"Is green U.S. mass transit a big myth?"

http://www.templetons.com/brad/transit-myth.html

This article poses some interesting observations, both for our local mass transit systems, as well as high speed rail systems.

The numbers seem correct - I've seen similar numbers (individually) that are in the same ballpark.

We all know that mass transit is "profitable" if you have the mass - commuter runs always make money.

And, in general, for most systems, labor costs have been the largest component, and often the driving force.

Deep in the article, the author makes a case for jitney type buses - those with a flexible route - during off peak times.

Orange County study
http://www.publicpurpose.com/lib-orcorail.htm

Looks at a lot of systems, and only likes San Diego

Twelve new light rail lines have been opened in the United States in the past 18 years. (1999 report)Those light rail systems were located in Baltimore, Buffalo, Dallas, Denver, Los Angeles, Miami, Pittsburgh, Portland, Sacramento, San Diego, San Jose, and St. Louis. For example:

The Los Angeles Blue Line which carries approximately 50,000 riders per day.
San Diego carries about 60,000 riders on its two new light rail lines.
St. Louis carries more than 45,000 riders per day on two light rail corridors.
Lines in Portland, Buffalo, Sacramento, San Jose, and Baltimore carry more than 20,000 riders per day.
Denver's light rail line carries more than 15,000 riders per day.

*******
http://www.apta.com/research/stats/ride ... 08q1lr.pdf
Daily ridership today (9 years later):
Los Angeles Blue Line - 84,353
San Diego - 98,700
St. Louis - 67,300
Portland - 103,800
Buffalo - 23,200
Sacramento - 52,400
San Jose - 31,100
Baltimore - 29,300
Denver 65,400
Dallas - 62,000
Miami - 59,300
Pittsburgh - 24,000

modorney wrote:http://www.templetons.com/brad/transit-myth.html

We all know that mass transit is "profitable" if you have the mass - commuter runs always make money.

There is no profit in the operation of passenger, commuter, or transit systems, which is why they are all supported by government agencies.

Always check your sources... who is Brad Templeton??

Brad Templeton founded ClariNet Communications Corp (the world's first "dot-com.") He also created and publishes rec.humor.funny, and its web site, www.netfunny.com, the world's longest running blog. He is currently chairman of the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), the leading cyberspace civil rights foundation, and involved with the Foresight Institute and BitTorrent, Inc.

http://www.templetons.com/brad/bio.html

I would consider Pittsburgh an existing system as opposed to a new system. Even though the downtown subway and Panhandle Bridge routing and Mt. Lebanon tunnel routing are new, the stations are within a block or two of older surface trolley stops they replaced.

If we go back to the early days of public transportation (mid 19'th century to early 20'th century) streetcar and (omni)bus operators were not handsomely paid. This probably made the difference between yesteryear's profitable private operations versus today's union labor and government subsidized operation. Nowadays many runs operate at a loss; the amount of fares collected don't even pay the wage of the driver. (A lot of airplane flights nowadays operate at a loss apiece too but that is another program.)

One might conjecture, how packed in like sardines people would need to be stuffed so that a particular trip will at least break even considering fuel/electric costs and equipment capital/maintenance costs as well.

Disney Guy wrote:I would consider Pittsburgh an existing system as opposed to a new system. Even though the downtown subway and Panhandle Bridge routing and Mt. Lebanon tunnel routing are new, the stations are within a block or two of older surface trolley stops they replaced.

If we go back to the early days of public transportation (mid 19'th century to early 20'th century) streetcar and (omni)bus operators were not handsomely paid. This probably made the difference between yesteryear's profitable private operations versus today's union labor and government subsidized operation. Nowadays many runs operate at a loss; the amount of fares collected don't even pay the wage of the driver. (A lot of airplane flights nowadays operate at a loss apiece too but that is another program.)

One might conjecture, how packed in like sardines people would need to be stuffed so that a particular trip will at least break even considering fuel/electric costs and equipment capital/maintenance costs as well.

Even in older times, branch lines very often didn't make money. For instance, Twin Cities Rapid Transit had two lines (the Fort Snelling Dinky and, I believe, the Burns Avenue line) that were cheaper to operate for free with one employee than for profit with two. Both were lines whose continued operation was required by local government, but both were also among the first to be discontinued in favor of buses. Certainly TCRT wasn't alone in that regard. I also suspect that most rapid transit companies were driven by real estate speculation or power supply companies, and most of their profit was made in those two fields.

modorney wrote:Deep in the article, the author makes a case for jitney type buses - those with a flexible route - during off peak times.

Flex-route paratransit can be a good compromise for off-peak service in sprawl areas, especially now that we have computer systems for rapid (even real-time) dispatching. HOWEVER,

You can't beat fixed-route for commuter service. Flex-routing (or route deviation) is hell for commuters. Grade separation is even better, and fixed guideway can make the system more cost effective/fuel efficient/fast over time.

Also, just to quibble here: jitneys are technically speaking a sort of minibus or cab which runs demand-response service on a FIXED route. They're illegal in many US cities because of historical granting of sole franchises to traction or coach operators along certain routes (and these laws were unchanged during later public assumption of same). What you're talking about is a type of paratransit.

mtuandrew wrote:I also suspect that most rapid transit companies were driven by real estate speculation or power supply companies, and most of their profit was made in those two fields.

A good example of this is the abandoned Norumbega line on Comm. Ave in Newton, MA. A Coney-Island style (not scale) attraction was built at Norumbega park to drive up ridership, while the original line was probably built as part of an RE development.

However, given ridership and relative fares in the 1920's (before the public turned the screws on the monopolies in the 1930's), I'm not so sure that operating revenues were unfavorable. Despite fare freezes and plummeting ridership in the 1930's, some companies had bought nice new rolling stock right before the City Lines debacle of the 1940's. And I know that in my old stomping grounds, even with rather low fares the public operator (with its "onerous" labor contracts) was turning a fat operating profit on the traction lines in the 1990's (which in turn subsidized unpopular suburban bus routes).

I'm sure there are some cases where there is a good economic case to replace rail with bus (interurbans, for example), but it's hard to get past decades of MBTA ridership and revenue figures which (in that situation) argue just the opposite. The T lost ridership AND revenue when they went the bus replacement route. (But because of the existing TOD they STILL run operating profits on those lines--despite the fact that service stinks!) (Oh yeah, for you anti-labor types, you can pack WAY more farepaying customers onto a trolley operated by $30/hr labor than you can onto bus operated by $23/hr labor. And I say that as someone who has packed out an RTS II well past the limits of safety or sanity . )

Otto Vondrak wrote:

modorney wrote:http://www.templetons.com/brad/transit-myth.html

We all know that mass transit is "profitable" if you have the mass - commuter runs always make money.

There is no profit in the operation of passenger, commuter, or transit systems, which is why they are all supported by government agencies.

I'm inclined to say that while intercity rail can approach the break even point on certain routes and segments, commuter rail incurs far greater losses due to the labor issues, inherently inefficient patterns of use, as well as the political constraints on fares.

FFolz wrote:

mtuandrew wrote:I also suspect that most rapid transit companies were driven by real estate speculation or power supply companies, and most of their profit was made in those two fields.

However, given ridership and relative fares in the 1920's (before the public turned the screws on the monopolies in the 1930's), I'm not so sure that operating revenues were unfavorable. Despite fare freezes and plummeting ridership in the 1930's, some companies had bought nice new rolling stock right before the City Lines debacle of the 1940's.

The electric traction bubble had burst long before the onset of public regulation, and eventually public ownership in some locales. As a whole, the interurban lines had over expanded route mileage while under building their infrastructure, repeating the same pattern that had lead to so many railroad bankruptcies in previous decades. Government dictated wage hikes during the First World War aggravated the situation, but it's clear that the industry was on a downward slope even before that as investors realized that electric traction lines were bad investments, long before the widespread use of practical motorized buses and automobiles.

Truth be known, the most viable trolley and interurban lines were the ones associated with utility companies. Considering that many companies initially started with small DC systems, a subsidiary electric traction line made tremendous sense. It shouldn't come as a surprise that electric traction developed very quickly, despite the many early warning signs. After the collapse of stand alone electric traction companies, many utilities continued to subsidize electric traction, with the losses being passed along the electric rate payers. Of course, the regulators would eventually separate the utilities from the trolley lines, a move that made tremendous business sense for the utilities themselves, but hastened the end of decaying electric traction operations across the country.

modorney wrote:We all know that mass transit is "profitable" if you have the mass - commuter runs always make money.

Just to give you some numbers from TriMet:

http://www.trimet.org/pdfs/publications ... ipfy09.pdf

Bus: $3.39/boarding ride
MAX: $2.38/boarding ride
WES (commuter rail): $19.36/boarding ride
LIFT (paratransit): $31.87/boarding ride

According to the January 2010 monthly performance report:

Bus (Frequent Service): $2.79/boarding ride
Bus (non-Frequent Service): $4.03/boarding ride (this includes express "commuter" routes)
MAX: $2.25/boarding ride
WES: $19.00/boarding ride
LIFT: $27.99/boarding ride

"Commuter service" actually is among the most expensive to operate - WES, for example, requires two operators (Engineer and Conductor) per train, the train requires three diesel engines, yet has the capacity of just two buses, and requires significant infrastructure cost that can't be passed off to bus/MAX operations. Further, the system as it is set up is inefficient - for every 90 minutes of train operation, the train is only in revenue service for 54 minutes (27 minutes per direction, plus layover time at both Beaverton and Wilsonville).

Express buses often spend a large amount of time in deadhead moves - I calculated on the 94 Sherwood Express, the bus is only in revenue mode 40% of the time that bus is on the road out of the garage.

MAX is cheap but that came at a price - many MAX costs are assigned to bus operations, and many MAX maintenance costs are classified as capital costs (which means all TriMet riders share in the cost).

TriMet's "most profitable" (or, least subsidized) operation is the 72 Killingsworth/82nd Avenue bus - and it runs a portion of its route every 7-8 minutes.