Jumping backwards, it's worth pointing out that I am not necessarily
in favor of "just keep paying" so much as observing "talk is cheap"
and deriding people who know how to talk and haven't learned to do
anything else. Because it recently came up in other contexts, the
Monroeville LINK local bus service hit its 20th anniversary in 2010.
It began when I was a high school student, and ended after I arrived
at Carnegie Mellon.

LINK was the local (color coded routes) bus service offered under
contract by Lenzner with a Monroeville hub; It was struck down by
courts in 1991 as violating the labor contracts and articles are
online thanks to Google news if you're curious. If you think you can
save money on transit, you no doubt expect to do it by privatizing and
rolling over unions. It's that decision which precludes doing so in a
public context, but if you want to save that money, you'd no doubt
rather subsidize a private company's profits out of tax money rather
than a "boring, non-innovative" public authority which does not need
extra money for profits but instead pays more than minimum wage.

In general, the hourly folks could use the money more than e.g. the
Pittsburgh Transportation Group president, who lives in Jefferson
Township in a huge house and oversees among others Yellow Cab, the
company which can't be bothered to promise to serve all of the county
but is happy to vigourously pursue monopoly power to do so. So you'll
pardon  me if I point out that if the private sector is so great, get
a cab here, and if you can, please lift your lower jaw until it's in
contact with the upper and leave it there until the cab arrives, as
you're just making an ass of yourself.

--
Derrick