The MT Position

Posted by Fred Jandt
Editor, Mass Transit

In the wake of the news of Delta and Northwest’s planned merger this week, I have to say despite what others might believe, the airlines have it easy when compared to public transit. If for no other reason than they don’t have to deal with arguments about America’s love with the flying car.

I took a trip to San Francisco last week. Growing up in the Midwest with a lack of public transit, it makes it even sweeter when you are in a large urban area with a well-connected transit authority. There is just something to be said for being able to walk out on the street and know there will be a bus or train (or both) at a stop within a couple blocks in a few minutes.

In San Francisco on-time performance isn’t just key, it’s pretty much the whole show. The populace has already bought into transit and its importance to the region. It’s not a matter of whether or not they want transit, it’s when will it get here.

Now let’s take a look at San Francisco. Last year San Francisco’s Municipal Railway (Muni) had an on-time performance of 71.2 percent — and the public threw a fit. See, a ballot initiative passed in 1999 demanding an 85 percent on-time performance. So Muni is being called on the carpet about this and is taking steps to hit that magic number.

Now let’s compare that to airline on-time performance. In the last year (according to the DOT) all air carriers had an on-time performance of 73.02 percent. And what was said about that … anyone hear that cricket sound?

See, this is where I think transit doesn’t get a fair shake and airline companies better be thankful there aren’t flying cars.

As I flew home my flight was delayed. Why? Weather. (Which strangely enough, while it seems like a reason often used by airlines for delays it is actually one of the lesser reasons for delays.) So I just shrugged my shoulders and settled down to wait, as did everyone else on the flight. The flight itself was oversold. That meant every single seat was filled.

When I got to my connecting airport, I found my connecting flight was also delayed. Why? Because all of the flights coming into the airport were delayed. (Air carrier or aviation system delays are the two largest reasons for late flights.) After waiting for more than an extra hour for my flight, I was pressed again into an oversold plane and finally made it home.

As I made my way to baggage claim I was thankful I had made it home and that my luggage had made it with me. I noticed most of the other people on the plane had about the same sentiment.

Now look at this from a transit perspective. You go out to wait for your bus or train and it’s delayed … because of the weather. Many areas are now demanding to know exactly how much time before the next bus or train will arrive. The airlines simply shrug and give you a good guesstimate.

Now that the bus or train is here you get on and find you don’t have a seat because it is full to the brim with passengers. People demand more and more capacity for their transit authorities. The airlines actively oversell their flights in case someone doesn’t show up.

You go to make a transfer and find out that your connecting bus or train is more than an hour later than you thought it would be. Most people would be screaming bloody murder at a transit authority for having to wait that long.

The thing is airlines have us over a barrel. We don’t have an option and they know it. Transit has to deal with the ever-present option of people taking cars, bikes or even just walking.

So the next time you’re going to rail against transit for its ineffectiveness, think back to when you were sitting in that airport waiting for your delayed flight and how you just shrugged your shoulders and got out your book.

Thanks for reading the MT Position updated every Friday,

Fred
fred.jandt@cygnusb2b.com

Posted by Fred Jandt
Editor, Mass Transit

A report came out this week from the Department of Transportation, Office of Inspector General (available here) entitled Amtrak’s Future Outlook and Budgetary Needs. The report is in part, to be honest, what we’ve come to expect from the current administration, a transit agency requesting funds and having the actual appropriation falling short of the request.

That said, the budget numbers aren’t the interesting part of the report. The interesting discussion is when the report discusses Amtrak’s on-time performance (OTP), or lack thereof.

“Amtrak’s OTP had been declining steadily since FY 2002, from 77 percent to 68 percent in FY 2006. However, the OTP increased in FY 2007 to 69 percent and to 72.7 percent through January 2008.”

Now, an OTP hovering around 70 is far from desirable, but it isn’t unheard of in transit agencies across the country.

“In FY 2006, average OTP across Amtrak’s long-distance routes was only 30 percent.”

What?! Now that is a shocking number. A 30 percent on-time performance explains a lot about lack of consumer faith in Amtrak. Wow.

So who is to blame for this poor performance? Pick a group and see who they are pointing fingers at.

“…there is little agreement between Amtrak and the host railroads on whose track Amtrak operates regarding the cause of this poor OTP…”

Yep, everybody is blaming everybody else. In defense of the freight railroads whose tracks Amtrak largely operates on, they barely have enough room for their own trains, let alone Amtrak’s, as the report states.

“The capacity of the freight rail network is insufficient to handle the mix of fast (passenger and inter-modal freight) and slow (bulk commodity freight) trains operating according to different business models, i.e., scheduled versus unscheduled or loosely scheduled service.”

The report points out that most of the tracks outside the Northeast Corridor are single tracks with bi-directional traffic, necessitating the use of sidings. It also states that increasing OTP outside the Northeast Corridor to 85 percent would generate a net gain of $136.6 million.

Taking a look at this report, is there any clearer indication that there needs to be a concerted effort put into designing and building a high-speed rail network in the United States. The freight rail network is strained to the point of bursting for its own trains. Amtrak’s OTP for long-distance trains is 30 percent. And neither group is willing to give an inch to help the other out, as the report found, “certain practices intentionally delay Amtrak trains.”

We have an infrastructure crisis on our hands. We need to expand not only the freight rail network, but also implement a better plan for Amtrak other than just shoe-horning it onto existing tracks. And until we do that, Amtrak will continue to operate at losses with poor OTP.

On a personal note, we’ve redesigned the e-mail blast sending out the MT Position. If you haven’t seen it recently or signed up for it, take a look. It now includes Daily News and the top five viewed and emailed stories on the Mass Transit Web site from the past week.

Thanks for reading the MT Position updated every Friday,

Fred
fred.jandt@cygnusb2b.com

For many of my marketing colleagues, this is the time they begin formulating their budget for the next fiscal year. And for as long as I can remember, it’s also the time when calls, letters and email begin to circulate, all asking the same question: “What is the right amount for a transit marketing budget?”

Often the response is simply to say, “The industry rule of thumb is that marketing should be in the range of one to three percent of operating expenses.” This is usually when I want to take out a hammer and pound on the thumb making the rule. Let me make it perfectly clear — this rule is bogus, it leads to bad budget policy and as long as it is applied, it will short change marketing efforts.

Why? Well, for starters, this perverse guidance goes back more than 20 years when transit marketing wasn’t as sophisticated as it is today. Those were also the days when marketing was undervalued and underfunded, and more often than not the first thing cut in hard budget times.

Today’s transit managers and their marketing staffs are much more market and customer driven. Their awareness of good marketing practices is better and their overall support of marketing as a key strategy to recruit and retain riders, as well as protect their revenue stream, is keener than ever.

Even so, this bogus rule of thumb is still around. But is there a better rule that can replace it and better reflect how transit marketing is done in today’s world?

The answer doesn’t lie in a rule. The answer lies using a process that takes into account the marketing functions and activities that an individual system engages in, then building a budget accordingly. Ask questions like how many materials does your agency still need to have in print? Are things like signage and on board information updated regularly? When it comes to major cost categories like Web sites, advertising, publications, etc., it may be especially helpful to compare what your peers are doing and spending. Exchanging this type of information can lead to a better budget perspective. Remember though, that size matters when it comes to costs, so make sure you use good comparisons.

Build on this idea by looking at areas where performance goals will help determine what the cost of achieving them will be. Take broadcast advertising for example. Reach to target markets and frequency of message are important in media planning, and gross rating points (GRP) are a good representation of measuring how much media you effectively need. So, if you need to achieve a certain reach and frequency level, you can estimate the average costs per GRP for your market and better budget in that area. Similarly, if you are in charge of a call center and need to achieve a certain level of calls being handled, then you’ll need to budget accordingly for staff and equipment.

Whatever method you use, bring the hammer down on a very bad and often unrealistic rule of thumb. It’ll feel so good!

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

Statistics Canada released 2006 census data this week. Not surprisingly more Canadians are using alternate means of getting to work than just taking their cars. Calgary boasted the largest increase in public transit use (three percent), but Toronto weighed in with a more than 30 percent increase in the number of bike riders.

Now how do we compare to that in the United States? We take money from public transit to increase roads while at the same time increasing gas prices seemingly exponentially.

Something just doesn’t seem to mesh here…

The problem here is the lack of investment by the U.S. government when it comes to public transit. The Canadian government is spending billions of dollars to improve its transit system and in this country transit has to fight for every penny it gets.

Now, I understand that this has been the case for some time now. But it’s amazing how we just accept this lack of forethought on the part of our government.

I was watching the Daily Show last night and they showed footage of the representatives from leading U.S. oil companies being called before Congress because of the soaring gas prices while their companies set record profit numbers.

The interesting bit was seeing the same footage from a year ago. And two years ago. And three years ago.

Two years ago gas prices surged. People were outraged. Public transit ridership swelled and discussion of more investment in public transit grew.

Last year gas prices surged. People shrugged and tightened their belts. What could they do? Interest in public transit flattened.

This year we are looking at gas prices at near $4 a gallon or greater. Again people are outraged. And yet, we don’t see the government looking toward public transit as a solution.

They look around trying to lay blame on somebody while people struggle to get by. Will next summer be another year of shrugged shoulders and belt tightening? Is this a vicious circle we’re in?

We don’t need more money for transit agencies. We don’t. We need a massive investment in public transportation. We need to make public transit the first choice for commuters and travelers instead of the second or third.

And we need the government to stop for a second and realize that the problem it is desperately trying to solve is a fire it keeps feeding with its current policies.

Let’s hope it doesn’t get beyond its control.

For the latest industry news, check out MassTransitMag.com’s Daily News section.

Thanks for reading the MT Position updated every Friday,

Fred
fred.jandt@cygnusb2b.com

Posted by Fred Jandt
Editor, Mass Transit

It’s interesting the power of words, especially in this digital age we’ve moved into as a culture. As I tell my kids, sometimes it’s not the words, but how you say them. Of course, with an e-mail, or even a blog, you can’t hear the inflection or tone the writer intended as he or she wrote them. Right now, can you tell if I am writing this slowly and meditatively or quickly and flared with emotion?

They say that a picture is worth a thousand words, but sometimes we need to remember that each one of those words can evocate an image in the mind of the reader — and often times, not the ones we intended.

Take for example the LIRR derailment that happened Thursday morning. Just pulling up the story on our newsfeed service I came up with three headlines for the same story:

• 2 LIRR Trains Bump in Queens; Eastbound Service Delayed
• 2 LIRR Trains Collide in Queens; Eastbound Service Delayed
• 2 LIRR Trains Collide in Queens; Eastbound Service Suspended

While all three of these headlines look the same, they couldn’t be more different. The first headline says the trains bumped into each other. The second and third headlines say the trains collided. That is a significant difference in most people’s minds. If you have ever backed into something with your car, you know what I am talking about.

A bump is when you can get out, look at what you hit, shrug your shoulders at the negligible mark (if any) and go about your business. A collision is when you put your head down on the steering wheel, cringing, while you psyche yourself up to get out and look at what happened.

Also take a look at the last word in those headlines. The first two say service is delayed, while the last one says suspended. OK, I don’t know about you, but delayed is vastly different in my mind than suspended. Delayed means I have to wait a little longer for my train. Suspended means I better find a different way home.

Comments with one of the stories I found online were already calling LIRR to task for describing a derailment and collision as two trains that had bumped into each other. Now, mind you, I don’t know if it was LIRR who actually used the term “bump,” but respondents were all over them about it.

This all comes back to the words we choose to use. While every picture evokes a litany of words, every word in turn evokes a myriad of images. We need to be aware of this and wary of how we describe anything that happens in the transit industry.

For the latest industry news, check out MassTransitMag.com’s Daily News section.

Thanks for reading the MT Position updated every Friday,

Fred
fred.jandt@cygnusb2b.com

Posted by Fred Jandt
Editor, Mass Transit

I read a couple good stories on privatization this week. The first was by the Washington Post on the privatization of our highways and the other was about Disney and how its transit system was a model for public agencies.

I don’t know how I feel about privatization when it comes to roads and transit. On one hand, I can definitely see the benefits. Our infrastructure is crumbling and this may be the best option to forestall an almost inevitable crisis. And with public transit agencies across the country struggling for funding just to operate, any expansion may be more likely if it was done with help from the private industry.

But at what cost? The Disney piece mentions how the average transit system only covers 40 percent of costs from the farebox and holds that up as a reason for privatization — to get these agencies back on budget. But what other public agency is being held to private industry standards? If your local parks department was to cover 40 percent of its costs through sales of ticketed parking lots, would people be calling for the parks to be privatized? To get the parks back on budget?

The problem going forward as I see it with privatization of any kind is a public view that America is being sold off piece by piece. Instead of I-80, you can drive down the [Insert Big Company Name Here] Tollway. We already have this with most of the major ballparks and stadiums in the country and there is grumbling about that. How about a bus system owned by large company?

The problem with any widespread ideal of privatization is the temptation for misuse. Hey, if the system isn’t hitting the bottom line things have to be cut, or changing routes to serve the needs of a company’s employees. Already major companies like Microsoft and Google are running their own public transit for their employees. I am not sure I want them in charge of all the buses, though.

The overall situation is that money for roads and transit is going away — fast. So is it a matter of adding more or taking better care of what we already have? When I spoke with Fred Gilliam (who has worked for both public and private transit providers) at Capital Metro in Austin recently, he said you need a balance between hitting the bottom line and providing a quality service. It’s that balance that will be the key to the future.

In the end, there are plenty of companies with the funds, knowledge and experience to help the country’s infrastructure come back to where it should have been all along. We just need to make sure that we don’t lose our path along the way and wind up in a bigger mess than we started with.

For the latest industry news, check out MassTransitMag.com’s Daily News section.

Thanks for reading the MT Position updated every Friday,

Fred
fred.jandt@cygnusb2b.com

By Dan Johnson-Weinberger

We transit advocates have a problem: bad language.

Listen to what we ask for:

* Operating assistance

* Formula funding

* Guaranteed appropriations

Boring!

Right now we seem like we’re still on the welfare train, asking for government handouts without any compelling, exciting opportunities for the nation to embrace.

If we want to inspire the imagination of our elected officials and taxpayers to create the modern transit network the nation deserves, we need language that similarly inspires.

And that means we’ll need a wholesale replacement of our current language that emerged from agencies and bureaucracies with language designed to resonate in the political world.

Thus, we should consider the names of the actual program simply a starting point for the language that we will choose to use in our communications with our riders, elected officials and the broader electorate as we look to build support for our political objectives.

Our challenge is capturing in two or three words what we want. We want a two- or three-word phrase that evokes all of the positive benefits that modern transit brings to the nation, and also subtly distinguishes our investment from rival investments (in particular, highway spending). This phrase will be the description of our policy agenda — our goal — that agencies and advocates can use as a replacement for our current language.

Some rules of thumb; ‘investment’ is a better word than either ‘funding’ or ‘program.’ ‘Assistance’ is a bad word. ‘Freedom’ is a good word.

Here are three guideposts to designing new language to describe transit and our policy agenda.

1. Appeal to non-riders (particularly drivers)

2. Convey the benefits of a transit investment

3. Avoid reinforcing the negative associations of taxes and government programs

My initial thoughts on each of these guideposts:

It’s important that we appeal directly to non-riders to build our base of support. Transit ridership, as a percentage of the electorate, is well below 10 percent (even in our largest metropolitan regions). Politics is a game of addition, and to add to our base, we need to target the people who benefit from transit ridership: drivers. Another important group of people that benefit from transit are property owners with higher values thanks to their access to the transit network (and the municipalities who tax the property owners to fund their local budgets).

The benefits of transit include many of the following:

* Freedom from foreign oil

* Freedom from global warming

* Freedom from bad traffic and job-killing road congestion

* More prosperity

* Higher property values and property tax revenues

* Access to jobs and employees

We don’t understand yet which of these benefits are the most compelling to the greatest number of voters, and I suspect that some of these benefits will be more compelling to some groups of voters than others. While we should be prepared to emphasize certain benefits with certain constituencies, language for policy initiatives works best when it is repeated and echoed by the media as well as by the advocate. The new language is successful when it becomes universally accepted.

We don’t want to be associated with activities that elected officials shy away from: welfare, handouts or wasteful government spending.

We do want to be associated with the benefits that transit usage generates: freedom from foreign oil, freedom from global warming, freedom from bad traffic and more prosperity.

Finally, we do want to distinguish ourselves from our rivals for transportation funding: highways.

It isn’t easy to distill our advocacy language into tight, compelling, muscular words, but it’s a job we need to start.

Dan Johnson-Weinberger is the President and Founder of Permanent Campaigns Consulting, a Chicago-based communications firm specializing in partnering with transit agencies to grow ridership.

Posted by Fred Jandt
Editor, Mass Transit

Traveling around as I do, you get to experience a lot of transit agencies. Most of the time it’s a guided tour, so it’s not exactly a full immersion, but you do get to see what the agency’s local riders see. I’ve been warned off by transit police for taking photos. I’ve had another rider help me figure out a ticket machine as I fumbled with my change. I’ve talked to riders on buses and trains and stops and platforms. And the thing you remember most is good customer service from agency staff.

As Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA) general manager, John Catoe, recently said to me, “It’s every employee’s responsibility to provide customer service. And if I can do it as general manager, it’s my expectation that every other executive and every other manager in this agency doesn’t just go out there and look. It’s not always that terrible, but take an action, everyday take some small action to improve the service to our customers.”

My publisher and I were at the APTA Legislative Conference earlier this week in Washington, D.C. The conference was great as always and, as always, a lot was packed into a little amount of time. So I was dragging a little bit as we walked the few blocks to the closest Metro station.

Getting our tickets, we headed down to the platform and then stood dumbly looking at the signs as we discussed the different ticket stalls above. It was just then that we were approached by a WMATA employee who had obviously seen our suitcases and stares at the system map and (correctly) figured we needed some help.

Now I’ve ridden Metro several times before this and so has my publisher. We would eventually have gotten our bearings and got on the right train, but it was so nice to have someone come up and offer help without asking and without figuring you were stupid for not knowing the local system (I’ve had that happen, too).

The WMATA employee, told us what train we needed to take, where it would be coming from and, taking his lunchbox in hand, headed up and out of the station. He wasn’t a station manager, either. No, just a passing employee who thought he’d follow Catoe’s advice — even if he didn’t know it — and take a small action to help someone on the system.

Sure, we could have made it on our own, but it was just that little bit of customer service that made a big impact. I remembered it the whole way home and I won’t forget it the next time I ride the Washington system.

I know agencies all over are looking for ways to increase revenue and ridership, but in the end it’s good to remember that it’s the little things that sometimes count the most.

For the latest industry news, check out MassTransitMag.com’s Daily News section.

Thanks for reading the MT Position updated every Friday,

Fred
fred.jandt@cygnusb2b.com

By Paul Meyer

With baseball season upon us, I can’t help but chuckle at how the bench players in baseball, full of energy and willingness to contribute, mirror private sector engineers and land surveyors who stand ready to step up and bring home Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Strategic Growth Plan, which puts $15 billion into transportation improvements.

So far, like the bench players in baseball whose value isn’t recognized until late in the season, the private sector is pitching in and working on projects, but is ready to do a whole lot more.

But can the California Department of Transportation (Caltrans) deliver this monumental undertaking given the dire circumstances surrounding the state budget deficit, or is it time to call in further resources and reinforcements from the private sector?

For California, at least part of the answer can be found in the findings of a recent study called “A National Assessment of Transportation Strategies and Practices: Lessons for California.” The joint study, conducted by the California Taxpayers’ Association (Cal-Tax) and the Infrastructure Delivery Council (IDC), an affiliate of the Consulting Engineers and Land Surveyors of California (CELSOC), examined the best practices of the departments of transportation in 10 states with major transportation programs already underway including Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Missouri, New York, Oregon, Texas, Utah, Washington, and California.

A pivotal fact revealed in the study was that California’s ability to successfully deliver these projects is currently hamstrung by the state’s fundamental underutilization of a cardinal element of modern infrastructure delivery methods – the public-private partnership (PPP) model.

California, unlike the other nine states surveyed, has failed to recognize that outsourcing engineering services on these projects actually leads to expedited delivery times in addition to saving taxpayer money.

The study found that Georgia, Missouri and Washington are outsourcing their engineering services on 50 percent of their projects. In Arizona, private sector experts are utilized at levels closer to 85 percent. California outsourced just 10 percent of its transportation projects,

Keeping in mind that time is money; these statistics underscore the importance of the private sector’s role in successfully delivering transportation programs faster, more efficiently, and most importantly cost effectively.

But the decision to outsource is not made solely on cost. One significant factor in deciding to outsource is driven by a targeted project delivery time. A recent look at Utah’s Mountain View Corridor project shows that due to inflation rates as high as 10 percent in recent years, delays are raising the cost of the $2 billion project by $200 million a year.

We agree with the state Department of Finance, which reports that California needs an estimated $500 billion just to bring current its aging infrastructure systems. And, using Utah’s Mountain View Corridor project as an example, we can reasonably deduce that every year our infrastructure projects remain on the shelf, the increased cost of those delays to California taxpayers will be hundreds of millions, if not billions of dollars.

PPPs, as other states continue to demonstrate, are a cost-effective, efficient means of delivering infrastructure both quickly and professionally. During the 1930s-1950s visionary leadership was able to deliver a massive transportation program with limited inclusion of the private sector. But times have changed and departments of transportation (DOTs) across the country find it difficult the ability to hire, train and maintain large, fluctuating staffing levels needed to support these programs. In addition, DOTs often lack the specialty skills needed to engineer increasingly complex projects.

Private engineering firms and engineers can be used to fill the current and future gaps in staffing levels and specialty skills our state needs to succeed. But today in California, the lack of an adequate statutory framework for authorizing PPPs is “blocking the road.” Without new legislation, wide-scale authorization and implementation of PPPs in California is simply not going to happen.

Take the Golden Gate Bridge project for example. This highly successful project was structured as a PPP long before the term became popular. But the statute that authorized that landmark PPP project only authorized that one project. Our hope is that current efforts by Gov. Schwarzenegger and a new generation of visionary leaders across the state will succeed in their quest to enable California to finally bring its systems and processes in-line with twenty-first century practices.

The taxpayers who will eventually foot the bill for California’s underinvestment deserve nothing less than to have the best players from both the public and private sectors working together to rebuild our state.

It’s time for the public sector in California to call the private sector off the bench and into the game. We need to put our best team on the field and allow them to get to work rebuilding California’s infrastructure and economy.

For a copy of the full study, visit www.caltax.org.

For more information on PPPs visit www.celsoc.org

Paul Meyer is the executive director of CELSOC, which is a 52-year old, statewide association representing 1,200 private consulting engineering and land surveying firms that average 20 employees each. CELSOC is dedicated to enhancing the consulting engineering and land surveying professions, protecting the general public and promoting the use of the private sector in the growth and development of our state. CELSOC’s members provide services for all phases of planning, designing and constructing projects. For more information, visit www.celsoc.org.

Posted by Fred Jandt
Editor, Mass Transit

You know, there are weeks where transit just can’t win.

Last week wasn’t one of those weeks. Facing the brewing infrastructure crisis head on, the Minnesota Legislature voted to override a veto leveled by Governor Pawlenty against a bill raising state gas and sales taxes and increasing registration fees on new vehicles. This bill will now fund $6.6 billion in infrastructure improvements for the next 10 years.

Unfortunately, this was one of those weeks.

This week’s theme seems to be how can we spend our transit funds in the worst way. Take the Northern Virginia Transportation Authority for example. It now has to begin refunding $12 million it collected in taxes and fees since January. Why? Because the Virginia Supreme Court recently ruled that the authority’s taxing ability was unconstitutional.

Now let that sink in for a minute. The state supreme court ruled that the authority’s taxing powers were unconstitutional. Meanwhile, they kept collecting taxes. Now understand the process and how long court proceedings can take, but didn’t anyone stop to think about whether this was possibly against the law before they began to collect the taxes? And now we’re not just talking about giving back $12 million in taxes, we’re talking about money spent on employee salaries to make sure those collected taxes are returned to the correct people.

Unfortunately, Virginia doesn’t hold a candle to Milwaukee. If you didn’t know, Milwaukee received a $289 million appropriation from the federal government to build a bus-only highway along I-94. You might not know because this happened 17 years ago.

This $289 million should be held up as a lesson to all transit authorities in how not to watch your funds get frittered away. After the bus-only highway project was shutdown, the federal government took $48 million back, and another $149.5 million was spent on other road, bridge and pedestrian projects.

The remaining $91.5 million has been sitting there since before the turn of the century, unable to be spent because the powers that be can’t decide how best to spend it. You would think they could get an agreement after nearly a decade of sitting on the money. This week the latest indignation came when a local study committee looking to find the best way to spend the money found its funds running short due to some FTA snafu, leaving the committee without any money to continue its study.

So yet again Milwaukee sits with $91.5 million for transit sitting in a bank waiting to be spent, this time locked behind a wall of red tape. How long it will sit there this time is anybody’s guess.

As those of you heading to Capitol Hill next week during APTA’s Legislative Conference seek funds for your systems, keep this lesson in mind. It’s not just about securing that funding, it’s about making sure you can really spend it.

For the latest industry news, check out MassTransitMag.com’s Daily News section.

Thanks for reading the MT Position updated every Friday,

Fred
fred.jandt@cygnusb2b.com