MTA's Budget crisis makes people voice stupid ideas

[JAzumah]

13 hours ago, Mtatransit said:

Usually when you start negotiations, you start with a high amount and negotiate down. If you start at 6 Billion, that's the ceiling, and most likely it will only go down from there.  

If you started a negotiation for almost double what you needed, you would not be looked at as a serious person.

In the for-hire transportation industry, some people ask you what you want to pay precisely to see what kind of person you are. 

[MHV9218]

3 hours ago, JAzumah said:

If you started a negotiation for almost double what you needed, you would not be looked at as a serious person.

I don't think you should keep repeating this. What they need is the money to cover the deficit. That's $16b. They're asking for $12b, to get through the first couple years but not the last two. They could be asking for $16b! 

[shiznit1987]

On 11/23/2020 at 3:17 AM, Deucey said:

Well we only have the Telecoms Act of ‘96 to blame for that - it let all these media firms consolidate and ownership caps to be raised.

End result? Infotainment and Journalism by rewriting press releases; cutting investigative journalism because it only leads to profits IF it’s salacious; cutting local news because papers lose money to Google and Facebook due to loss of classified ads - which fund(ed) them, and the rise of opinion reporting because the talking heads and bloggers can be salacious and one-sided because no fairness doctrine exists (and “Equal Time” no longer applies).

I blame Bill Clinton, Newt Gingrich, and the Baptist Evangelicals.

I'm not sure there's any real answer to this problem...

We can take the train going the other way, and have mainstream media resemble Facebook, where anyone with a laptop and a clever pitch can start a "Newsfeed" claiming that QAnon is real and all kinds of ridiculous crap. At least with the corporate media, people generally don't become billionaires by being stupid. 

Social media is the democratization of media. We are witnessing how well (not at all) it's working out. 

 

[JAzumah]

4 hours ago, MHV9218 said:

I don't think you should keep repeating this. What they need is the money to cover the deficit. That's $16b.

I am repeating this because it is true. It is how the MTA budgets money. It is how the city, state, and federal budgets work. Transit advocates can pretend that is not the way it works, but it works that way. In the small chance that Biden becomes president, he is not going to authorize more than one year's allocation at a time either. It is why I have encouraged transit people to focus on the process of getting things done as opposed to throwing political water balloons at people.

We have surface transportation bills that authorize multi-year capital funding and that is because those bills detail a formula and criteria to review and approve multi-year funding for projects as well as oversight of that money. In addition, it is recognized that capital spending goes towards long lived assets that last between 5 and 100 years and a longer funding window is needed. Those bills take a lot of time to write and are never done on an emergency basis. A lot of funding to deal with COVID is emergency and semi-emergency funding. This money will be handed out for specific now issues. $4B is a now issue, not $12B or $16B. There are hospitals, schools, general emergency services, and other matters that have to be funded right now and you want the MTA to ask for well beyond their fair share right now?

We haven't even funded supplemental unemployment insurance yet since President Trump's executive order which bought Congress four weeks with $40B of government slush fund money. Congress wasted that time and people are WAY behind on bills. Is supplemental unemployment insurance more important RIGHT NOW than the MTA's 2022 budget deficit? If you don't want up to 44 million on the street, yes it is.

[JAzumah]

16 minutes ago, shiznit1987 said:

We can take the train going the other way, and have mainstream media resemble Facebook, where anyone with a laptop and a clever pitch can start a "Newsfeed" claiming that QAnon is real and all kinds of ridiculous crap.

I prefer the seat I have on that train and I would appreciate it if the dying mainstream media would stop trying to blow up the track. 

That is what allows THIS site to exist and for motivated nerds all over the world to turn their various passions into "Newsfeeds" on things like public transport. I support the Q movement just like I support people videotaping their rides on buses, subways, ferries, and aircraft all over the planet. DJ Hammers isn't trying to fact check other YouTubers on their subway streams. We have choices and most of us would make better choices if our minds were not under attack by people who make money making us unhappy. That is the beauty of social media and I am willing to tolerate the disorder that can happen because of freedom.

[MHV9218]

3 hours ago, JAzumah said:

In the small chance that Biden becomes president,

You lost me on this one...

Edited December 1, 2020 by MHV9218

[Lex]

3 hours ago, JAzumah said:

I am repeating this because it is true. It is how the MTA budgets money. It is how the city, state, and federal budgets work. Transit advocates can pretend that is not the way it works, but it works that way. In the small chance that Biden becomes president, he is not going to authorize more than one year's allocation at a time either. It is why I have encouraged transit people to focus on the process of getting things done as opposed to throwing political water balloons at people.

We have surface transportation bills that authorize multi-year capital funding and that is because those bills detail a formula and criteria to review and approve multi-year funding for projects as well as oversight of that money. In addition, it is recognized that capital spending goes towards long lived assets that last between 5 and 100 years and a longer funding window is needed. Those bills take a lot of time to write and are never done on an emergency basis. A lot of funding to deal with COVID is emergency and semi-emergency funding. This money will be handed out for specific now issues. $4B is a now issue, not $12B or $16B. There are hospitals, schools, general emergency services, and other matters that have to be funded right now and you want the MTA to ask for well beyond their fair share right now?

We haven't even funded supplemental unemployment insurance yet since President Trump's executive order which bought Congress four weeks with $40B of government slush fund money. Congress wasted that time and people are WAY behind on bills. Is supplemental unemployment insurance more important RIGHT NOW than the MTA's 2022 budget deficit? If you don't want up to 44 million on the street, yes it is.

Unless he dies or is otherwise declared unfit for duty (at which point, he would be replaced by Kamala Harris), Biden will take office in January.

Now, given the existing circumstances, I have no reason to believe that the MTA would get even remotely what is being asked all at once, but may be able to strike a multi-year deal with annual installments of a certain value, given that the situation is only as dire as it is because of the pandemic. Given that Biden's a train guy, he may very well push for something along those lines.

[Deucey]

4 hours ago, JAzumah said:

In the small chance that Biden becomes president,

Oh okay. You're one of those who think either there was a vast left-wing conspiracy that brainwashed people to mark paper ballots in GA, PA, AZ, WI, and MI for Biden instead of Trump that started with Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez even though he died 7 years ago, or you're part of a vast right-wing conspiracy plotting to launch a coup d'etat to keep Trump in office.

Wow.

4 hours ago, JAzumah said:

Transit advocates can pretend that is not the way it works, but it works that way. In the small chance that Biden becomes president, he is not going to authorize more than one year's allocation at a time either.

Funds for long term projects are routinely authorized and allocated in one Act of Congress, and disbursed by the relevant federal agency as milestones are reached. Same way banks don't actually give people business loan money - they disburse funds when contractor and vendor bills come in and are verified as legit and proper.

4 hours ago, JAzumah said:

There are hospitals, schools, general emergency services, and other matters that have to be funded right now and you want the MTA to ask for well beyond their fair share right now?

Two places have a disproportionate share of influence on the American economy: NYC - because it finances and advertises everything, and California - because it finances and advertises what NYC doesn't, and it feeds, manufactures, and entertains the globe. We make it so Red States can employ and pay those chicken factory workers. (I'd include Texas because of Houston and oil, but petrochemicals are going to be less of an economic driver because it's under $50/barrel now for the top three exchange indices, and a rapid price increase will cause a double-dip recession.)

Despite conservative "thinking", unless there's a global debt forgiveness or eradication agreed due to COVID, or a massive currency devaluation, every government globally will end up 'printing money' to prop up industry private and public. (That's why Janet Yellin will be Treasury Secretary - she already ran monetary policy with the Fed, so she's expert at Quantitative Easing.)

So , CTA, LACMTA, WMATA, MBTA, et al will get their COVID bailout requests after they validate the financial losses. And so will municipalities via Fed aid and debt swapping with states.

4 hours ago, JAzumah said:

C̶o̶n̶g̶r̶e̶s̶s̶ Republicans wasted that time and people are WAY behind on bills.

Fixed it for you.

4 hours ago, JAzumah said:

I prefer the seat I have on that train and I would appreciate it if the dying mainstream media would stop trying to blow up the track.

I dunno why you prefer to be lied to and riled up versus verifiable and peer-reviewed fact, but okay.

4 hours ago, JAzumah said:

That is what allows THIS site to exist and for motivated nerds all over the world to turn their various passions into "Newsfeeds" on things like public transport.

Message boards existed way before Telecoms Act of 96/Section 238. AOL and CompuServe and Prodigy had them. Then there were these dialup services called BBS' that you could do the same thing we're doing here. And you could download shareware games and Duke Nukem.

4 hours ago, JAzumah said:

We have choices and most of us would make better choices if our minds were not under attack by people who make money making us unhappy.

Ironic given you saying you support QAnon, but your life, your choices.

 

EDIT: I normally wouldn't do a drag like this here - because this isn't a politics message board, but I did simply because you introduced the Presidential election and the current president's unfounded election fraud claim here.

While your QAnon and Ben Shapiro-loving buddies might revel in trading conspiracy theories about it, the truth is that the most observed presidential race in history had no fraud found, and every recount by hand matched either statistically matched the final machine counts or found miscounted Trump votes that actually should've gone to Biden - and increased his totals.

So while inaccuracies happen here, blatant misinformation and bringing easily disprovable information here is something I'll combat and go ape-s--t on here - whether I'm a mod or otherwise.

Believe what you will, but keep the misinformation (or "disputed information" - if you need a euphemistic concession from me) out.

Edited December 1, 2020 by Deucey
I wasn't finished

[Bay Ridge Express]

1 hour ago, Deucey said:

EDIT: I normally wouldn't do a drag like this here - because this isn't a politics message board, but I did simply because you introduced the Presidential election and the current president's unfounded election fraud claim here.

While your QAnon and Ben Shapiro-loving buddies might revel in trading conspiracy theories about it, the truth is that the most observed presidential race in history had no fraud found, and every recount by hand matched either statistically matched the final machine counts or found miscounted Trump votes that actually should've gone to Biden - and increased his totals.

So while inaccuracies happen here, blatant misinformation and bringing easily disprovable information here is something I'll combat and go ape-s--t on here - whether I'm a mod or otherwise.

Believe what you will, but keep the misinformation (or "disputed information" - if you need a euphemistic concession from me) out.

Despite our history of (mostly) fair elections, when it comes to Trump and the year 2020, the outcome is uncertain even though there's an electoral winner. Definitely some "woke" right-winger propaganda--these fools were "awakened" by Trump and can't believe that he's gone, still keeping up their Trump 2020 flags and putting them in new (and even public) places even though Biden is the projected winner.

Alas, back to transit...

[JAzumah]

37 minutes ago, Deucey said:

Oh okay. You're one of those who think either there was a vast left-wing conspiracy that brainwashed people to mark paper ballots in GA, PA, AZ, WI, and MI for Biden instead of Trump that started with Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez even though he died 7 years ago, or you're part of a vast right-wing conspiracy plotting to launch a coup d'etat to keep Trump in office.

Wow.

Didn't you say something about keeping the misinformation out?

Before you drag people, you should understand the discussion that is occurring and not frame it based on what you see on TV.

How many races have people working for the US government thrown overseas despite poll watchers being there? How do you do that? Why was that done? Did they have THAT discussion on MSNBC or nah? Don't be simple and think that we can do that to everyone else except ourselves. 

 

49 minutes ago, Deucey said:

Funds for long term projects are routinely authorized and allocated in one Act of Congress, and disbursed by the relevant federal agency as milestones are reached. Same way banks don't actually give people business loan money - they disburse funds when contractor and vendor bills come in and are verified as legit and proper.

Correct, but EMERGENCY programs are not structured that way. COVID is still being dealt with on an emergency basis using executive orders, war powers, and being funded with both dedicated bills AND agency-specific shifting of funds. For example, the MTA can basically burn its entire FTA capital allocation for this year to survive operationally if needed. ALL of this is emergency action. None of it is multi-year in nature. This is why discussing multi-year budgets in an emergency scenario isn't going to happen. They will have to deal with the current carnage via a bill that provides for the money being spent right now on an emergency basis to be replenished. 

 

55 minutes ago, Deucey said:

Two places have a disproportionate share of influence on the American economy: NYC - because it finances and advertises everything, and California - because it finances and advertises what NYC doesn't, and it feeds, manufactures, and entertains the globe. We make it so Red States can employ and pay those chicken factory workers. (I'd include Texas because of Houston and oil, but petrochemicals are going to be less of an economic driver because it's under $50/barrel now for the top three exchange indices, and a rapid price increase will cause a double-dip recession.)

Despite conservative "thinking", unless there's a global debt forgiveness or eradication agreed due to COVID, or a massive currency devaluation, every government globally will end up 'printing money' to prop up industry private and public. (That's why Janet Yellin will be Treasury Secretary - she already ran monetary policy with the Fed, so she's expert at Quantitative Easing.)

So , CTA, LACMTA, WMATA, MBTA, et al will get their COVID bailout requests after they validate the financial losses. And so will municipalities via Fed aid and debt swapping with states.

Farming is very much financialized, but they will eat if that system breaks down. Will you? Red states support a lot of the trucking and railroad infrastructure. NYC has an average of three days of food in the supermarket. Both red states and blue states have their place in the society. This idea that the red states wouldn't survive without the blue ones is a "cool story bro" kind of myth.

Here's a fun fact: the conservatives are SPLIT on the financial path forward. The corporate conservatives are talking that deficit talk because they think the stock market is the economy. The populists understand that Main Street is the real economy and the whole point of being fiscally conservative in good times is to maintain the ability to deficit spend in the bad times. Think about the difference between the Mitt Romney types and the Donald Trump types. THAT is the fight that continues to take place. Us populists aren't interested in enshrining Wall Street power.

There is little question that states, municipalities, and transit agencies have to be bailed out, but anything pre-COVID is not going on the tab. The fewer games agencies play, the faster it will happen.

 

1 hour ago, Deucey said:

I dunno why you prefer to be lied to and riled up versus verifiable and peer-reviewed fact, but okay.

This is a mantra that oversimplifies the positions of people that don't agree with you. For example, science has already figured out how to cure certain cancers, but POLITICAL SCIENCE is why some of those cures are not available to most people. Nikola Tesla's science was at least a generation in front of his peers, despite not being one of the theoretical masters of his time. Tesla and Einstein didn't think much of each other. Tesla was always interested in things that worked in the real world and many of his critics complained that his ideas violated accepted theorems. 

This is why we are still having the mask debate today. People were told NOT to wear masks initially and then the CDC did a 180 once they could assure that all of the healthcare staff had enough for their needs. To this point, the media has not bothered to explain why the 180 was done (despite Fauci saying it himself). People think they are being played with. So, the science and the political science are having a fight. It is a simple thing to clear up, but the people who could clear it up have a lot of contempt for those that don't believe them.

Political science (whether accurate or not) has as much impact on the world as actual science, which is why you have to understand and not hate the people that you are talking to when you are trying to convey an important concept. 

 

1 hour ago, Deucey said:

Message boards existed way before Telecoms Act of 96/Section 238. AOL and CompuServe and Prodigy had them. Then there were these dialup services called BBS' that you could do the same thing we're doing here. And you could download shareware games and Duke Nukem.

SubChat and BusChat used to be a SINGLE message board. Netscape was my go-to browser. I get it.

I am not a fan of anyone making my content choices for me, which is what I assumed was being suggested.

 

1 hour ago, Deucey said:

EDIT: I normally wouldn't do a drag like this here - because this isn't a politics message board, but I did simply because you introduced the Presidential election and the current president's unfounded election fraud claim here.

While your QAnon and Ben Shapiro-loving buddies might revel in trading conspiracy theories about it, the truth is that the most observed presidential race in history had no fraud found, and every recount by hand matched either statistically matched the final machine counts or found miscounted Trump votes that actually should've gone to Biden - and increased his totals.

So while inaccuracies happen here, blatant misinformation and bringing easily disprovable information here is something I'll combat and go ape-s--t on here - whether I'm a mod or otherwise.

Believe what you will, but keep the misinformation (or "disputed information" - if you need a euphemistic concession from me) out.

When you want to go ape, I'm calling National Geographic to record the spectacle and set music to it.

The transit community can be an insular place. Most of you aren't my enemies (not even B35 via Church; we spar, but he's a smart dude). To influence the system, you have to understand it first. Most of you don't get it yet because you don't listen. Nancy Pelosi caught hell over the last election. They lost seats (and influence) in places where the population is growing because they are polarizing people to no end. The rural Democratic organizers are complaining that the city Democrats are driving people away with their rhetoric.

I am a proponent of a hybrid public-private transportation network. The private sector can't run everything out of the farebox. The public sector cannot run everything because of budgetary constraints. If you (the collective you) cannot understand how the people you oppose think, you cannot make deals with them. It is as simple as that. Clinton and Obama did not stop the MTA from having to use more debt to move its capital program along. Biden is weaker than both of them. Clinton presided over the reduction in federal matching funds for transit. A lot of the Obama era stimulus money got gobbled up by existing projects in the pipeline (because state and local governments were broke), which blunted the stimulative effect of the legislation. This is all factual. 

You may not like getting political, but you don't have a choice because the MTA is looking for a large sum of money in a political process. I don't have a girlfriend, but some of you do. If she asks you for $100 and you find out she only needed $40, you might not give her any more money. You don't want to hear her say that she asked for more than she needed because dealing with you is a pain. It may be true, but you don't want to hear that.   However, if she asks for $100 and she needed $80, the remaining $20 isn't a big deal. Political types are going to be the same way and if you want to get money from them (even though it's your money), you are going to have to speak their language.

At the very minimum, you are going to deal with a Republican Senate that retains control of the chamber because in one of the two races, two Republicans were running against each other (Kelly's race) and right after he came in third, Doug Collins encouraged his supporters to back her. So, you can have the MTA propose $4B instead of $12B so that they can more easily find unused money and reprogram it (meeting the Senate Republicans' cosmetic deficit concerns) for them and other agencies. 

In the alternative, you can drag me (and I'm VERY HEAVY right now) further until the MTA cuts 40% of subway service and all weekend service is local because EFF the Republicans while paying 4% more for the "privilege".

[Deucey]

31 minutes ago, JAzumah said:

How many races have people working for the US government thrown overseas despite poll watchers being there? How do you do that? Why was that done? Did they have THAT discussion on MSNBC or nah? Don't be simple and think that we can do that to everyone else except ourselves. 

All that time you spend reading QAnon and related crap yet you never looked upon Donald Trump's Secretary of State Mike Pompeo's own website: https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/international-travel/while-abroad/voting.html

And if you're mad about the deadlines, remember that Donald Trump's own Postmaster General disassembled postal sorting machines for "efficiency": 

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-election/usps-funding-donald-trump-postal-service-delays-locked-mailbox-us-election-2020-a9674756.html

Feel free to ignore the part where Trumo said on Fox Business:

Quote

 

After weeks of attacking the post office and its ability to handle mail-in ballots in the upcoming election, Mr Trump offered a frank explanation last week about why he was blocking emergency funding for the service in the next coronavirus stimulus bill. 

“They need that money in order to make the Post Office work so it can take all of these millions and millions of ballots,” he told Fox Business. “But if they don’t get those two items, that means you can’t have universal mail-in voting, because they’re not equipped to have it.”

 

Easily verifiable, and I didn't have to use MSNBC for that.

Here's Axios with the actual Fox Business video of the quote (you don't even have to read words to view it): https://www.axios.com/trump-mail-in-voting-funding-stimulus-86fd8f23-972c-464f-94da-c707f78b983b.html

Your choice to believe folks who lie to you and rile you up. But since you started off dying on what you thought was a hill when it's easily proven to be a sinkhole, I won't waste time reading whatever easily disprovable things you posted afterwards - life's too short and this actually is a transit enthusiasts forum.

Edited December 1, 2020 by Deucey
formatting

[JAzumah]

41 minutes ago, Bay Ridge Express said:

Despite our history of (mostly) fair elections, when it comes to Trump and the year 2020, the outcome is uncertain even though there's an electoral winner. Definitely some "woke" right-winger propaganda--these fools were "awakened" by Trump and can't believe that he's gone, still keeping up their Trump 2020 flags and putting them in new (and even public) places even though Biden is the projected winner.

Alas, back to transit...

I have not been able to fact-check the online claim that George W Bush lost every legal challenge until he reached the Supreme Court. That was one state and he did become president.

Fun fact: I hate George W Bush for what he allowed to happen to the country.

Another fun fact: In right-of-center alt media, it is almost totally agreed upon that Al Gore won that race based on the forensic evidence. When people talk about the Q movement being a right-wing echo chamber, I smile and nod knowing that they are clueless.

 

Here is a crash course for those who want to know how the world ACTUALLY works:

1) Republicans are a base made up of numerous segments. The three largest ones are the Libertarians ("please leave me alone"), Mainline/Corporate (talks civility, supports bombing folks for no reason), and the Populists (stop building bombs, start building America).

2) All will ride transit if it meets their needs. Lots of people don't like driving to or around big cities as well as getting killed on parking.

3) No one wants to be "forced" into transit (most of the policies advocated at Streetsblog outside of bike lanes, bus lanes, and transit-oriented development are a non-starter).

4) The driver for public transit in many red areas happens to be YOUTH employment. Parents don't want to have to pick up and drop off teenagers at work all of the time and there may be only one or two cars available.

5) Traditional public transit covers the first shift very well, but does a horrible job of covering second and third shift jobs. In most red states, second shift transit service is hard to come by (12pm-8pm / 2pm-10pm / 4pm-12am). I am hoping microtransit works out for these folks.

[JAzumah]

2 minutes ago, Deucey said:

All that time you spend reading QAnon and related crap yet you never looked upon Donald Trump's Secretary of State Mike Pompeo's own website

You trust Mike Pompeo? Lol Deucey. Lol.
 

5 minutes ago, Deucey said:

Your choice to believe folks who lie to you and rile you up. But since you started off dying on what you thought was a hill when it's easily proven to be a sinkhole, I won't waste time reading whatever easily disprovable things you posted afterwards - life's too short and this actually is a transit enthusiasts forum.

Who's getting riled up, Deucey?

I could post the poll watchers being thrown out for no reason. I could post the list in Philadelphia of the specific people to be excluded from watching the polls taken by one guy who wasn't on that list (and got kicked out later). I could post the Philadelphia folks moving machines. I could post the Detroit folks covering up the windows. I could post the order that the Philadelphia folks had to get from a judge to be able to watch the vote count and the Philadelphia sheriff saying he's not coming to enforce it. I could post the video of the chick on CCTV making new ballots and stamping them "received". I could post the mail carrier's testimony of what he saw and heard in a PA post office and the retaliation that followed. I could post the screenshot of workers for a certain voting machine company sanitizing their LinkedIn profiles.

When you say there is no evidence, you just haven't looked. It is like people claiming racism doesn't exist because lots of people lie about it. It is binary thinking. Two things that appear contradictory can be true in certain cases.

In any case, I don't need you to accept any evidence. It is going to through the process and we will see what comes of it.

The reality is that transit advocates are going to have to deal with the Senate Republicans in order to get money out of the federal government. So far, I see no strategies other than attacking the messenger. I don't see it from Patrick Foye. I don't see it from you. I don't see it from anyone else being triggered about the political environment (including MHV9218). None of you have put out a coherent strategy for dealing with people that are sitting on the money. I explained to you that the whole strategy was to ensure President Trump didn't get re-elected. Personally, I think that the GA Republicans should stay home if President Trump is not certified as the winner of the presidential race. If that happens, then Kamala Harris is your tiebreaker and you control the Senate. The GOP is terrified that people are even saying it out loud...and that warms my heart. Short of that, you are dealing with the Rs and the money HAS to go through them.

It is a wall (pun intended). Most walls have doors on them.

I explained that the MTA does not have a dire need for more than $4B. I explained that Patrick Foye can go have a chat with the Senate Republicans and show them how much MTA money gets spent across the country. He can assure them that he will spend the money wisely. He can have McKinsey whip up a report showing how important transit is to the NYC economy, how important the NYC economy is to the country, and what happens to their stock portfolios if they don't cooperate. McKinsey has plenty of jiggly 20-something blondes that can give a presentation about how important it is for Congress to spend money on various things. Lobbying you say? No no, it is a "policy briefing". 

I'm certain someone will get hung up on "jiggly 20-something blondes" instead of understanding how people in DC are convinced to do things. Yes, I said it.

I deal in reality. You are not getting any multi-year COVID ANYTHING pass the Senate Republicans. You can get one more COVID bill out of them because the first bill was passed quickly to avoid an uprising in the society. People are not going back to sleep and the only way they can not have a security problem right now is to firehose some money into the economy. If the MTA is not greedy, they can get taken care of in this time window.

[Mtatransit]

2 hours ago, JAzumah said:

2) All will ride transit if it meets their needs. Lots of people don't like driving to or around big cities as well as getting killed on parking.

3) No one wants to be "forced" into transit (most of the policies advocated at Streetsblog outside of bike lanes, bus lanes, and transit-oriented development are a non-starter).

4) The driver for public transit in many red areas happens to be YOUTH employment. Parents don't want to have to pick up and drop off teenagers at work all of the time and there may be only one or two cars available.

5) Traditional public transit covers the first shift very well, but does a horrible job of covering second and third shift jobs. In most red states, second shift transit service is hard to come by (12pm-8pm / 2pm-10pm / 4pm-12am). I am hoping microtransit works out for these folks.

Most of American cities doesn't really have a parking issue.

3) Once again in most American cities no one really try to force people into transit, they FORCE people to get cars

4) Youth, low income retail workers mostly ride the bus outside of major cities

5) In most red states transit is trash due to lack of subsidies. When the bus come every hour and ends at 6PM with no service on Sunday, no one except those who have to will use it. It also limits jobs people could find.

Microtransit is the worst solution to mass transit. You simply could not sustainably run a microtransit/subsidized cab system in most American cities/suburbs. The cost per rider will most likely ALWAYS be greater than a fixed route service. Also fixed route's productivity increase if more people ride it. For microtransit, the more people who elect to use it THE MORE EXPENSIVE it gets. Innisfil Canada who use microtransit in their town had to limit people's usage due to ballooning costs.

[JAzumah]

4 hours ago, Mtatransit said:

Most of American cities doesn't really have a parking issue.

Downtown areas of many red areas do have parking crunches. People do still like the concept of a compact downtown area that is somewhat walkable.
 

4 hours ago, Mtatransit said:

4) Youth, low income retail workers mostly ride the bus outside of major cities

Yes, because your economy does not do very well unless they can get to work. Remember the Job Access & Reverse Commute program? Suburban malls were having labor shortages because they did not have enough local workers. 

 

4 hours ago, Mtatransit said:

5) In most red states transit is trash due to lack of subsidies. When the bus come every hour and ends at 6PM with no service on Sunday, no one except those who have to will use it. It also limits jobs people could find.

That is transit in most of America, including some places on the fringes of MTA territory. It is like that because the agencies choose not to speak up and make a case for targeted funding for night service. Most of the readily available jobs right now are on the second and third shift. It has been that way for a while. Even Suffolk Transit could do a better job by recognizing that they are a network and running the system that way.
 

4 hours ago, Mtatransit said:

Microtransit is the worst solution to mass transit. You simply could not sustainably run a microtransit/subsidized cab system in most American cities/suburbs. The cost per rider will most likely ALWAYS be greater than a fixed route service. Also fixed route's productivity increase if more people ride it. For microtransit, the more people who elect to use it THE MORE EXPENSIVE it gets.

The right size is 12-15 passenger vans pulsing to a major transit facility or point of interest. There is a British town that converted the entire bus system to on-demand service using a mix of vehicle sizes. They had on-demand vans, as well as medium and large sized buses. You would call a vehicle to a specific bus stop and the bus picked up people heading in the same general direction. It won't work everywhere for everyone, but it is a useful tool provided that the vehicle size is right. If Uber used 12 passenger vans in NYC, it would be a complete game changer.

[MHV9218]

[Trainmaster5]

Figured I'd drop this here because it relates to subway and bus budget shortfalls. Washington Post reports that DC Meto will cut weekend service, half of it's bus routes, and close 19 stations without new stimulus funding. Obviously the situation down in DMV land is not the same as the NY Metro area because 2 states and DC provide the funding but this shows that it's not a D vs R battle but a collective problem to overcome. I've pointed out in the past that most of the country doesn't give a whit about mass transit. That's Democrats and Republican members of Congress. I've seen ideas in this thread that would either get laughed at or bitch slapped by anyone who uttered them. I still pay property taxes in NC and what passes for what we call "mass transit" and what they consider "commuter transit" systems are worlds apart. Imagine a city like Charlotte with bus routes making pickups on the highway shoulder ( US 74) leading into the city proper leading past shopping malls, auto dealerships, Wallyworld, etc. headed toward the seat of government. Running hourly, at best, or the morning and evening rush hours only. Try doing that on the LIE, Cross Bronx, or Major Deegan. Raleigh, Durham, and Greensboro are basically the same. Fayetteville is almost the same except there's the big base at Fort Bragg which, IIRC, provides shuttles from the Amtrak station to the base. Of course there are only about 6 trains a day stopping there, 3 n/b, 3 s/b, so mass transit at the station and the airport is a figment of your imagination. What you will find at the locations I've mentioned are car services up the ying yang. Our private enterprise proponent would be a rich man down there except that everyone is wedded to automobiles down there. Charlotte has a little hybrid rail system leading from the Amtrak station area to some areas but that's only useful to the tourist/visitor folks and not the residents. Realize that this is pretty much the mindset of most of the congressional districts nationwide. While we debate this among ourselves remember that many important people in DC, Congress and the White House, don't give a Tinker's Damn about mass transit in NY, Philly, B'More, Chicago, Boston, SF, or LA. It's a mindset that's being exploited more and more nationwide and sometimes I can see it even in our threads. I feel that if we can't agree on a unified way forward among ourselves do you really think that the powers that be care ? They're busy sowing division amongst themselves to care about the little man. My rant. Carry on.

[JAzumah]

1 hour ago, Trainmaster5 said:

I feel that if we can't agree on a unified way forward among ourselves do you really think that the powers that be care ?

We can agree on a way forward when we all understand the people that we are dealing with. As you pointed out, it isn't D vs R. It is the corporatists versus everyone else.

 

1 hour ago, Trainmaster5 said:

Our private enterprise proponent would be a rich man down there except that everyone is wedded to automobiles down there.

Most people have no choice. Rich is a strong word, but as more people go to retire in NC, SC, and FL, new private solutions that are properly scaled can work. It will likely be high-roof van work in the beginning. People get to the point that they can't or won't drive and they still want to be independently mobile. People do not want to be a burden to their families or anyone else. The price point to offer these types of service at is always the tricky part.

Freedom to travel when you want is everything. In NYC, this is still very doable . In a lot of other places, not so much.

[Deucey]

5 hours ago, Trainmaster5 said:

Imagine a city like Charlotte with bus routes making pickups on the highway shoulder ( US 74) leading into the city proper leading past shopping malls, auto dealerships, Wallyworld, etc. headed toward the seat of government. Running hourly, at best, or the morning and evening rush hours only. Try doing that on the LIE, Cross Bronx, or Major Deegan. Raleigh, Durham, and Greensboro are basically the same. Fayetteville is almost the same except there's the big base at Fort Bragg which, IIRC, provides shuttles from the Amtrak station to the base. Of course there are only about 6 trains a day stopping there, 3 n/b, 3 s/b, so mass transit at the station and the airport is a figment of your imagination.

Been to Charlotte - only good thing was Uber was cheap.

Where I'm from - Sacramento - when 2008 hit and California cut the state transit funding, RT ran light rail hourly after rush hour and stopped at 8pm (went to midnight before), and all but 4 bus routes ran after 8pm. Which when you consider that before, 20 of it's then 60 routes ran until 10pm, shows why even skimpy systems can't afford cuts - as it leaves large parts of the area without service for late workers and people who otherwise will drive to the bar.

[T to Dyre Avenue]

Cross posting this from the NYCT Bus Forum. I think we should have some discussion in the subway forum about this: