Tuesday, March 22, 2011

KQV 1410 editorial on privatizing public transit (Jan. 16, 2007)

Current mood: cheerful

On Jan. 12-14, 2007, KQV Radio 1410 here in Pittsburgh ran a strongly worded editorial [see second comment below] suggesting that our public transit company be run by a private company. I sent the following response to the station on Tuesday, January 16. A couple of days later, I was invited to come to the station and tape this for broadcast. It was aired on January 23, 2007.

*

As a regular rider of Port Authority Transit, I take exception to station manager Robert W. Dickey's editorial suggesting transit be privatized.

Port Authority's funding problems really began with a series of legislation in the 1930s and 40s that tipped the transportation playing field clearly against the private, tax-paying transit companies of that era. It took 20 years, but by the early 1960s every one of those private transit companies was going broke or already bankrupt. Government takeover rescued them, and state subsidies made up for those deficits for a while, but the tip continued and continues still. Now the discrepancy between means and needs is more than the political power brokers in Harrisburg are willing to pay.

You never hear about PennDOT running out of money. It has a different funding structure, a dedicated, self-renewing funding source in the gas tax, which, I might add, absolutely cannot be used to fund transit. On the other hand, transit has to start from zero every fiscal year, and cannot end with a deficit.

Port Authority is not mismanaged. For 12 years, I was a member of its citizens' advisory board, the Allegheny County Transit Council, one year as its president. I got to see the books, know the process, watch it operate, and fully understand what PAT is up against – namely, rises in fuel, health care and pension requirements, coupled with flat income, and prevention from running a deficit. The only thing you need to know about its doing a good job is to count the national transit industry awards it has received. There have been many.

On some of the lesser issues, Mr. Dickey, you are just plain wrong. The articulated buses are the most efficient way of moving large volumes of Pittsburghers on high-demand routes like the EBA. Full-wrap ads are used to cover the many and varied pre-painted-message buses. And finally, for all your editorials about the over $400 million North Shore Extension, you've been silent about the over four billion dollar Mon-Fayette toll road.

I speak from the personal experience of riding 15,000 buses in 15 years, routinely eight trips in a single day, all the while owning and driving a car, and previously owning four cars. The system works very well if you care to figure out how to use it. And therein lies the real solution. Since 1980, while the area's population has stagnated, U.S. Census figures show that 110,000 county households have added a second or third car. If each of these bought an annual transit pass subscription, at a cost close to just the insurance on each car (never mind payments, gasoline, parking or repairs), Port Authority would have its $80 million, the system would be growing, service for everyone would be excellent, and everyone who retired the now-extraneous car would be able to save five grand every year, like I did.

Bottom line, private transit companies cannot succeed without first rolling back the anti-transit legislation from 60 to 70 years ago, including a State Constitutional amendment. If you are not willing to do that, stop trying to destroy the good thing we do have.

*

Here are the numbers, which actually came from Census and other federal agencies. (I'll get you the URLs and research titles, if asked.) The 2006 figures are projections using the "=TREND" function in Excel.

MSA 0 Vehicle Households


1 Vehicle Households



1980 1990 2000 2006 1980 1990 2000 2006
New York

2,590,367

2,074,032

2,216,217



2,348,895

2,279,212

2,506,498



Los Angeles

710,171

436,773

537,885



1,521,737

1,649,594

1,863,807



Chicago

708,001

486,693

450,547



1,099,715

1,051,228

1,192,183



Washington, DC

437,980

329,327

343,841



747,539

805,066

974,281



San Francisco

346,455

241,975

253,425



730,311

754,819

842,057



Philadelphia

567,943

368,303

355,220

>
>


744,681

755,717

826,723

































































































































Pittsburgh 214,207 151,751 125,087 92,386 375,351 353,498 357,546 347,888


MSA 2 Vehicle Households


3+ Vehicle Households



1980 1990 2000 2006 1980 1990 2000 2006
New York

1,687,924

1,936,053

2,162,171



626,768

869,289

850,378



Los Angeles

1,355,443

1,835,083

1,987,151



838,323

979,270

958,264



Chicago

886,782

1,033,599

1,203,511



308,648

397,579

455,970



Washington, DC

690,643

914,002

1,061,279



308,938

442,646

492,460



San Francisco

666,773

853,276

953,053



398,667

479,738

508,623



Philadelphia

616,995

750,380

838,550



234,168

285,742

300,226



Boston

587,359

742,105

855,329



208,420

286,280

295,398



Detroit

662,989

720,534

825,177



313,480

335,656

351,582



Dallas

410,879

628,964

809,893



252,667

257,588

303,124



Houston

408,472

537,950

670,166



226,395

194,292

243,759



Atlanta

286,166

439,390

625,438



165,013

236,663

290,445



Miami

309,337

412,991

502,341



116,079

152,385

168,705



Seattle

312,042

451,179

545,646



209,955

254,223

283,993



Phoenix

196,556

329,710

476,459



125,350

123,720="" align="right">

171,285



Minneapolis

287,140

398,387

485,428



141,473

175,372

200,150



Cleveland

376,585

403,092

448,177



159,298

181,736

188,501



San Diego

221,374

343,476

391,670



141,779

170,942

176,529



St. Louis

316,189

369,001

402,654



135,108

156,093

170,233



Denver

230,102

306,092

404,028



156,263

159,559

199,943



Tampa

194,192

303,924

372,603



77,455

100,330

108,844



Pittsburgh 295,460 325,816 356,954 375,272 104,189 116,183 126,913 133,941

So I crunched some numbers. Here are some differences:


2 Vehicle Households
3+ Vehicle Households

1980 1990 2000 2006 1980 1990 2000 2006
Change since 1980
30,356 61,494 79,812
11,994 22,724 29,752
Change since 1990

31,138 49,456

10,730 17,758
Change since 2000


18,318


7,028

That would be 109,564 total added-vehicle households from 1980 to 2006.

Assuming the one-to-two-car households bought a Zone 1 annual, $660, and the now-three-car households bought a Zone 2 annual, $825, that works out to $77,221,122 in "lost sales" to Port Authority.

Pretty darn close to that $80 million deficit they're talking about!

And sure, what the heck, I'll tell you my insurance costs: I have a mid-sized 1999 American car, two drivers (married, over 25), no wrecks or tickets, limited tort option, through a big-name company you've heard of, and I'm paying $661.40/year. How does that compare with anyone else out there?

Full disclosure, though: I had to shell out $29.95 last week for a new pair of sneakers, which I consider more a transportation cost than a clothing cost. I have to do that a couple times a year. How does that compare with anyone else out there? (When I worked, I kept a couple of pairs of good shoes at work, but that's a different story.)

3 comments:

bus15237 said...

Stuart Strickland [This is the text of that KQV editorial, broadcast January 12, 13, 14, 2007, written by the president of the radio station.]

It's Time to Retire the Port Authority!

Those of us who live in the Pittsburgh area are reaping the bitter vetch harvest of years and years of mismanagement and bad decisions by the Port Authority of Allegheny County.

Typical of so many public authorities, the Port Authority has been out of control since its inception and the result is that taxpayers and the public in general always get the short end of the stick.

Many years ago we had a number of privately run transit companies in Pittsburgh and Allegheny County - companies that were efficiently run - because they had to be - and companies that were self-sufficient. The politicians had a branstorm - round up all these companies and combine them under a public authority - and that's when public transit started to roll down hill out of control.

First and foremost - down through the years - this political entity - unwilling to offend labor and labor votes, caved in during union negotiations and dug itself a hole from which it couldn't recover. And, as the years passed, the hole it dug got deeper and deeper - as evidence [sic] by the labor baggage that still haunts us .. constantly rising labor costs, inflated salaries - and retirement perks that are totally outrageous!

Over the years, the Authority has piled up a string of bad decisions - from the purchase of cantilver buses that aren't suited to our narrow Golden Triangle streets; gaining exclusive rights-of-way contra bus lanes on one way streets which block customer and service access for adjacent retail businesses; all but eliminating income producing bus side billboard advertising in favor of esoteric painted gibberish that nobody understands; a $21 million, under utilized parking garage in South Hills Village; and now their latest indignities .. that $435 million North Shore Connector nobody wants or needs which will screw up business traffic Downtown and in the Strip .. and that multi-million dollar Wabash Tunnel project almost nobody uses.

Meanwhile, when the Port Authority runs into financial difficulties, which is all the time, it has consistently refused to deal realistically with the root causes, opting instead to run to the state and county for financial handouts.

Thus, it's us ... the taxpayers and transit riders who must pay the price for this Authority's repeated stupidities.

We think it's time to retire the Port Authority and return public transit to privately owned transit companies!

Think about it ... Not a bad idea!!!

Robert W. Dickey
President
KQV Newsradio

bus15237 said...

Stuart Strickland I taped the letter on Monday, January 22, 2007. I was aired five times the next day, January 23, 2007.

bus15237 said...

I forgot that I actually got several cities' data when I did that research. It's buried in some hidden HTML from the original MySpace post. As it is, some of the Pittsburgh data does not display correctly.

I am going to save it on a file separate from here and try to modify it so at least the Pittsburgh data will post cleanly.