The MT Position

Posted by Fred Jandt
Editor, Mass Transit magazine

Remember the good ole days? You know the ones where ridership was low, funding was manageable if not what was really needed and transit was an afterthought for most of the public? Of course, those were the days before gas prices increased exponentially, driving people from their cars and onto public transit systems, which also had to shoulder the increased gas costs. But unlike drivers who could turn to transit, transit it seems really has no one to turn to.

What? You don’t remember those good ole days? The ones where the largest concerns were admonitions of “transporting air” in vehicles? Now air is probably the least populace item on vehicles packed to the gills with riders. Next would probably be seats (especially since some agencies are considering taking them out to shove more people on each vehicle).

And what do agencies do? Do they increase services? Really, for all the buses and trains that evidently were only designed to transport air previously, they must have a whole yard full of extra vehicles to throw into service. What?! Agencies are cutting service? Having vehicles sit rather than relieving the strain on over-packed transit cattle cars? Yep.

What most of the public just doesn’t understand is that transit agencies get about a third of their revenue from fares. The bulk of an agency’s funding comes from other sources. And unfortunately, those sources are wildly unpredictable. Sure, a local sales tax seems predictable, but the hike in gas prices has shown that even that is subject to the whims of the economy. As people tighten their belts, so to do transit agencies have to tighten theirs.

Locally the Milwaukee agency is sitting on $91.5 million in funds to expand its system and the officials holding the keys to that account can’t agree on how to spend it. They fight like two boys in a school yard over who gets to impress the girl by proving their idea was the best one. And so the city, transit agency and riders (both current and potential) sit and wait.

We need to end the waiting. It’s amazing that transit is bursting at the seams with riders and no one — not the President, not Congress, not either of our two President-elects — has made a call for a dedicated nationwide investment in transit. It’s always wrapped up in funding for highways and other infrastructure projects.

All of these projects are needed, but when people sit in gridlock on a highway, money appears to alleviate the problem. When people are too stuffed on a bus to sit down, the agency is told, sorry, you are going to have to figure that one out yourself.

Thanks for reading the MT Position updated every Friday,

Fred
fred.jandt@cygnusb2b.com

This entry was posted on Thursday, September 11th, 2008 at 3:23 pm and is filed under MT Position. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.