Bacon's Rebellion

Democracy Thrives in Sunlight

Mass Transit’s Biggest Enemy: Public Transit Monopolies

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by

James A. Bacon
in

In many parts of Virginia, the greatest enemy to mass transit is… the local mass transit monopoly. In Lynchburg, the Lynchburg Transit Co., a local monopoly, seems to be turning the corner after a series of articles detailing the company’s failings, reports the News & Advance. According to the newspaper, here’s how bad things got:

For years, riders had complained of buses that didn’t show up at stops on time, buses that broke down, buses that had no air-conditioning. The system was hemorrhaging money. Buses were being poorly serviced, if at all. Liberty University had been begging officials to talk about service to the campus and its growing student body. But no one seemed to care.

No wonder mass transit ridership is down!

In Lynchburg, the situation does seem to be improving, however. Liberty University is getting bus service — and contributing $75,000 a month to the bus system. The company has purchased new buses, including smaller, mini-buses to serve low-traffic routes. Perhaps most significantly, the company has started holding public forums where riders and other members of the public could have input.

I’m not saying that all bus services have deteriorated to the point that Lynchburg Transit apparently did — indeed, it’s my impression that Virginia has some of the better-run transit systems in the country. But this story serves as a reminder that making mass transit a viable alternative to the one-man-one-car syndrome in Virginia requires more than dumping money into failed transit systems. It requires revitalizing transit companies: making them more flexible and responsive to the needs of riders. More money might be part of the solution, in that many companies could benefit from being recapitalized. But money for Business As Usual is a waste and a delusion.

At the risk of sounding like a broken record… If Virginia wants mass transit to be a meaningful contributor to the transportation solution, we need new transit business models. In many cities, the tired, old public monopolies have failed. Continued subsidies — at the state and local level — of failed businesses is fiscally irresponsible. Elected officials prattle about investing in public transit as an alterative to building more roads, but I hear nothing about reforming transit to make sure the money is well spent.

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16 responses to “Mass Transit’s Biggest Enemy: Public Transit Monopolies”

  1. Henry Ryto Avatar
    Henry Ryto

    Here with Hampton Roads Transit (HRT), the agency is being turned with all the speed of a supertanker. New professional staff brought in, realization that the product is substandard, new products (light rail and improved express buses) to draw professionals, outsourcing of advertising, etc.

    It’s glacier speed, but will it be enough to change the public perception of HRT?

  2. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    In their book published by the Brookings Institute, Winston and Shirley devote and entire chapter to the effect of various kinds of management organizations on the efficiency and cost of public transit.

    Jim has correctly corroborated several of their points here.

    RH

  3. Darrell -- Chesapeake Avatar
    Darrell — Chesapeake

    “will it be enough to change the public perception of HRT?”

    Short answer, NO!

    HRT has had years to refresh their core business, but have wasted public goodwill by incessant pursuit of Light Rail over buses.

    IF a bus company can’t be depended on to deliver reliable bus service, branching out into capital intensive projects in which they have absolutely no expertise isn’t going to improve their image with the taxpaying public.

  4. Larry Gross Avatar
    Larry Gross

    tell me the difference between a well-run transit operation – that the public considers an asset

    .. and one that is not…

    … is the transit is Europe and other places essentially the same in the public’s perception?

    … bonus question: is the basic concept of transit – so flawed – that it is unreasonable to expect it to me anything more than what it is?

    … is the problem transit itself or is the problem the way that transit is operated?

    Is the correct answer – NO TRANSIT or Transit “done right”?

  5. Henry Ryto Avatar
    Henry Ryto

    Larry,

    The correct answer “transit ‘done right”. It’s promoted for the right reason: a cost-effective way of taking cars off the road.

    In the case of HRT, the problem is dealing with seven different cities who each have a different vision of where they want to go transit-wise. Also, HRT staff has traditionally been aloof in answering the concerns brought up by the cities.

    The difference is a well-run transit operation regularly gets people to where they want to go in a timely manner.

    Back to HRT, transit systems nationwide have seen ridership spike in the past year with gas prices up…but not HRT. That privately has HRT brass panicing about how to improve the product. There, light rail and the new express bus service (due out in March, 2008) are a huge step in the right direction.

  6. Larry Gross Avatar
    Larry Gross

    Thanks Henry. I tend to agree…

    But, f the problem in the US is that transit is “not done right” when.. it could be done right and is.. I think in some places like Europe

    then I would offer that we need to do something different than what we are doing right now because what we do now is guarantee funding no matter the performance and we leave no way to require better performance.

    In other words, we don’t require performance of the things that matter.

    No taxpayer-funded entity likes the idea of Performance Standards.

    They’ll point out how bad they are and how they don’t focus on the things that are important but when you ask them to specify the the things that are important – they run away.

    With transit, there IS a good surrogate for performance and that is ridership.

    If every employee’s salary from the CEO down … is affected by ridership numbers.. I would posit we’d see some changes.

    With VDOT, I’d make it .. level of service….or ask customers…

    Both the transit agencies and VDOT measure their performance – not according to customer satisfaction but metrics that are oriented to things that do not require the customer to have a say.

  7. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    The difference with transit in Europe is that you can actually get somewhere in a reasonable time and often faster than driving. Where my grandmother lives in Greece you can walk down to the main street and catch a bus within 5 minutes tops; heck it’s more like 3 buses in that time frame. If you need a specific route it could be 10 mins, but nothing like the 15 and 30 min schedules you see here. 2nd example was when I lived in Italy the bus routes were set up so that buses, taxis, and emergency vehicles went one way down the street and cars went the other way. Brilliant way to keep buses and emergency vehicles out of the gridlock that regularly happened during peak hours.

    Over here the current culture towards transit in most cities is that we can’t not have transit, but we don’t really want to put the capital, both financial and human, into building a useful system that will draw riders. So we are stuck with what we have; minimal bus systems that serve those who cannot or can’t afford to drive, taxpayers who don’t get any value from the system, and transit agencies and local governments who can’t see a vision beyond minimal service to those marginal constituents.

    I’m not sure if you can do much about the public transit monopolies since most areas have so little demand for transit that it’s not even remotely profitable for anyone but a govt agency to run it. Like I said before you a city require minimal transit services, but I’m not sure how short of large capital infusions and right of ways that few cities are prepared to give up for transit that you can make mass transit remotely financially viable.

    Congestion taxes constantly get brought up as a solution, but without replacement transit services all that will happen is you will upset the citizenry and potentially have people and companies move to an area that doesn’t have them. The taxes only worked in London since in conjunction with the taxes they heavily increased transit services.

    ZS

  8. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    Bravo again, ZS.

    We can have good transit here, but it is going to take a truly Herculean (no pun intended) effort.

    It’s going to take a lot more taxes. And at the end of the day, transit will still be what it is, nothing more. It won’t gurantee a seat, wont carry freight, and won’t offer privacy, and you may be standing in the cold and dark.

    The degree to which congestion fees actually worked in London is still subject to considerable controversy. And, Eurpoeans frequently complain about their transit, as good as it is. Reason? They think they are not getting their moneys worth. When we are dropping 50 million a year in public subsidies and paying $4 for a minimum trip in addition, we may not either.

    And ZS is exactly right, I think, in saying that congestion charges will amount to an incentive to move.

  9. Larry Gross Avatar
    Larry Gross

    move where?

    to where there is no transit and no possibility of congestion pricing tolls… ???

    🙂

    You mean.. someone who makes 50-100K a year is going to go get a job somewhere else because of tolls?

    Besides.. if this were true.. isn’t that what some folks have been advocating for?

  10. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    “move where?

    to where there is no transit and no possibility of congestion pricing tolls… ???”

    Yes, there are a lot of people who drive 5-10 miles out of there way to save 10 cents on gas, even though it isn’t rationale.
    Check out the comments sometime on the WaPo when they have an article about the Dulles Greenway tolls even though the amount of money is small and it’s located in the richest county in the country. That’s a $3 toll and you have their US Rep interfering with the toll raises, guess what will happen when $10-$15+ tolls appear on the HOT lanes. Game over.

    “You mean.. someone who makes 50-100K a year is going to go get a job somewhere else because of tolls?”

    Not at the 100k level, but those making 20-50k will definitely have to make hard choices about this particularly if there aren’t reasonable replacement transit options. It will then come down to either employers picking up the tab or paying higher salaries to attract employees.

    “Besides.. if this were true.. isn’t that what some folks have been advocating for?”

    They’re advocating for it, but they aren’t considering all the inflationary consequences of it. Higher transportation costs, higher salaries to attract workers, higher local taxes due to population decline yet same infrastructure to maintain, and higher overall cost of doing business. You are essentially monetizing all the congestion time with the local inflationary effects to follow.

    ZS

  11. Larry Gross Avatar
    Larry Gross

    well.. I have to say.. folks who would “trade” an hour or two in traffic for a $3 toll…

    hmm.. I hope those folks are not in occupations where good judgement is a key part of the job..

    but if Congestion Pricing gives a “free” ride to those who carpool and/or take van/bus or rail and/or their employers will pay their tolls anyhow…

    sorry.. I don’t see it.

    yeah.. we’re gonna have a few angry white men.. plowing their Humvees through subdivision cut-throughs.. but the vast major I think will not do this.

    Moving away?

    I’d like to see a POLL of folks who have moved away and taken a different job because of a toll road.

    I’m not ruling it out.. but I’d like to see more data…

    but even then… as long as the toll revenue numbers were good – what difference would it make?

    the only difference would be that employers would have to pay a little higher salaries to keep their good employees from moving away – right?

  12. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    The issue as I see it isn’t putting congestion tolls on new roads or on new lanes of existing roads, it’s where you try to retrofit congestion tolls on existing roads where you will create the inflationary environment that will drive away employers and residences.

    Let’s use an example of trying to deal with the HRBT. Realistically tolls will easily be over $10 at peak times to keep the tunnel free flowing just based on current congestion (I’m basing this on the HOT lane toll rates in CA). Lets say you can be flexible and have workers come in at the ends of the peak hours where tolls are in the $3-5 range. You’ve instantly added on avg about $150/month (not tax deductible) to everyone’s commuting costs. In an area where the avg take home pay is under $3000/month that’s a big cost to knock an hour a day off the commute, where it’s already calculated into the price of things.

    “the only difference would be that employers would have to pay a little higher salaries to keep their good employees from moving away – right?”

    These aren’t the employees that will be severely affected by congestion tolls. It’s the marginal employees such as secretaries, receptionists, maintenance, and admin folks that are necessary for running a business that will drive up employer costs. Employers aren’t going to like paying for their lower level employees congestion time, but in areas like I-95 HOT the employers should be able to compensate HOT for high value employees and let the rest fend for themselves.

    ZS

  13. Larry Gross Avatar
    Larry Gross

    While I tend to agree, I would point out that so-called “marginal” employees even with no TOLL and just ordinary congestion – usually have job opportunities locally anyhow since those kinds of jobs are more numerous and tend to be where there are residential areas that needs those services anyhow.

    I’m not an advocate of tolling existing roads though – UNLESS – specific improvements are made and could not be made on a timely without the tolls.

    So. the folks who use the roads, see the improvements and basically are engaged in a quid-pro-quo transaction.

    There are lots of improvements that can be made on existing roads from better timimg of lights, to re-working intersections, widening, new left turn lanes, etc… that simply will not get done because money is so tight.

    And the tolls should not be congestion tolls and, in fact, should be fairly modest.. on the order of a dollar or even less.

    VDOT is not interested in doing stuff like this anyhow.. they like building roads.. not optimizing existing ones for the most part.. and that’s why things like signal timing and bottleneck stuff gets pushed on to the side with the “usual” .. “no money” response.

    I’d like to see private companies be awarded contracts that allow tolling ONLY if there is a performance improvement.

    The worst that could happen.. is the company exits.. and the area goes back to non-toll configuration.

    After a while, some companies would develop a reputation of “doing it right” and more confidence would result in tackling other projects.

    This is another of my VDOT complaints. They’re pretty much a road-building organization rather than a transportation and mobility agency.

    At times, it almost seems as if anything other than new construction is a real “bother” to them.

  14. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    I am well over the $100k level.

    When I got offered a better job 25 miles and an hour closer, I took it.

    My prior employer offered to match the pay and pick up the travel costs. It wasn’t anywhere near enough.

    I could just as well have taken a job at a much lower salary and moved to a lower cost of living location.

    Larry Gross is suffering from terminal wishful thinking.

  15. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    I just poited out in the thread above that ZS is correct: it is throughput that counts.

    Weknow as a mattter of well established fact that the maximum through put occurs at 25-35 MPH.

    What we don’t know is what throughput will generate the maximum revenue, especially since some of it will be non revenue generating car pools.

    It is going to be an intersting question: which is better for the economy of the area, the speed that generates the most revenue, or the speed that generates the most throughput?

    I wopuld submit that those high powered Lexus drivers won’t pay a $10 toll to travel 25 MPH.

    RH

  16. Danny L. Newton Avatar
    Danny L. Newton

    The speed that generates the most productivity should be the answer to the question. The Interstate was built as an overlay onto a system that was near it’s theoretical maximum capacity. The gas taxes were increased 50 percent in the first year and another 25% four years later. But, the taxes were not burdensome because they could be paid out of increased productivity.
    A toll is a voluntary tax but it only visits benefits on those willing and able to pay. Tolls are also being used to generate money to pay for non-toll roads. This only suffers and permits the system of income transfers from urban to rural areas for roads.
    Everything that is wrong with socialism is wrong with how we finance roads. The people who pay the most are not getting fair value for their contribution. Creating toll roads is like creating another wealthy class of people so you can siphon off their wealth.

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