February's Ann Arbor Observer has an eight-page spread from the Ann
Arbor Transit Authority (AATA), our beloved bus company.  Have a look
at it, especially the financial statement.  They spent nearly $13
million dollars in 1993 and collected only $2.1 million in fares. 
More than $10.8 million in tax money made up the difference!

They say that they served 3.84 million passengers in 1993.  That means
that it cost them $3.38 for each passenger.

Is it just me, or does this seem ridiculous to anyone else?  The IRS
says it costs 28 cents per mile to operate a car. At this rate, $3.38
will get you 12.1 miles.  Now, they don't give the average trip
length, but I would guess that that average AATA bus ride is less than
12.1 miles.  If you look at it this way, we would be better off buying
cars for people than operating the AATA!

87 responses total.

 Considering the fact that the AATA just bought a bunch of new busses. 
they look right, but as time goes on, I would hope that this figure
will come down. I hope that they don't raise fares again, but in light
of these figures, they might have no choice.

I don't ride AATA because it takes too long and costs too much.  For example,
if I were going to take the bus to school it would take 17 minutes, plus it
would get me there about ten minutes early, for a total time of 27 minutes.
If I walk, it takes me about 20 minutes, making that much faster.  If I drive,
it takes about twelve minutes (including parking), and if I bike (which is
what I usually do) it only takes about eight minutes.  Now, with time figures
like that, why take the AATA?  And the last couple of times I've taken the
AATA the driver hasn't noticed when I pushed the stop button, and I've ended
having to go a stop too far, while having to yell at the driver to get their
attention so they would stop then.

I almost never ride the RIDE if I have some other means of transportation:
bike, car, foot (if it ain't to cold),or ski.  However, in the event that I
actually need to ride, I have this nifty bus pass that was absolutley free
since I live outside their "walking zone" which is a one mile radius from the
school.
Even back when it cost only $00.65, it was still expensive.  I prefer to walk
anyway, It's better exercise.

If you don't like the AATA, try SMART. You'll feel much better once back on
AATA.

I'll skip both, thank you.  Bus service wasn't that great when I was a
kid in Detroit, and I suspect it isn't any better now.

I have not read the info in the Observer yet.  However, I know the AATA
provides more services than rides to people who pay fairs.  For example,
EMU has a contract with AATA to take people between west campus commuter
parking, main campus, and the college of business in downtown Ypsi.  The
money that EMU pays to AATA would not come in as a fair, but it is paid to
AATA in exchange for transportation services.

Even if it would be cheaper to provide cars to people than provide bus
service, that doesn't do much good unless you also provide a driver for
those who can't or won't drive.  That would be expensive.

Believe me, I'm not suggesting that.  There is a line for "interest 
and other revenues."  That totalled only $209,000.  They're probably
losing money on that, too!

I take the AATA to work.  It's convenient, runs on time, and is free
for those staff who work on the medical campus.  I've been this
for about 5 years now and would never go back to 
dealing with the $350 parking stickers, having to hunt endlessly for
a non-existent spot, and often being late for work.  

Regarding Dan's point about the heavy financial subsidies - the
city has always paid a big portion of the AATA's operating costs.
It needs to in order to provide the city with a lot of its
minimum wage employees.  You can either offer low cost housing
somewhere within walking distance of employment or you have to 
offer cheap transportation into town.  I think, quite clearly,
Ann Arbor barely tolerates the poor and would rather bus them in
than deal with their living here.  But you can't keep them out 
and continue to staff the restaurants, stores, service stations,
and City Hall.

There may also be some waste involved in the day-to-day operations.
I've watched many a route run flawlessly for years with only a 
handful of riders during the non-rush hour trips.

I think that's baloney.  If people can't get in to work, then the
restaurants, etc. will have to pay more to get them.  If that means
paying higher restaurant bills, so be it.  I'd rather pay this money
more directly to people who earn it than to some quasi-government
agency.  Perhaps if they were paid more, they could go out and buy
a car and be more free to do what they want during non-work hours.

 If there are more cars on the road, then road maintenence costs rise
as does taxes. Mass Transit IS the best solution, and a general increase
in the minimum wage as well. It is 3 miles from my front door to 4th and
William. As an asthasmatic, I cannot walk that distance, therefore Mass Transit
is the better option. I don't mind freezing a little.
   A fare increase is a better option than a tax rate increase.

Bus service is an "option demand good", something that is worth
having around, and therefore worth some price, even to those who
don't regularly use it.  I think a society without bus service
would create a lot of social problems for those without cars, and
that might get around to affecting the rest of us in other ways.

Huge amounts of public money are spent on parking lots and roads.
It doesn't all come from road taxes.  Not to mention all the expense
of regulating cleaner air.

This rationalizing of huge goveernment waste is a clear example of
why we're in the mess we're in.  Like Everett Dirksen said, "A billion
here, a billion there, and pretty soon you're talking about real money."

public transit is a good thing.  That doen't mean that a poor transit system
is better than none.  They need to get their act together.  On the other hand,
Americans are CHEAP!  You get what you pay for- good roads, good busses, or
innovative solutions.  I think there should be a MAXIMUM wage- siphon some of
the excess off the top into "low status" but necessary jobs so those workers
canafford non- subsidized transit costs and the transit companies can therefor
stay abreast of technology.

 AATA is a well run organization, but still could stand *some* reorganizing
and streamlining. It's a lot better than SMART is, and a LOT of other bus
services in other cities. 

And the other thing to remember is that $0.75+$0.05/transfer is cheap in
comparison to other mass transit systems.  I got an education in real
commuting by mass-transit in November, when while visiting a friend in
Berkeley Ca, we did a lot of BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit) and bus riding.
$0.80 was a minimum, and the average charge was more live $1.25 or more.
Also, the employess were for the most part hurried, rude or just indifferent
to customer problems.  If I recall correctly, Chicago buses are more
expensive, and you wouldn't want to ride them after a certain time.

Let's not be so hard on AATA that we forget that it could be a lot worse,
and is in many places.

You guys are still rationalizing.  How can they be a well-run organization
when they spend $10 million more than they take in?  The actual fare
may be low, but your paying for it one way or another.

This is money that could be going to schools or other more worthwhile
endeavors.

 Adding more cars to the mix will not help the roads, Dan. Let's say that
one bus can be replaced by 40 cars. In time, there will be more wear and
tear on the roads, and taxes will have to be increased in order to repair
those roads. I don't think you want higher taxes, Dan.

  The drivers that I know are friendly personable people. Unlike some in 
Detroit.

   Maybe a tax increase is in order, But I still suspect that the reason
that AATA is that much in the hole is the replacement of the rolling stock 
and the new building that is only 5 years old. I would think that there still
paying for that as well, and will be for quite some time. AATA used to use 
that old complex on Carpenter across from Meijer which was really outdated
and ineffiecient. I have toured the new facility and I can safely say
that it was needed and will be there for quite some time.

In addition to all the wear that 40 cars will put on the roads, they will
also cause far more traffic congestion.  Since I bike whenever I can 
(including this morning, when it was about 0 degrees out), the AATA doesn't
tend to concern me that much.  The biking is far more cost effective and
faster.  What I would like is for the AATA to run later at night.  That's when
it would be really useful to me.

Rationalizing, smationalizing.  Consider what you people spend on your
cars ($15,000 for a modest new one, plus interest).  $2000 depreciation
or more in a single year.  Spend that much per rider on public transport
and you'd have a system like on the Jetsons.  We can all complain about
public expenditures.  Let's complain about priorities.  This is money
that could be going to schools or other worthwhile endeavors.

If you can't ride an AATA, the is always the U-M bus system.  However, It would
be nice if these bus passes started working befor 1500 Hours, and lasted longer
than 'til 18:45.  My Freshman year they started working at 11:45.

However, bus passes have nothing to do with the effectivness of AATA.  I 
would like to add that I walked home from school today.  And a nice afternoon
it was too,
<|)

Virtually all city bus or transit systems everywhere are subsidized.
The reasons for this are sensible, not just "rationalizations."

Every person who takes a local trip via bus rather than car reduces the
amount of air pollution, energy consumption, traffic congestion, parking
demand and road wear.  Remember that the greater the traffic congestion,
the more time it takes *everyone* to get to their destination. 

The trouble with our transit systems is that they've come to be regarded
as a form of welfare for the poor.  AATA is actually quite unusual in its
valiant attempts to attract a broader cross-section of the public as
riders.  Anyone who has ridden the Detroit city buses, or Greyhound
intercity buses in recent years, knows how wretched bus service can be
when it's provided specifically to people who have absolutely no other
choices. 

In Europe, a different attitude prevails.  Since rail transportation was
seen as a vital link, it was not allowed to fall into decay and disuse in
the 1950's, as it was here.  Since European cities could not possibly
accomodate as many cars as American cities do, transit is seen much more
as a good thing for the whole population, as opposed to a subsidy for the
poorest of the poor.  Yes, they also provide tax support for their transit
systems.  They also use vastly less energy on transportation than we do,
and their economies have benefited.

The other extreme is represented by Los Angeles.  Even before the recent
earthquake severed its major freeways, Los Angeles was drowning in its own
traffic.  The nearly exclusive dependence on cars was making it very
difficult to do business in one of the world's major economic centers, and
hence threatening its role.  Meanwhile, Los Angeles' competitors, like New
York, Chicago, Tokyo, London, etc., were able to move even larger numbers
of people to and from work with far less trouble, using a more balanced
system.  There is *no* way that Los Angeles can extricate itself from its
transportation problems without heavy subsidies to build and operate
alternative modes. 

What would Ann Arbor/Ypsilanti be like without AATA?  It would be more
polluted and congested with more cars.  It would be more expensive.  More
and more buildings near downtown (currently providing housing, economic
activity and tax base) would have to be demolished for more parking
(costing tax dollars for acquisition and maintenance).  Greater traffic
flows on all the major streets would bring about more rapid deterioration
of neighborhoods.  With deterioration and lack of access to jobs would
come greater crime, and greater fear of crime. 

Eventually the crime, the deterioration of the physical fabric, and
the hassles of getting to and from downtown, would discourage people from
wanting to go downtown at all, and it would itself become ever more
seedy.  As the city's tax base suffered, so to would city services, which
(along with all the other problems) would propel middle-class people out
of the city and make everything worse.

Ann Arbor, these days, is incredibly unusual in having largely avoided
many of these familiar urban problems.  Ann Arbor has an economically
vibrant downtown which retains the vital downtown density of activity that
cannot usually be sustained in such a small town.  Ann Arbor still has an
intact middle class, and though there is some urban development outside
the city limits, Ann Arbor has essentially no suburbs.  I don't know
precisely how much AATA is responsible for keeping all these problems at
bay, but given how many places have failed at doing this, I wouldn't want
to risk throwing it away.

This stuff about LA brings up an interesting point.  After the earthquake
there was a lot of moaning about how expensive it was going to be to rebuild
the freeways, and how much time it would take.  Yet, I didn't hear anybody
ask whether rebuilding them was really necessary.  I see the destruction of
the freeways not as an opertunity to rebuild them to their former capacity
at a great cost, but rather as a great opertunity to redesign the LA
transportation system.  To rebuild them without very careful consideration
of the reasons for doing so is just plain irresponsible.

Even if they now put in a good mass transit system, those damaged
freeways would still be needed to carry almost as much as they were
designed to carry before. There is no way they will fail to rebuild
them, whatever else they may do.

   The reason that the rail systems in Detroit and LA decayed, was due in
part to General Motors who just found out that they could build busses
and support thier way of doing things. They virtually eliminated rail transit
in LA by themselves, and this is a documented fact!/

Despite your eloquence, Larry, I doubt any of the above would happen.
Taking the figure of 3.8 million riders, I guesstimate that the AATA
serves between 5 and 10% of the population.  Not all of those people w
will run out and buy cars.  Some people will walk, others will carpool.
So, I doubt that the increase in congestion will be close to what you
predict.  And as far as things being more expensive, we'll have $10 
million dollars per year to put towards those projects!

How sure are we that all the freeways will be rebuilt?  I read that S. F.
was not going to rebuild the freeway that turned into a concrete sandwich.

The conspiracy to get rid of commuter trains in places like LA and Detroit
was not all GM's fault.  It was also not quite as depicted in the film,
"Who Framed Roger Rabbit?"  The biggest players who wanted to get rid of
commuter trains were GM, tire companies, and oil companies.  But others
were involved too. 

How do LA people like the mass transit they've been forced to use  with the
demise of the freeways?

Ann Arbor has no suburbs?  What do you mean by suburbs?  Ann Arbor is a
suburb of Det.  Ypsi, Dexter and Saline are suburbs or Ann Arbor.  Why not?

Does anyone else besides danr really think that AATA should be cut off
from tax money?  I think a lot of people would agree that AATA could do
more to bring in revenue and cut costs.  They are getting more subsidy
than they need, but I have no doubt that AATA benefits the community. 

Every other town's bus system has paid advertising on the outside of the
bus as well as ads where AATA puts announcements on the inside walls of
the bus.  Why don't they do that here?

Ann Arbor is not a suburb of Detroit.

re 26:
        Ann Arbor is too snobby to put ads on the busses.  Can you imagine
the protests from the people who wouldn't want to look at that "filth?"

Everyone around here who acts like that is "filth,"  I think adds are fine
as long as they're for things everybody uses: radio stations, etc.
However, they would need to replace adds often.

Ann Arbor really isn't a suburb of Detroit. Dexter, Saline and Ypsi
are AA suburbs to a much greater degree.

The pancaked freeway in Oakland has not been rebuilt, and likely
won't be, but the situation is different there. There are all kinds
of ways around. In LA, by contrast, I5 is the only practical way to
go to and from certain areas. Areas much too far from the center of
the city to be viable for mass transit. I10 will have to be replaced
simply because of the *enormous* traffic it carried. It was a main
trunk, and was the busiest freeway in the US. The pancaked road in
Oakland was a feeder hiway - much less important.

Re 25.  But $10 million is trivial in the context of the Ann Arbor-
Ypsilanti area economy.  Money alone cannot save a dying city: look at
Lansing, with all the billions of dollars spent by the state, and a
downtown that has less retail activity than Ypsilanti's.

As to people choosing other modes like walking and carpooling: the area is
far too spread out to permit walking as a competitive transportation mode. 
Carpooling is a tricky option that only helps a narrow category of
situations.  Besides, a large proportion of those 3.8 million rides are
taken by people who *do* have cars in their households.  Deprived of the
bus, they'll drive more. 

Five to ten percent of the population may not sound like much.  Probably
it's a lot lower than that if you look at the traffic to and from, say,
Briarwood or Target.  On the other hand, it's going to be a much larger
proportion of the traffic to and from downtown Ann Arbor and Ypsilanti.

It's not possible to sustain a walkable downtown in a small, low-density
city like Ann Arbor without plenty of bus service.  A decision to get rid
of AATA would be a decision to transform downtown into a much bleaker and
less viable business area. 

As to the suburbs issue: Ypsilanti is not a suburb, it's just as much a
"central city" as Ann Arbor is.  Dexter and Saline are old country towns
with some suburban settlement.  Compare Ann Arbor to Lansing, Flint, Grand
Rapids or Kalamazoo, each of which is surrounded by a whole network of new
suburban communities.

There are parts of Pittsfield Twp. that would certainly qualify as a subburb.

Probably only 5 or 10% of the population in the area equivalent to
AATA use the library. 

Well, as I've said before, paraphrasing a famous senator, "Ten million
here, ten million there, pretty soon you're talking about real money." And
as much as I like downtown, if the businesses there can only survive
with subsidized bus service--and not on their own merits--perhaps they
shouldn't be in business.

I suspect they would do just fine.  There are plenty of restaurants
and clubs, for example, that seem to be doing OK.  Since there is
little or no bus service in the evenings, I doubt many of their
customers are also AATA riders.

I disagree about walking, too.  I seem to recall studies that show 2-3%
of all people walk to work.  That's already half the number that ride
the AATA.

33 slipped in.

The people I know who take the bus into Ann Arbor in the 
evening for the clubs, etc. take The Night Ride home - 
or if they live outside of Ann Arbor the stay with friends
for the night, or get a group together to take a cab to
their town and walk from there.

re #33:  I checked the library statistics.  There are 90,000 persons with
library cards, and they average 8.5 items checked out per year.  That's
quite a bit more than the percentage that use the AATA.

Well, I don't know. AATA (it says above) served 3.4 million customers
in 1993. But 90,000 library users with 8.5 items each, and assuming
each item is checked out separately, means that they only served
765,000. Therefore AATA provides 4.4 times as much service as does
the library.

I've been looking at so many statistics, I fear I may become one.

- Backtalk version 1.3.30 - Copyright 1996-2006, Jan Wolter and Steve Weiss