Posted on 03/27/2023 8:48:29 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
As I’ve been pointing out for a while now, mass transit is dying thanks to a pandemic that has accustomed many white collar workers to spending one or two days a week at home. The situation is especially grim in the Bay Area which was once considered one of the best rail and bus systems in the country.
Its pre-COVID ridership is unlikely to return in the next decade, making BART’s future especially perilous as transit agencies across the Bay Area and the nation project massive budget shortfalls.
In its worst-case scenario, BART would impose mass layoffs, close on weekends, shutter two of its five lines and nine of its 50 stations and run trains as infrequently as once per hour. Those deep cuts, agency officials say, could lead to the demise of BART.
Today, Vox published a story today about how to save public transit from the urban doom loop that is dragging it down. The secret is more government money:
…a death spiral is not inevitable. To escape it, transit leaders must offer a full-throated defense of their essential role in American life. They must then secure new and reliable revenue streams from state and regional sources, which will require convincing residents and legislators that transit is worthy of subsidy — not an easy thing to do in a country where the vast majority of people don’t ride the bus or train. “Do you know how many times the median American rides transportation each year?” Brian Taylor, a professor of urban planning and policy at UCLA, asked me. “Zero.”
Vox quickly pivots to a PR argument. If you want to raise government funds, the only way to do it is to present public transit as a service that saves the environment by reducing car trips. What you can’t say is that it’s mostly used by low income people who maybe don’t have a car.
The only realistic way for transit officials to garner public support for the funding they desperately need is to demonstrate an ability to replace car trips, not just serve economically disadvantaged people who lack other means to get around their city. Otherwise, they forfeit the pro-transit arguments that resonate most with the public: curtailing congestion, reducing auto emissions, and boosting economic growth.
And to replace cars, transit agencies must offer fast, frequent, and reliable trips. This should be the core mission of any functional public transportation system, but increasingly, transit leaders are being pushed to focus on distracting priorities like electrifying buses, eliminating fares, and fighting crime. The biggest US transit agencies must be allowed to simply focus on delivering high-quality service. There is no Plan B…
Taylor, the UCLA professor, agreed. “When framed as a social service, transit hasn’t done well securing funding,” he said. “But when it’s framed as an environmental benefit or as getting people off the road, that can work.”
That all sounds good but as I pointed out here, people in LA don’t want to get on the trains if there’s a good chance they’ll find a homeless person smoking fentanyl inside or possibly even a dead body.
Drug use is rampant in the Metro system. Since January, 22 people have died on Metro buses and trains, mostly from suspected overdoses — more people than all of 2022. Serious crimes soared 24% last year compared with the previous.
“Horror.” That’s how one train operator recently described the scenes he sees daily. He declined to use his name because he was not authorized to talk to the media.
Earlier that day, as he drove the Red Line subway, he saw a man masturbating in his seat and several of what he calls sleepers, people who get high and nod off on the train.
So, staying focused on service rather than getting distracted with crime sounds good but it’s not going to work if people don’t want to ride with drug addicts. Vox’s piece concludes by saying that, not matter what, mass transit systems can’t agree to cut service because that would be the end:
The focus must be on providing the high-quality service that reinforces transit systems as assets worthy of investment. The alternative — widening budget deficits and deteriorating service — would be a tragedy for some of America’s greatest cities.
“Right now we are still in a crisis,” said Bloom. “But if you want to make today’s low the permanent low, cut the transit service.”
“You won’t get it back.”
That may be true but it’s also not a very serious approach. The fact is that mass transit is just one leg of the urban doom loop and, if you’ll forgive the pun, it’s not the driver. What’s driving the downturn is obviously more urban workers spending more time working from home. That’s not likely to change anytime soon which means there’s no longer a need for a mass transit system that runs trains or buses every 10 minutes. That system may have been appropriate when you had the ridership you had in 2019, but it’s definitely not appropriate now that ridership is down 40 percent. In other words, sensible cuts need to be made to make the system match the ridership, rather than just demanding more taxpayer money to fund a system fewer people are using.
Here’s a thought: Fire every government creep who thinks it’s their job to tell the citizenry how to live.
The difference between transit in Europe and most other countries, versus the US, is in the US, you get knifed by the locals when you try using inner city transit...and this seems to be a ‘feature’ that the local leaders are proud of.
Offering citizens wifi, while riding transit would go a long way to increse ridership. Allowing people to save time to answer emails or do other productive work would make up for the longer ride.
Get Secretary Pete out to extol the virtue of choo choos, and VP Harris to sing the praises of electric buses, and things will turn right around.
Seriously, though, they lie all the time, but it’s unusual to see them publicly strategizing how to do it
RE: Allowing people to save time to answer emails or do other productive work would make up for the longer ride.
So, they would risk having to endure sitting next to mental cases just to be able to do some work on the trains?
Why not just do it from home?
thats what the evs are for
to force more people on to public transport
Legislate national CCW.
Advertise riding on mass transit as going on safari.
Maybe California would be better off spending billions of dollars on water desalination plants and reservoirs instead of spending it on a magic choo choo train that no one will ride. Just a thought.
I’m not a transit user. I’m just suggesting what they could do to entice people onto transit.
My city is fairly safe from the mental cases.
You get knifed by the locals when you try using inner city transit. You need situational awareness. So wifi is out. Unless you are Eloi
Plus using a laptop or even a smart phone makes you a target.
That’s not a problem in my city. We aren’t New York or Detroit. Transit safety in my city is probably about the same as a European city.
I’m just saying that the benefits of riding transit have to be greater than riding a car if people are going to ride transit.
Also you have to sell absolute safety on these trains and until you do that and crack down on everything that people will not put up with your wasting your time.
Keeping the trains extra clean and above all safe and free from the dregs of society will work also.
That’s not a problem in my city. We aren’t New York or Detroit. Transit safety in my city is probably about the same as a European city.
I’m just saying that the benefits of riding transit have to be greater than riding a car if people are going to ride transit.
________
This works out great where people are boring and civilized and honkies and Japanese. But even then, the Japanese trains (Tokyo) are plagued with gropers and perverts
How many trains do we have to not ride before you accept the fact that we don’t want to ride your trains?
The dolts that advocate for the mass transit “sys-skams” say that it is not possible for public transportation to be self-supporting.
Then they virtue-signal about how important it is for people to be able to go places. Never mind that the people they have in mind are already getting free (or highly subsidized) everything.
Great articles from California a few years ago said polling showed the daily gridlock traffic jams caused a big majority to say they wanted rail and bus transit greatly expanded——but for other people to ride on. Surveys showed they admitted they wouldn’t ride on them but continue driving cars.
Hypocritical jerks.
Ten years ago the BART was an acceptable form of transportation. Today, it’s a cesspool. Californians could learn a lot of they stepped on a train in Switzerland.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.