Gas Prices Send Surge of Riders to Mass Transit

[usa1]

Originally Posted by big swede

mgescuro,
Is the BART entirely financed by ridership? The local metrolink is claiming all time records for use yet they are also claiming they will lose 17 million dollars this year and want tax money. The local politicians are thinking about creating a tax to pay for the overages which sounds wrong to me. Sounds to me like they need to raise the ticket prices to pay for the shortages.

BART, like most public transit, it heavily subsidized from taxes. Fares and concessions cover about roughly half the expense of running BART.

http://www.bart.gov/about/financials/

Looking at New York's mass transit system, the story is the same. About have the revenue comes from fairs and taxes make up the other half.

http://www.mta.info/mta/budget/pdf/F...als%202007.pdf

Unfortunately, since they are so tied to politics, taxes, and are invariably unionized, you can expect expenses to continue to grow without any link to the "real world". Increased ridership will invariably mean pressure from the unions for their "fair share" of the bigger pie.

People love to rave about the European train systems, but NO ONE wants to talk about the massive subsidies they get OR the massive public debt that has been incurred for them. They are still darn expensive to travel on.

Mark

[Rick_VT]

It would be interesting to see what affect all these people who are now leaving there car at home and catching public transport is having on oil consumption, i know it would be small but would still be interesting what affect this might have on the price of oil and emissions to, maybe hoosier ron could figure it out for us

[roteague]

Originally Posted by A.J.

Has GM ever gotten into the Bus industry before? If they haven't, they should - it could sort of make up for the decling sales of the GMT900s.

Yes, we have a fleet of around 50 GM-Allison Hybrid buses.

http://www.thebus.org/AboutTheBus/AmericaBest.asp

[roteague]

Originally Posted by Ming

I know that pass well, roteague. I drove it back and forth in a hand-me-down Chrysler New Yorker during my senior year in high school. Go HBA!

It hasn't changed - still two lanes.

Unfortunately, Honolulu is one of the most bike-unfriendly and pedestrian-unfriendly cities I've lived in. Sad, when you consider how wonderful our weather is most of the year.

[zete]

I've never minded taking mass transit. My biggest beef is that from where I live to work it's too fast! I can't read more than a few pages before my stop arrives -- dang express! I only drive when I have to go to a variety of client meetings and driving is more cost or time effective. Otherwise, I bus it.

In Ottawa ridership is way up. So up that they've run out of buses and haven't yet built the new train system. More excellent planning courtesy of our politicians. They're predicting 100 million riders this year, a new record. Greater Ottawa has about 1.2M, 1.5M if you push it. So that means a huge chunk of the population is busing it .

And we can deduct our bus pass on our taxes, which is nice.

[Astra RL]

Originally Posted by A.J.

Has GM ever gotten into the Bus industry before? If they haven't, they should - it could sort of make up for the decling sales of the GMT900s.

GM hybrid bus?
they do make them you know
I didn't read far enough to see that everybody else replied too.

[Astra RL]

Originally Posted by Smaart Aas Saabr

GM literally OWNED the bus industry for many years but they were always "cautious" of getting busted by the fed for anti-trust suits. So much they just gave away their design to another company "Flxible" who competed with GM also

Old GM New Looks are still the coolest buses:



But the sold the whole Truck and Coach operation circa 1985... Think the bus operation went to Greyhound which was the biggest customer, then seemed to be spun off into "Motor Coach Industries" and the Canadian plant near Montreal became "NovaBus".

MCI has existed since the 50's for the long haul bus industry, but many of gm's designs went to greyhound.

[mgescuro]

Originally Posted by OrlandoGuy80

Is this on the table right now? If so, that is great for all you West Coasters.

Absolutely it is on the table!! After almost 15+ years of yakking it up, the darn thing is finally going on the ballot.

http://www.cahighspeedrail.ca.gov/
Check out the site. There's a "visualization" of a train trip.

In fact, CA-HSR (CA High Speed Rail), has already determined its alignment from Los Angeles and San Francisco. The train will stop at LA's Union Station and San Francisco Transbay Terminal. I don't know how LA is going to handle traffic once the train arrives in LA, but in San Francisco, the Transbay Terminal is smack in the middle of the Downtown core. In fact, San Francisco just passed a bill removing all height restrictions in the area surrounding Transbay Terminal area, paving the way for the new Supertall Transbay Tower -- proposed to be 1,200-1,400 feet tall, and contains a 5 acre elevated park with artificial streams.





Hopefully Los Angeles will come up with some sort of solution where people can just walk off the train and straight to their destination, etc. That would be the most ideal scenario. Also, internal Bay Area HSR stations will connect directly to the BART system -- At the future Diridon BART station in San Jose and current Millbrae BART station.

CA sent a delegation to Paris, when the TGV broke the train speed record. They were on the TGV. Schwarzenegger just came back from there too.

CA's very serious about getting this thing built. It's not going to be cheap (~$40B), but there is too much airport congestion right now between the LA airports and the Bay Area airports. The only viable long term solution is High Speed Rail. And considering the HSR is point-to-point, it will be faster than the airlines.

[Ming]

Originally Posted by roteague

It hasn't changed - still two lanes.

My mother still remembers driving the old Pali highway/road/whatever. If you go to the Pali lookout you can see it (you can actually walk down onto it for a while), an old, crumbling twisty road that really hugs the mountainside.

But when I lived there, they hadn't completed the other one yet that goes over to Pearl City north of the Windward Mall. Had fun driving that, lots of banana trees.

True about the bicycles, but if you live around Hawaii Kai or Diamondhead you can commute by scooter/moped, which is unheard of on the outskirts of Houston where I live now.

[ChevroletRevived]

Originally Posted by mgescuro

Absolutely it is on the table!! After almost 15+ years of yakking it up, the darn thing is finally going on the ballot.

http://www.cahighspeedrail.ca.gov/
Check out the site. There's a "visualization" of a train trip.

In fact, CA-HSR (CA High Speed Rail), has already determined its alignment from Los Angeles and San Francisco. The train will stop at LA's Union Station and San Francisco Transbay Terminal. I don't know how LA is going to handle traffic once the train arrives in LA, but in San Francisco, the Transbay Terminal is smack in the middle of the Downtown core. In fact, San Francisco just passed a bill removing all height restrictions in the area surrounding Transbay Terminal area, paving the way for the new Supertall Transbay Tower -- proposed to be 1,200-1,400 feet tall, and contains a 5 acre elevated park with artificial streams.





Hopefully Los Angeles will come up with some sort of solution where people can just walk off the train and straight to their destination, etc. That would be the most ideal scenario. Also, internal Bay Area HSR stations will connect directly to the BART system -- At the future Diridon BART station in San Jose and current Millbrae BART station.

CA sent a delegation to Paris, when the TGV broke the train speed record. They were on the TGV. Schwarzenegger just came back from there too.

CA's very serious about getting this thing built. It's not going to be cheap (~$40B), but there is too much airport congestion right now between the LA airports and the Bay Area airports. The only viable long term solution is High Speed Rail. And considering the HSR is point-to-point, it will be faster than the airlines.

Definitely something that should be done. It'll be awesome if it gets completed. So much easier to just take a train and whisk from LA to SF. I hope it gets completed, I think it'll be great for the state.

[morrisangelo]

My wife rides her commuter bus everyday, so she's thrilled with mass transit. And along the lines of using less gas, I'd like to see more companies like the one I work for allow their workers an optional 4-day workweek (4x10). For me, that would mean 32 less miles on my normal Friday round-trip to and from work. That's roughly 2 easy gallons. Multiply that by approximately 500 people in my cigar factory, and now you're looking at some impressive fuel conservation numbers in just one day...

[mgescuro]

Originally Posted by member12

Atlanta is probably the only modern city (re: sprawling city outside of New England) with a public transit.

OK... so here is the entire system map for San Francisco MUNI.



This is the current system map for the BART system, not including the new extension to San Jose that begins construction this year.



Here is the current system map for Caltrain.

[vsd]

I'm really excited for the CAHSR. 3.5 hours from San Diego to Sacramento sounds great to me.

[EldoFan]

Originally Posted by 63GrandSport001

Honestly if I could take the train to work I would do that every day instead of driving as driving not only burns gas but puts wear on my car.

Seeing as that is not going to happen Im going to have to move closer to my job.

This is why I'm thinking long & hard about going and checking out the more expensive apartment complex out in the suburbs (for my first place)........rent may be more expensive, but when you work out that way & have an opportunity to save on gas like that, it gets you to think at the very least.......

Besides, public transit in my city is an absolute joke (not to mention the fact that it doesn't run overnight when I'm working).....

[cruzned]

Just sold my chevy SSR, 2003 that has a 25 gallon tank. Gas is expected to climb to $4.50 by July. Just purchased a new minicooper clubman S that will get 38 mpg. I really wanted a camaro, or a pontiac G8 Sport Truck, but reality got the best of me. What really gets me is that guys in California, even the governor are using their SUV's and using the left over grease and oil from fast food places and it really works! Now the government wants to tax them for the savings they got from being smart and they want total access to how they did this creative task but don't want to pay them. They just want to levy fines on them! What have we come to? I am so over all this. Looking forward to the new ClubmanS. It is no camaro, but it is also no slacker. JUst did the tail of the dragon and the minis were ripping it up.