The MT Position

Usually, this column is about a marketing topic. Not today.

We’ve all watched as gas prices rocketed to a national average of $4.00 a gallon. Now we’re beginning to see more people leave their cars for public transportation. In cities like San Francisco it has been reported that these new riders are filling up trains, buses and park-ride lots. So that’s good for transit, right?

At a recent state association meeting I attended, system managers all expressed concern about how they would handle increased ridership. Higher diesel prices, unbudgeted operating costs and limited excess capacity were cited among their concerns.

No doubt these are serious concerns, but mark my words, there’s a larger problem on the horizon for the transit industry and transportation in general. That problem is supply.

Sure there seems to be enough oil to go around…now. While everyone agrees that worldwide demand is driving up prices, what if supply doesn’t grow to meet demand or even diminishes? If you were around in the 1970’s you may have seen waiting lines for gas, limited rationing and lots of people converting to transit.

But that was temporary, and countries like China and India were still years away from being the petroleum consumers they are today…and will grow to be in the future.

How will this potential crisis play out for transit? It is likely that we’ll first see a capacity problem. But with bus and train car orders taking years to process, how do we effectively respond to capacity needs locally and as an industry? More importantly in the long term, how do we assure there will be fuel to run our trains and buses? What rationale can we make as an industry for national, state and local policy that provides funding and other resources to help us respond to both a capacity and a fuel supply crisis?

Just this month, GM announced the closing of four assembly plants that make large trucks and SUV’s, and indicated it would probably dump its Hummer division. In announcing the closings GM officials said they felt consumer desire to move away from large vehicles was permanent. Where is GM going to concentrate its efforts? Look for more fuel efficient vehicles short term, and more hybrids and totally electric vehicles long term.

It seems to me that there’s more to those moves then just the high price of gas. It seems to me that GM officials may be looking at a day when there is little or no gas at any price. They’re thinking strategically and acting accordingly.

I would say it’s time for the transit industry to do the same. In the meantime keep an eye on your system’s fuel tank dipstick. Your worst nightmare may not be how much that fuel costs; it may just be what happens if the tank runs dry.

Joe Caruso is Senior Consultant for Brecon Hill Consulting. He’s the former marketing director for the Milwaukee County Transit System (WI) and has over 33 years of transit marketing experience. He welcomes your comments at jcaruso@breconhill.com.

Posted by Fred Jandt
Editor, Mass Transit magazine

Can we stop with the boondoggle tags already? It seems like every transit project these days is being labeled a boondoggle. Charlotte’s Lynx light rail line was called a boondoggle before it started — and still is by some. And now a recent news article labels the proposed high-speed rail line connecting San Francisco to L.A. the “Boondoggle Express.”

Come on.

So I did a little digging to see what a “boondoggle” really is. It actually is a plaited leather cord made as necklaces (or other things) by scouts. So how does the word come around to transit projects? It seems the term was popularized during the New Deal era as a term for government make-work projects for the unemployed.

According to www.dictionary.com, a boondoggle is “a project funded by the federal government out of political favoritism that is of no real value to the community or the nation.” Think on that one for a second. By calling these projects boondoggles, transit opponents are saying that they are a) politically motivated and b) have no real value to the community or nation.

Now I can sit here in incredulous disbelief at that thought, but having listened to and read enough material by transit opponents, I know that they truly believe in boondoggles. They truly believe that transit really is a crock. It won’t help their community and the money being spent on it is a complete waste.

Of course, a laundry list of facts and figures can be laid at their feet as proof of transit’s value, but this doesn’t seem to change a thing. Facts and figures can be shown that prove the lack of value transit has. Of course facts and figures are like polling results in an election — they can be manipulated.

It all comes down to belief. Do you believe transit projects are just a waste of time? Those who have and use transit don’t think so. Many places I visit can’t wait to get more transit once they get a taste for it.

It is that first transit project is always the hardest to get going. And it seems this is always when the boondogglers come out of the woodwork. Again, like with an election, it’s amazing how much spin gets put into the process.

Transit projects aren’t a boondoggle. They aren’t a waste of money on something that has no value to the community. Transit works. It’s being proven in locations across the country. Does it always work like we want it to? Nope. But also sometimes we have unreal beliefs of what transit should accomplish.

And beliefs are a hard thing to overcome.

Thanks for reading the MT Position updated every Friday,

Fred
fred.jandt@cygnusb2b.com

Posted by Fred Jandt
Editor, Mass Transit magazine

This week celebrates the third annual Dump the Pump Day, which looks to be bigger than either of the previous years as gas prices across the nation soar above $4 a gallon. Transit is already posting increases in all modes and as the summer ramps up there looks to be even greater jumps in ridership.

This week also brought the announcement of the International Olympic Committee’s (IOC) “short list” of host cities for the 2016 Summer Olympics. The list of applicants has been whittled down to just four: Tokyo, Madrid, Chicago and Rio de Janeiro. Now comes the arduous process of providing detailed files on their Olympics plans and hosting a visit by the IOC’s Evaluation Commission. The host city will be selected via a secret ballot in October 2009.

Of the potential host cities, Chicago ranked third in terms of a technical evaluation, listing among other things infrastructure, transportation, venues, finances and security. Tokyo ranked first and Madrid came in second.

According the IOC report, it questioned Chicago’s $27 billion planned investment in highway and transit projects and said the city provided a “lack of detail” in terms of transportation plans between venues.

Chicago is banking on this Olympic bid to bring in billions of dollars in revenue for the city and its environs. Even up here in the Milwaukee area, there is talk of this bid helping to bring in revenue to local businesses and help bolster funding for highway and transit projects.

But Chicago has a long way to go before the October 2, 2009 vote deadline rolls around. Both Madrid and Tokyo boast excellent transportation systems. Tokyo’s transit system is touted as among the best in the world and having travelled on Madrid’s in the last year, I can attest to how well its system works.

And what does Chicago have in comparison? How about a series of rolling Doomsday Deadlines in the last year? A state legislature that can’t agree on how to fund one of the three largest transit systems in the United States?

If Chicago gets the bid for the 2016 Olympics it will be the first United States city to host the Summer Olympics in 20 years, since Atlanta hosted them in 1996. Planning for this bid has been ongoing for years, but how much a part of that has included transit?

I hear more along the lines of “wait until we get the Olympic bid, we’re really going to beef up the transit system then” rather than, “let’s beef up the transit system to help us get the Olympic bid.”

Transit shouldn’t be an afterthought for an Olympic bid. It shouldn’t even be integral to the bid itself. Transit should be built up regardless of the bid. It’s kind of like cleaning your house when you’re planning for guests to come over. Don’t just clean up when guests come over. You should clean all the time, because even if the guests cancel, you still have a clean house.

Chicago should have been investing in transit all along. That way if they don’t get the 2016 bid, they still would have an excellent transit system.

Thanks for reading the MT Position updated every Friday,

Fred
fred.jandt@cygnusb2b.com

Posted by Fred Jandt
Editor, Mass Transit magazine

For years transit has been looking for that reason to get people out of their cars and onboard its buses and trains — now the rising gas prices may just have done that. Of course, this could turn out to be more of a curse than a blessing.

Already I’m hearing complaints about overcrowding on buses and trains, fare increases and lack of infrastructure to handle the upturn in ridership.

OK, the first two are perennial complaints — they are never going away. There are probably as many people who complain about a crowded bus or train as there are those who complain when a bus or train is empty. Evidently the only way a vehicle can run is about half-full.

As for fare increases, well, anytime you ask someone for more money they are going to complain. So fare increases will be complained about even if the reasons are completely logical and clearly explained.

Now the infrastructure complaint is an interesting one. So transit is tragically underfunded for years (decades, even) with the excuse that we’re a “car culture” and people just aren’t using it, and when people are making the switch and using transit the argument changes to transit’s inability to handle ridership increases?

This “See I told you so!” logic is prevalent on cable news programs and talk radio. It’s bolstered by misrepresentation of facts and a lot of shortsightedness. And transit isn’t immune — is anything really. The only thing one can do to overcome these finger pointers is to beat them over the head with the facts.

Transit works. But transit requires an investment without looking for an immediate return. That’s probably what is difficult to understand for so many of the complainers out there…if you starve transit for decades, do you really expect it to grow overnight with one good meal?

Thanks for reading the MT Position updated every Friday,

Fred
fred.jandt@cygnusb2b.com

Every day we read in the news that gas prices are up, with no end in sight. Ironically, just when the public has started parking its cars and giving public transit a try, Governor Schwarzenegger has once again proposed to raid transportation funding to plug California’s gaping budget deficit. This shift of funding represents opportunity costs, which may not show up on a balance sheet, yet, will be felt by millions of California residents for years to come.

The American Public Transportation Association (APTA) recently reported that public transit ridership is on pace to reach the highest level in 50 years. In the Bay Area, Caltrain, BART, MUNI and VTA ridership is noticeably increased from last year. Transit agencies are scrambling to add capacity to absorb this increase in ridership, fearing that these new “transit converts” will become frustrated when they find that park-and-ride lots are full, buses and trains are standing room only, or there is no room to bring a bike on board. Without adequate funding to maintain, yet alone expand service, this sudden spike in ridership will be nothing more than opportunity lost.

The governor has proposed to redirect $1.4 billion from public transportation to cover budget shortfalls that have nothing to do with public transportation. This comes on top of $1.25 billion re-routed from transit in the current fiscal year, and would bring the total siphoned from bus and train services this decade to more than $4 billion.

What might public transit in California look like today with this funding? In the Bay Area, the local share of those funds, $274 million, could provide for the purchase of modern, low-emission buses, increased express service, expanded Caltrain service, shuttles, employer van pools, car sharing programs, and expanded bike or Segway storage to reduce the need to drive to and from overcrowded transit stations. If the governor’s plan is adopted, it is almost a certainty that fares will go up, and service will not keep up with demand. We are literally, leaving passengers standing on the curb. Real opportunity lost.

Thousands of seniors, students, disabled and low-income working families are dependent on public transportation to get to school, work, grocery shopping and medical appointments. Those who have the least may be the most adversely affected by the state’s diversion of transit funding.

Even for those who do not use public transit, there is a cost of shifting funding away from transportation programs. Consider that, according to APTA, one full rail car removes 200 cars from the road, while one full bus removes 60 cars. To those who might argue that public transit benefits relatively few people, one might ask, “What would your commute be like with that many vehicles on the road?”

Are you concerned about air quality? With the average commuter’s car emitting more than 2.4 tons of CO2 every year, what a difference this could make in our efforts to combat climate change and improve the quality of the air we breathe.

The governor’s Web site dubs him “The People’s Governor.” Yet, the governor proposes to divert public transit funding, despite the fact that Californians have repeatedly voted to dedicate funding for public transportation while assuring that the funds would actually be spent on public transportation. Time and again, the people of California have spoken. It’s time for the governor and the legislature to deliver on this mandate from the people who have overwhelmingly voted to support public transportation, enabling us to reduce our dependence on foreign oil, and take a real step toward reaching climate change goals — to do this, California must fully fund public transit.

Michael T. Burns
CTA Chair and VTA General Manager

Posted by Fred Jandt
Editor, Mass Transit magazine

This week was the APTA Rail Conference in San Francisco. It was nice to get back to San Francisco — which is quickly becoming a favorite city for the sheer variety of transit available — and even nicer to see everyone at the show.

The seminars were standing room only for most of the ones I attended with several people telling me they tried to get into the Commuter Rail Update seminar only to find the room full and the audience spilling out into the hallway. (I was one of the lucky ones who got there early and had a seat.)

The trip provided me with the opportunity to sample a wide selection of transit options in a short period of time, including bus, streetcar, subway, light rail, cable car and airplane. I know that last one seems the odd man out in this group, but they all have something in common — noise.

No I don’t mean the noise from them passing by; I mean the noise inside the vehicles. I will give the cable cars a pardon as largely you are open to the elements as far as noise is concerned. But for the others, I was struck by how loud they were as they traveled their routes.

Let me say first, that I’m not an iPod person, so I didn’t have that as a distraction. I first noticed the noise on the plane ride out to San Francisco. I thought maybe I was seated near the engines, but I realized the noise was from the air vents blowing oxygen into the cabin. The buses I rode had the same problem — too much vent noise. The streetcars and other rail vehicles had a different element — too much external noise (be it from traveling through tunnels or what have you) being amplified within the car.

Now I’m not pointing fingers at any of the agencies I was visiting. I’ve had this problem all across the country, it just hit home for me this week as I traveled on a variety of modes in so short a period of time.

And then as I was discussing noise concerns by residents when transit is added to a neighborhood with someone at the show, it hit me — we may be spending too much time focusing on making transit quieter on the outside and not on the inside.

There are numerous car commercials (in fact one was on during the last Super Bowl) proclaiming the benefits of how quiet a certain brand of vehicle is when you’re inside. When was the last time we could say the same thing about transit? When was the last time we said, “And on our vehicles your ride to work will be quiet enough you can have a conversation without shouting to the guy sitting next to you!”

We spend a massive amount of time making transit vehicles quieter so as not to disturb neighborhoods — and really, what are we doing, sneaking through these neighborhoods? How much noisier is a bus than a Harley? — maybe we should look at making our vehicles quieter as not to disturb the riders or better yet, the operators.

Thanks for reading the MT Position updated every Friday,

Fred
fred.jandt@cygnusb2b.com