Posted on 05/31/2010 2:55:32 PM PDT by narses
Excellent.
Paging Daniel Pink...
Yet, that is exactly current public transportation policy. They cut routes and services as they see fit.
Those very people you care about then are left with nothing.
A private transportation market would serve those very people for less money, without federal interference in local matters, and without the absurd and cruel distortions that government intervention creates.
And you expect us to believe you can be objective? Yeah.
Wow:
Unquestionably, the major explanation of the inability of the public transit industry to contain costs has been the inflated salaries and benefits of public transit workers. Public transit employees are paid as much as twice the amount received by the average nonsupervisory worker in the United States and 65 percent more than the average U.S. worker.
Although the education requirement for transit drivers is less than a high school diploma, they receive nearly 11 percent more in total compensation than do private-sector employees with four or more years of college education. The average compensation for all transit employees exceeds the average salary for U.S. employees with college degrees by more than 30 percent.(34)
Public transit fringe benefits average 50 percent of employee pay—nearly double the fringe benefits of the average private-sector worker.(35) Hence, when fringe benefits are added to the equation, the average transit employee receives 70 percent more in compensation than the average U.S. employee (Figure 6).(36)
Worse yet, the pay premium enjoyed by transit workers appears to be widening. Philadelphia’s fiscally troubled Southeastern Pennsylvania Transit Authority, for example, has developed a 1992 budget that includes a 5.5 percent wage increase (more than one-third more than the national average wage increase in 1991) for employees.
Yet SEPTA is planning service cutbacks, demanding additional subsidies, and threatening to shut down the system if a new, dedicated tax is not provided for the deficit-plagued transit system.(37) San Francisco’s Bay Area Raid Transit system reports that unionized employees have rejected an offer of a 4 percent wage increase for each of the next three years.
The BART offer would bring drivers’ salaries to $48,000, janitors’ to $36,000, and mechanics’ to $53,000 per year; benefits, which add to the total compensation, would remain at 51 percent of wages and salaries, so that drivers would be compensated at more than $70,000, janitors at more than $50,000, and mechanics at $80,000 annually.(38)
Figure 6 Annual Compensation of Full-Time Employees, 1988 Derived from Statistical Abstract of the United States and UMTA section 15 report, 1988. (Graph Omitted)
Public transit has suffered declining labor productivity over the past two decades. Productivity as measured by hours of bus service produced per constant dollar fell an average of 43 percent from 1964 to 1985; the productivity decline for large transit agencies was 55 percent. About one-third of the cost increases over inflation in urban transit since 1970 can be attributed directly to the decline in productivity.(39)
Let us put the dismal record of transit worker productivity and performance into perspective. The unsubsidized private taxi industry employs about the same number of workers as transit but provides three times as many vehicle miles of service.(40) Yet transit is heavily subsidized by government and taxis receive virtually no public assistance.
One explanation for transit’s steep productivity decline is that transit employees are working less. Average annual service hours worked by each public transit employee (for buses) fell from 1,228 in 1964 to 1,028 in 1985. The decrease in productivity was worse for the largest transit agencies—from 1,205 hours in 1964 to 929 hours per employee in 1985.(41) Meanwhile, public transit driver absenteeism, which is epidemic in the industry, averaged 34 days a year in Miami, 32 days in Los Angeles, and 27 days in Pittsburgh, exclusive of vacations and holidays.(42)
Another cause of the anemic productivity levels in the transit industry is a provision of the Urban Mass Transportation Act of 1964, section 13(c),(43) which is administered by the U.S. Department of Labor.
That provision has secured for transit workers a degree of bargaining power that is not shared by employees or labor unions in other U.S. industries.(44) It sounds innocent enough, requiring that adequate labor arrangements be made to ensure that employees are not harmed as a result of federal funding. In practice, however, section 13(c) has been interpreted to require negotiation of generous labor agreements between transit agencies and their unions. Failure of a transit agency to make concessions to labor can result in loss of federal funding, thus giving transit labor unions de facto veto power over the coveted capital (and operating) grants.(45)
Section 13(c) has impeded efforts to improve productivity and efficiency in the transit industry. It requires up to six years’ pay for an employee whose job is eliminated as a result of economies or efficiencies. Assuming the 1988 annual compensation level of $41,000 for the average public transit bus driver, legally mandated severance pay could be as much as $250,000 per worker, compared with mandated severance pay (unemployment insurance benefits) of less than $5,000 for typical American workers.
Section 13(c) also has so skewed collective bargaining in favor of transit unions that they have negotiated not only higher-than-market compensation in the industry but absurd work rules that extract pay for not working. For example, the use of part-time labor is severely restricted or prohibited outright, even though part-time labor is ideal for public transit, because a large percentage of public transit service is consumed during rush hour periods in the morning and evening. Under current operating practices, to cover both morning and evening rush hours, drivers are paid for time not worked during midday. Most public transit labor contracts also require the full-time employment of substitute drivers. Sometimes substitute drivers operate buses and are paid for driving; other times substitute drivers are paid to sit and wait. Substitute public transit drivers, who have skills that can be learned in a month or less, are paid whether or not they work; substitute public school teachers, who must have at least four years of college, are paid only when they work.
The net effect of those restrictive work rules is that public transit bus drivers work as few as 36 minutes of each hour for which they are paid on some services, and the average is less than 50 minutes of work for each hour’s pay. Practices such as those would bankrupt a company in the competitive marketplace.
The combination of federal subsidies, excessive pay rates, routine cost overruns, and archaic work rules in the transit industry has prevented implementation of economical investment and operating procedures in public bus and rail service. That combination has been a major factor in transit’s cost escalation. The annual excess of transit costs over inflation (from 1970) is now more than four times the total amount of federal operating subsidies.
Most public transit labor contracts also require the full-time employment of substitute drivers. Sometimes substitute drivers operate buses and are paid for driving; other times substitute drivers are paid to sit and wait. Substitute public transit drivers, who have skills that can be learned in a month or less, are paid whether or not they work; substitute public school teachers, who must have at least four years of college, are paid only when they work.
The net effect of those restrictive work rules is that public transit bus drivers work as few as 36 minutes of each hour for which they are paid on some services, and the average is less than 50 minutes of work for each hour’s pay. Practices such as those would bankrupt a company in the competitive marketplace.
Two new suburban Maryland stations, which cost approximately $300 million to construct and opened in 1990, are attracting only 7,300 passengers a week—slightly more than half the 13,100 expected.!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
1 passenger per minute !!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I’m involved much more heavily in highways than public transit. Transportation engineering involves everything from airports to railroads to traffic signals to pipelines. I don’t have any vested interest in one mode over another.
My point on Rand Paul, who I actually support, is that he took an abstract libertarian concept and applied it to the landmark civil rights legislation of our time, a measure passed due to Republican support. When a think tank like the Cato Institute does this type of study regarding modes of transportation it opens conservatives up to the same criticism that Dr. Paul got. Theory is fine, but sometimes one has to look at the broader values of society. Dr. Paul was born in 1963 and could not be expected to have seen segregated accommodations and lunch tables. I saw them.
Just as we have to accept some societal responsibility for a basic public transportation system (both intra- and intercity) we have to accept the idea of open public accommodations regardless of race or ethnic origin.
There is a private transportation market in nearly every urban area: the local taxi system. Persons who cannot drive for whatever reason often use it when a bus is not available. It is expensive due to its capacity, of course, so it is not by itself a solution.
In one moderate size city that was considering a public transit system, I advised the council to consider a voucher system for citizens to use the taxi system. In this case it was the most economical way for the city to address the needs of citizens who could not drive. The mayor objected, saying that the city might have to pay for someone to go to the liquor store. My response was “do you ask a citizen who complains about a pothole whether he was going to the liquor store?” The council rejected the voucher system and went with a fixed route transit system which has struggled over the years to establish its target ridership (due to a low urban population density) despite the city putting in far more money than it would have with a voucher system. And the routes go by most of the liquor stores, as well!
ping to self
Chew on this one Willie!!!!
I´m very much in favor of mass transit, but the problem is that they always seem to see it as something intended to help ¨the poor,¨ with the result that it goes to and from neighborhoods that are awful, actually gets very little ridership there because those people don´t go anywhere (certainly not to work, and they probably use a stolen car the rest of the time), and gets a reputation for being dangerous and - well, for poor people.
One of the big reasons that there is not more use of mass transit by the middle classes is simply that it is perceived as something for poor people and, consequently, is unpleasant and becomes dangerous. Places where it does work, such as New York, it is perceived as simply a way of getting to work - for everybody.
Public transit will eventually have to move to other energy sources: natural gas (another fossil fuel) and eventually electric. Natural gas is the quicker and more economic choice, of course. Natural gas takes a large tank, and thus is more adaptable for trucks and buses than the family sedan. (There are passenger cars running on natural gas, but the tanks are quite large.)
Eventually, most urban and intercity transportation (other than aviation) will move to electric, possibly on a grid-connection for efficiency. None of this is going to happen in less than two or three decades, of course. The trick is going to be implementing it in an environment where gas prices are rising and supply is dropping. Aviation will have to cut back to the most efficient long distance routes; thus, some form of rail or bus will need to fill the gap from 150 to 600 miles in terms of intercity trip lengths.
Of course, there is that small detail of where the electricity will come from. Coal is the most likely short-term answer, so the fossil fuels will still prevail during our lifetimes, just in different forms.
You're an engineer, right? Then you know that petroleum offers more energy per pound of fuel than any of the other source we have and are like to have in the next hundred years, except possibly nuclear but we refuse to consider that option. By definition, all other forms of driving transit is going to make the cost go up more than the cost of oil.
I see this all the time in my city. Bus after bus with only the driver onboard. It’s a joke.
Petroleum historically has offered such a better energy rate of return compared to other sources that it comprises over 95 percent of the energy source for all our transportation. It supplies nitrogen for fertilizer, enabling us to feed a world of nine billion people. Petroleum is critical for making the tires on our cars, the asphalt for our roads, and even the aspirin we take after a tough drive home from the office.
If we had easily available oil like we had in 1950 we could afford to continue and even expand our suburban lifestyle, living far from the city and driving to our heart’s content. Problem is, we don’t have that cheap oil anymore. There is plenty of oil, but it’s in places like four miles below the Gulf of Mexico, not in Midland, Texas.
Everything we have built in the last 50 years has assumed we could have as much oil as we wanted at a dirt cheap price. In the next 20 years we are going to pay dearly for those decisions.
Yes, natural gas, coal, and everything else will go up in price as the price of oil rises, but the alternatives are going to be more competitive. The key will be the joules (or BTUs or kilowatt-hours) that are needed to move one person or one piece of freight a given distance. Once gas reaches five or six dollars a gallon we will see competitive alternatives emerge at the market level. At eight dollars a gallon our aviation industry cannot survive at its present scope of service, and we will not be able to maintain our highway system.
How we move public transit or private vehicles or freight is one issue. The bigger question is how we feed those nine billion people without the fertilizers and nutrients that enable an Iowa farmer to get so much bushels of corn per acre. Do we use our remaining oil for food or for fuel? Do we fight resource wars for oil? Do we cut ourselves off from the rest of the world, going local and ending globalization? I won’t live to see the answers, but my children will. Hopefully, they will choose more wisely than we have.
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.