Dump the Pump
Posted by Fred Jandt
Editor, Mass Transit
Today is the second annual Dump the Pump Day. I know, last week I promised Bill Millar would be here for a guest blog, but due to a variety of things, Bill wasn’t able to do it.
Dump the Pump Day is a great example of how public transit is viewed in the media. There has been a tremendous amount of publicity for the event, but it depends on the local coverage as to how the initiative is being perceived. Just looking around for the last few days, I’ve seen everything from media outlets championing the effort to them pointing out that it did little to increase ridership numbers last year.
What people who decry Dump the Pump as not really doing anything to get more people on the buses and trains (even for that one day) don’t get is that Dump the Pump is doing what it should be doing, it’s raising awareness of transit across the country. Would APTA and the transit agencies that support Dump the Pump like to see a huge ridership surge? Sure, but realistically, the event is getting people to look more at transit, and that’s a good thing.
As I sat down to do last week’s blog I thought about summer ridership. Actually, I sat and looked out of my office window and thought how nice it would be to be outside, but that’s another topic. Summer has its own share of distractions for transit riders. With better weather (i.e. warmer) the chances of walking or riding to your destination grows. That 15-block journey to work suddenly becomes manageable when it’s warm and sunny out. Riding your bike the full length of your trip instead of part way and taking transit the other part also becomes more likely.
What Dump the Pump does is bring transit back to the forefront of people’s thoughts. Hey, we’re out here and we’re doing a pretty good job! Come check us out!!! There are even agencies offering free rides today. What better way to get people to try out your system.
If you didn’t support Dump the Pump in the past, I urge you to do it next year. (Heck, there’s still time to hop on transit this year.) Dump the Pump is a great initiative and maybe with everyone pitching in together we can get the average Joe to stop and think for one day about giving transit a try.
Thanks for reading the MT Position, updated every Thursday.
June 21st, 2007 at 11:39 am
The recent rash of stories relating to the ACS and transit use and gas prices was untimely and somewhat misleading. The ACS data that the Census reprocessed and disseminated had been available since last fall and had been analyzed by folks previously. The data was 2005 data collected continuously during the 2005 calendar year or approximately as I recall. The average price of gas in 2005 was something like $2.27. The 2005 mode share data is not a particularly useful measure of responses to the gas price increases that are fresh in people’s minds today. While the recent shift to transit has not been dramatic, the stories were somewhat misleading as the readers were inclined to interpret the 2005 mode share numbers in the context of recent big run ups in gas price.
In fall of 2008 we will have 2007 ACS to give a better indicator of mode share data. In the mean time transit ridership numbers and VMT and fuel use numbers give a hint of the trends.
June 21st, 2007 at 3:08 pm
I’d love to DTP today and all week long! Alas, I reside in a western area of Phx. AZ that could get me to my work 35 miles east if I would arrive at a Park ‘n Ride at 6:30 a.m. (guess my 13 year old would have to figure out how to get herself to school), do a few transfers and arrive 3 blocks from the office door just before 9:00. Oh yes, it’s 113 degrees in the Valley of the Sun today, this first day of summer…so much for your nice ‘walking/biking’ imaginings, Fred. Wish it were so. Yeah, its a dry heat…nope, it bakes you. What about a Washington initiative to Dump The Pump Price? That they could do…
June 21st, 2007 at 4:48 pm
Economic development and emergency management are better issues for promoting transit. Dump the Pump is “catchy” but abandoning a car for giving transit a try is not realistic for most people.
June 21st, 2007 at 7:04 pm
Let’s say the Super Giant Oilfield in Mexico, Cantarell, goes into terminal depletion faster than predicted- in fact that is happening. Over the next year or so, the Mexican oil exports to the US fall off by a million or so bbls/day. Meanwhile the Chinese, India, rest of world continues inexorable growth of demand, USA too, about 1%.
Now we are looking at a sizeable decline in supply, in a worldwide depletion rate that is now, in 2007, barely able to keep up with demand. It seems time to get people like Matthew Simmons, Matt Savinar, Rep. Roscoe Bartlett, & Colin Campbell in one room at one time- say the next APTA convention…. The game of shuffling ridership statistics vs. fuel prices vs. inflation rate, etc. goes out the window milliseconds after the Feds announce gas rationing, say 5 gallons/week per licensed driver, Or 10? But it seems a certainty that gas rationing is headed our way.
If you do not live close to work, walking distance to the shopping mall, church, school, family & friends, you will be affected. Before gas rationing is a good time to take stock of where you live, where your parents or children live. Life comes at you fast; something extraordinary is afoot! Take the time to research the gentlemen listed above; see website
“lifeaftertheoilcrash.net” & share with planning staff & college students.
Personal mobility will be impacted in a negative way as we slide bass ackward into a motor fuel supply crisis. What about victuals, necessities of life, perishables from the market? Teamsters, not trains, deliver the goods to the stores, true. It is important to recollect that for over 100 years, trains did in fact do a much larger percentage of goods moving, and will have to again, as energy allocation cuts into trucking fuel. Just a heads up, for toll road investors. Maybe railway tunnels and new rail corridors will be a safer Oil Interregnum investment!
The Association of American Railroads used to have an outreach program for middle-school age students in US Schools. This program ended about the time the Freeways were made Federal, about 1956. At that time, Gen. James A Van Fleet wrote a transportation manual, a booklet titled “RAIL TRANSPORT & THE WINNING OF WARS”, in which he warned policymakers of the dangers of relying overmuch on highway based economics at the expense of the rail network in place (in 1956). Inevitable overdependence on foreigh oil was a key element in his thesis…
Van Fleet’s book can be obtained from the Association of American Railroads in D.C. It is eerily contemporary-