BusTalk

[RailBus63]

[HwyHaulier]

Jim D. -

Well, as you are preaching to this particular, receptive congregant, my outcry: Amen! Amen! Hallelujahs!

I am also "freight side" career. It does inbreed other perspectives. I have long held reservations about any public involvement in transit.
Used to be, the old Chicago CTA ran a good operation, noted for near parsiminous purchasing habits. SF Muni long operated well. A City,
voluntary obligation, dating to its "Peoples Railway" roots. There was occasional whining about deficits, from time to time, but it was their
problem. New York Subways, interestingly perceived by O. Roy Chalk (later owner of DCTS), as a business opportunity that would run
profitably. (He did float an offer.)

Somehow over the years, the instructive long forgotten maxims. The actual history being:

1) Caesar, and later Kings, built and bought the roads. At no time did they buy the vehicles that could use the Highways. Nor did they
ever think of buying tokens and tickets for any riders. In the Bad, Old Days, there was but so much mileage for paternalistic and
kind hearted rulers!...

2) Common Carrier Obligations. This is a fascinating, legal fine point. The definition and responsibilities of a common carrier understood,
embodied in prevailing Common Law, and predating the Magna Carta. What we have see in past few decades is the transit operators
now run as absolute liability common carriers, and at cut rates. Years back, few common carriers ever held out absolute liability services,
absent appropriate, and much higher prevailing rates and charges...

3) Inflation in US Dollar. One can, "...do the ostrich..." and ignore it. Alternatively, get some strong coffee. The three cents purchase of
1913 is now one dollar ($1.00)! Classic regulation simply does not work in this treacherous environment, absent constant pricing (rates
and charges) "made whole" adjustments (so as to maintain "constant dollar" parity). Effectively, inflation did in the "private sector"
operation of transit. In fact, it was Inflation that killed Roger Rabbit!...

..................Vern...............

[BrooklynBus]

Scatman, your ideas are good ones. I'm sure such savings exist for Manhattan, because that has always been the favored borough, just the way subways are favored over buses.

But you won't find such potential savings in other boroughs within NYCT. When you cut service, it is usually accompanied by a loss in ridership. The reverse is true when you increase service. The problem is that the MTA doesn't see it that way. They believe if you cut service all the riders will just reallocate themselves on the remaining buses and if you increase service, it will just cost them more without any increase in revenue, although this theory has been proven wrong time and time again.

Under this philosophy, and with the bus-subway bias, they will only add bus service if it is combined with a service cut elsewhere in the same area. If they first cut service, (as you suggest they do in Manhattan) they will not apply the savings to adding service elsewhere. It will just become the new baseline. This bias does not exist when it comes to subways. If service is added somewhere, it doesn't have to be cut elsewhere.

When ridership traffic checks are conducted, service is only readjusted within existing routes, which is why we have the evening situation you described in Manhattan. NY could benefit by a separate set of routes during late evening and nightime hours, where routes are combined as you suggested. Other citiies do this.

There is absolutely no imagination when it comes to bus planning in New York. Example. The B61 will be spilt into two routes, the B 61 and B62. There is no way that this will result in increased usage of the B61 because it will be too short of a route. The decline in patronage will result in a service reduction at the next pick. Without any complex reroutings, the B61 could have been combined with the short B77, saving money and resulting in more riders.

[JA]