Five masked young men robbed a Chinatown bus company’s office at gunpoint on Sunday afternoon, binding five people with duct tape and fleeing with thousands of dollars in cash, the police and the company’s president said.

The robbery occurred at 15 Division Street, at the offices of Golden Express Company, one of several low-cost bus lines in Chinatown that take passengers to and from Atlantic City.

The president of the company, May Chow, said the five men burst into the third-floor office shortly after 12:30 p.m.

“There were these five guys, five young fellows wearing ski masks,” Mrs. Chow said. “One of them jumped over the counter and said: ‘This is a holdup, I’m not kidding. Where is the safe?’ I told him there is no safe in the office. He said, ‘Where is the money?’ I went back and got money from my bag.”

Mrs. Chow said the robbers spotted envelopes with the weekend’s earnings and took them. “They took our sales,” she said. “Three days’ worth. We haven’t really gotten the total yet, but it’s more than $27,000.”

 

   
Teal, Roger F. and Terry Nemer, "Privitzation of Urban Transit: The Los Anegles Jitney Experiences," Transportation, 13 (1986) 1- 17

Abstract

This paper reports on a recent attempt to provide private transit in the form of jitney service in downtown Los Angeles. It describes the process undertaken to initiate jitney service and the resultant organization's structure and operation. A survey of jitney passengers provided information on the users and their tripmaking characteristics. A group of loyal jitney riders emerged who patronized the service because of its lower travel times and more personalized atmosphere. This group formed the core of frequent users. The Los Angeles experience is analyzed in terms of the economic feasibility of jitney service and the impact on the financial status of public transit. The public transit agency experienced a slight negative financial impact as a result of the jitney service. Ridership during peak hours declined somewhat but the jitney service was not frequent enough to carry sufficient passengers to allow the transit agency to cut costly peak hour service. This analysis shows that the jitney service ultimately was not an economically successful operation. The factors which would have increased the likelihood of success were increased frequency of service and higher fares, which would have been sustainable if not for unexpected developments in public transit financing. A labor pool willing to work for low wages, high transit use in the central city, relatively high transit fares and the availability of inexpensive vehicles appear to be prerequisites to a successful urban jitney operation.

Yelp review

Zhong Hua Flushing-Chinatown Shuttle Van Service
2 reviews

Category: Public Transportation
Neighborhood: Queens/Downtown Flushing
Main St & 41st Ave
Division St between Market St & Bowery, New York, NY
New York, NY 10002

 

The 18th National Conference on Rural Public and Intercity Bus Transportation will be held October 19-22, 2008 in Omaha, Nebraska.

* COMMUTER VAN DRIVERS SAY RENEGADES SWIPE BIZ

By AUSTIN FENNER

Friday, May 1th 1998, 2:04AM

Competition for van passengers between the Chinatowns in Sunset Park and Manhattan is so fierce that licensed operators say a swarm of speedier illegal minivans has stolen three-fourths of their business.

The licensed 14-passenger commuter van companies say they are being driven out of business by seven-passenger minivan drivers who also ply Eighth Ave.

in the 50s and 60s, the main commercial strip for the Asian community in Sunset Park. Commuter vans are licensed to provide service from Sunset Park to Canal St. in Manhattan.

The minivans usually are licensed by the Taxi and Limousine Commission, but only to answer telephone requests, and not to stop for street hails, the head of the commuter van trade association said.

More than half of commuter vans towed after inspections

by Michaelangelo Conte/The Jersey Journal Tuesday September 23, 2008, 3:02 PM

The Hudson County Prosecutor's Office towed 15 of 27 jitneys pulled over today in West New York, part of a continuing campaign to enforce safety laws that officials concede is having little impact.

"It still seems that there is a lack of compliance here and as far as our office is concerned, we are going to move forward and protect the citizens of Hudson County by conducting more of these stops to enforce the law," said Hudson County Assistant Prosecutor Michael Zevits.

Surprise inspections began at about 7 a.m. at 59th Street off Bergenline Avenue.

About 151 safety violation were cited during the inspections, by the state Motor Vehicle Commission Commercial Bus Unit, West New York police, the Hudson County Prosecutor's Office and the Hudson County Sheriff's Office, Zevits said. Police also issued 35 motor vehicle tickets, Zevits said.

Safety violations included bad brakes, cracked frames, fuel leaks and safety equipment violations including bad windows and missing fire extinguishers, Zevits said. Motor vehicle summonses were issued for uninsured vehicles, expired drivers licenses and failure to produce medical cards, Zevits said.

West New York resident Santos Mercedes said he doesn't understand why police pulled him over and inspect his van when he had a good inspection sticker and his paperwork is in order.

"I was just driving on Bergenline around 7:50 a.m. and I was stopped by a policeman and I gave him my license and registration and everything was up to date," Mercedes said. "I had in my bus like 25 passengers and he made me take out all my passengers in the middle of street. They have to go to work. Maybe some of them will lose their jobs."

Mercedes said that in the end, he was allowed to drive away with no citations, adding that last month his van was towed at a cost of $850.

The Prosecutor's Office's Insurance Fraud Unit has conducted more than a dozen surprise inspections of commuter vans in Hudson County over the past two years.

Judge Rejects Most of Law On Commuter Van Licenses - New York Times

By ANTHONY RAMIREZ

Published: March 24, 1999

Backers of the private commuter vans, often called ''dollar vans,'' that serve poor and working-class neighborhoods in Brooklyn and Queens, won a legal victory last week. If it stands, the decision is certain to sharply increase the number of licensed vans in New York City.

In a decision reached Thursday and made public yesterday, Justice Louis B. York of the State Supreme Court in Manhattan intervened in a six-year-old clash between Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, who backs licensing more vans, and the City Council, which does not.

Justice York struck down most of a 1993 law passed by the Council giving it the power to reject van licenses already approved by the Taxi and Limousine Commission, which is part of the Mayor's office.

There are 362 licensed vans in the city, carrying about 40,000 passengers daily. Among those vans are fewer than a dozen licensed vans approved by the City Council, which has rejected nearly all of the applications from the taxi commission. But estimates of the number of illegal vans vary from 1,000 to 5,000, with many operating part time and without regular safety inspections.

The dollar vans, which carry 20 or fewer passengers, first emerged in 1980 when a transit workers' strike disrupted bus service. Since then, the vans have continued in neighborhoods with little bus service. But van ridership has been hurt recently by the introduction of bus and subway discounts with the Metrocard. Proponents hail the vans as examples of free enterprise, but opponents -- notably the transit unions -- fear they may hurt mass transit.

Justice York ruled that the Council's law, known as Local Law 115, violated the constitutional separation of powers by allowing the Council to administer rather than write a law. ''This it cannot do,'' the judge wrote in a ruling on an October 1997 suit filed by the Mayor against the Council. The Mayor's suit followed a February 1997 suit filed by van operators against the City of New York. In that suit, Justice York ruled in favor of the van operators.

Informal transport: A global perspective Robert Cervero and Aaron Golub

Transport Policy
Volume 14, Issue 6, November 2007, Pages 445-457

 

Bienvenido a nuestra Web Page

Somos Líderes en el transporte terrestre brindandole 2 opciones, La Centroamericana Transportation y Gerardo's Transportation
Servicios

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WELCOME TO OUR WEBSITE

Polonez Tour Service, Inc specializes in bus tours with a Polish and English tour guides to many places around the United States of America. For more then 20 years we have served our clients abroad and in the USA. For many year our company has introduce different types of tours and with our qualify tour guides and drives, for many years we are chosen as number one for those who travel with us.

Polonez Hits the Road

When Jan Bielen and a group of his friends overslept and were late for a bus tour to the Niagara Falls more than 20 years ago, they did not complain and panic. They rented a van and went on their own.
The idea of taking people on trips was born and Bielen started his business in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, and called it Polonez Tour Service.

Two years had passed and Bielen's business was booming. His small company offered short trips in the tri-state area and regular trips to and from the local airports. Bielen served mainly Polish people, tourists or immigrants, who did not speak English and needed help to travel.

But in 1982 everything took a different turn.  Poland was under martial law and LOT (Polish Airlines) suspended their flights from Warsaw to New York.  “We had to take people from New York to Montreal, Canada, so they could fly to Poland,” Bielen says.

Suddenly the 14-person vans were too small and Bielen had to buy minibuses to accommodate more customers.

 

China Bus Bargain

In Manhattan's Chinatown, the tiny but growing Fung Wah Transport Van office nestles under the shadow of a Buddhist Temple. The office workers mostly speak Cantonese, with a sprinkling of English. Still, the service is gaining popularity not only with Chinese immigrants, but also among Japanese, Korean, and English-speaking travelers looking for a bargain.

Ten times a day, Fung Wah's white vans ferry about 10 to 15 passengers between the Lower East Side and a bakery in downtown Boston's tiny Chinatown. Round-trip travel can be as cheap as $25 for passengers who can make it to Boston and back on the same day.

Ling, a worker at the van's headquarters who uses only one name, said the service started when second-generation Chinese-Americans began attending college in other cities. The China Bus, as Fung Wah's vans are affectionately known, made it easy for parents who didn't speak much English to take Chinese grocery care packages to their children studying at Harvard or Boston University.

...

But although the services may seem informal or haphazard, they are actually subject to strict regulations.

In 1999, Congress passed a law forcing the vans, called camionetas or guaguas in Spanish speaking areas, to undergo more stringent safety tests. Now the vans' brakes and steering are tested twice a year, instead of once a year like regular cars.

all aboard

By Franziska Bruner and Iwona K. Hoffman

You're an immigrant in New York, you can't speak English, and you need to see your sister in Boston. How do you get there?
Subway signs are in English, you don't have a credit card to order your Greyhound ticket by phone, and you're nervous about traveling alone. Then someone in the neighborhood tells you about the local van service where they speak your language, and will even pick you up at home. Problem solved.

All over New York, enterprising immigrants are hatching van services that take new Americans from one ethnic enclave to another, often with lower prices than the big commercial bus lines, and less hassle.

Fung Wah Transport Van shuttles Chinese from New York's Chinatown to Boston's Chinatown, 10 times a day. Gonzalez Bus Line runs between Washington Heights' Dominican barrio and Providence, Rhode Island's south side, home to a growing Dominican community. And La Cubana buses take Cubans from all over the city to Little Havana in Miami.

The services are so popular mainly because they feel safe and familiar to immigrants, said Alberto Pulido, a Latino Studies professor in the American Civilization department at Brown University.

 

Letting the Market Drive Transportation
Bush Officials Criticized for Privatization

By Lyndsey Layton and Spencer S. Hsu
Washington Post Staff Writers
Monday, March 17, 2008; A01
...
"It's almost sort of un-American that we should be forced to sit and be stuck in traffic," said D.J. Gribbin, the department's general counsel and liaison to the White House, who worked closely with Duvall on the project.

For Gribbin, Duvall and Transportation Secretary Mary Peters, the goal is not just to combat congestion but to upend the traditional way transportation projects are funded in this country. They believe that tolls paid by motorists, not tax dollars, should be used to construct and maintain roads.

They and other political appointees have spent the latter part of President Bush's two terms laboring behind the scenes to shrink the federal role in road-building and public transportation. They have also sought to turn highways into commodities that can be sold or leased to private firms and used by motorists for a price. In Duvall and Gribbin's view, unleashing the private sector and introducing market forces could lead to innovation and more choices for the public, much as the breakup of AT&T transformed telecommunications.

...
William Millar, who heads the American Public Transportation Association, says he set up three appointments with Duvall to try to influence how the Urban Partnership money would be spent, but each was cancelled. "They just see no role for transit," Millar said.

Duvall, 35, is a fourth-generation Washingtonian whose father is a well-connected lawyer. He had no transportation experience when he was plucked from his job handling corporate mergers and acquisitions at Hogan & Hartson and was offered a political appointment at the DOT in 2002. "It was a friend of a friend of a friend sort of thing," he said

February 24, 2008
The Big Commute, in Reverse
By FORD FESSENDEN

ON most days, Matthew Davis, a 28-year-old portfolio manager, can count on spending about two hours getting to work and another two hours getting home. That's going against the tide of commuters going into New York City for work. Mr. Davis, who rented an apartment in Park Slope in Brooklyn when he landed a job in the securities industry in New York, found himself not on Wall Street, but in Ronkonkoma, working for a financial services management company.

He starts his morning with a stop for tea and a bagel at his neighborhood delicatessen, and walks 30 minutes or takes the subway to the Flatbush Avenue terminal of the Long Island Rail Road. In Jamaica, Queens, he changes trains and settles in for a 60-minute ride to his company's office near MacArthur Airport, deep in Suffolk County. There, he keeps a car for the last leg of the commute, a total of two hours each way. "Usually, until I get to Mineola, I have to stand, but then I find a seat and read the paper," he said. "I tried to find an apartment closer to work, but after 20 minutes of driving, I still wasn't anyplace that was close to anything. I really like living in the city."

Mr. Davis is among the some 300,000 people who live in New York City and make their way to jobs in the suburbs every day, part of a fast-growing segment of the work force that has turned the traditional idea of bedroom communities on its head. The group includes young workers in high-skilled professions, as well as tens of thousands of others up and down the income spectrum who prefer city living or cannot afford the suburban dream.

October 7, 2007
In the Region | Long Island
Transit as Downtown's Savior
By VALERIE COTSALAS

WHEN Maurice Fox, a vice president for a development firm, heard that an acre of land four blocks from the Valley Stream Long Island Rail Road station was for sale, he told his boss at the Dennis Organization, and "we jumped on it."

Next week, the developer will start laying the foundation for a $26 million 90-unit condominium complex with 37 one-bedroom units starting at $325,000, and 53 two-bedroom units starting at $395,000. Sales haven't begun yet, but Mr. Fox said there were 293 names of potential buyers on a waiting list.

The main selling feature of the complex, called Hawthorne Court, is its proximity to the station, which offers a 32-minute commute to Manhattan by express train, he said. With so many young commuters and empty nesters living in the area, he added, "I realized that Valley Stream is in dire need of it."

World
In Chile, Commuters Sue City over Transit System
by Julie McCarthy

All Things Considered, October 8, 2007 · Cities around the world have been trying to lure commuters out of their cars and onto mass transit with the aim of making urban life cleaner and greener. While a state-of-the art system installed in Chile has reduced pollution in the city of Santiago, a bungled adjustment has also left millions of passengers reeling - and hundreds of others suing the government.
The new system may be generating less pollution, but it is also generating mountains of complaints. What was once a 40-minute trip can now take 2 hours. As a result, commuters report losing their jobs for being late, or being forced to change jobs because routes have changed.
So troubled is Santiago's new mass transit system, known as Transantiago, that President Michele Bachelet made an unusual admission just days after its disastrous roll-out.

October 8, 2007
M.T.A. Says Mayor's Plan to Ease Traffic Will Cost $767 Million to Accomplish
By ROBERT D. McFADDEN

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg's plan to ease traffic congestion by charging motorists who drive into the busiest parts of Manhattan would cost hundreds of millions of dollars for new bus and subway services and mass transit improvements to accommodate tens of thousands of new riders, transportation officials say.

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority, in a report to a commission created to evaluate the mayor's plan, estimated that expanded transit service and capital improvements for city and suburban riders who would give up their cars to get into Manhattan over the next five years would cost $767 million.

The total, the authority said, comprised $284 million in 2008 and 2009 for 367 new city and suburban buses, 46 new subway cars and many station renovations and service enhancements; $163 million for other subway and bus improvements from 2010 to 2012, and $320 million for two new bus terminals in Queens and Staten Island.

Nerves Exposed, Second Avenue Waits for Its Subway
By ANNE BARNARD

To entice buyers to spend $1 million for one-bedroom apartments on the less glossy eastern edge of the Upper East Side, the builders of a shimmering glass tower going up at 91st Street and First Avenue advertise customized stone countertops, a private fitness center, "expansive sunrise and sunset views" - and the Second Avenue subway.

Now that construction crews have started work on the Second Avenue line after decades of delays, bullish real estate brokers and nervous neighborhood tenants alike expect New York's first new subway in 50 years to join the market forces that are driving Park Avenue-style prices farther east and replacing quirky Hungarian shops with high-end chain stores.

Ending commuters' long walk west to the Lexington Avenue subway will bring new cachet to addresses on Second Avenue and eastward - or at least that's what developers and real estate brokers are betting. Among them are the builders at 91st and First, who point to the subway's expected opening in 2014 and boldly declare that their tower, christened the Azure, stands at "the heart of the Upper East Side."

FROM one straphanger to another, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s executive director, Elliot G. Sander, consciously straddling the fence between polished bureaucrat (his upwardly mobile career) and put-upon proletarian (his roots in Jamaica, Queens), confides that the pending — read inevitable — bus and subway fare increase to $2.25 from $2 a trip is not his preference. But.

“I would prefer not to have a fare increase, and I want to keep the cost of transportation as far down as I can, but I am calling on our customers to basically keep up with the cost of living,” he said. “My objective is for the M.T.A. not to go into a death spiral, go where it was in the ’70s and ’80s when you had derailments, breakdowns, graffiti, track fires, you name it. This authority has been a high-wire act for the last 20 years.” Without a safety net.

SEPTA hikes fares again

By Paul Nussbaum

INQUIRER STAFF WRITER

The SEPTA board voted this afternoon to raise the price of bus and subway tokens and paper transfers, starting next week.

The fare hikes, which SEPTA says it needs because a court case stopped it from eliminating 60-cent paper transfers, saddle riders with higher fares less than three months after other fare hikes.

As part of its fare hike resolution approved this afternoon, the SEPTA board agreed to review today's fare hikes if it wins a court appeal and is allowed to scrap the paper transfers.

The new fares, effective Monday, increase the price of a token to $1.45 from the current $1.30 and the price of a transfer to 75 cents from the current 60 cents. The cash fare would remain $2 - one of the nation's highest.

Riders, still smarting from SEPTA's July fare hikes, are outraged.

Streetcar bumps into federal bias for buses
Money - Grant-givers say people-hauling efficiency is their primary goal, not urban revitalization
Tuesday, September 25, 2007
DYLAN RIVERA
The Oregonian

In the Bush White House, the political appointees who set the nation's mass transit policies view Portland's streetcar system as an extravagance: A sweet way for a relatively few privileged urbanites to move about a city that prides itself on dense downtown development. Rapid bus lines, in the administration's view, would move more people from place to place at less expense.

That thinking could cost Portland, which is hoping to expand its streetcar line and become the first in the nation to be built with substantial federal money. The city has spent years building political and neighborhood consensus about the new route, which would cross the Broadway Bridge and go south to the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry, nearly completing a streetcar loop of the city's core.

But the project now navigates a political battlefield. Think tanks, Democrats in Congress and the White House are fighting over whether the federal government should help cities use streetcars to promote urban revitalization, or simply fund buses that move the most people over the greatest distances for the least amount of upfront money.

September 25, 2007
Off-Peak Fares Eyed for New York City Transit
By WILLIAM NEUMAN

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority yesterday proposed charging people less if they ride subways or buses during off-peak periods, in hopes of easing overcrowding during the commuting rushes.

Under the plan, however, most riders would be hit with steep increases, as the authority seeks to generate $580 million from fare and toll increases during the next two years.

September 16, 2007
The City
Softening the Blow of a Fare Hike

Let's begin with the pocketbook-chafing fact that New York's bus and subway riders pay far more at the farebox than riders in any other major transit network. Their burdenwould go up again early next year under a proposal by the state-run Metropolitan Transportation Authority. The current base fare of $2 would rise 25 cents to achieve the authority's goal of boosting revenue by 6.5 percent. Another fare increase, as yet undetermined, would follow in two years.

The planned increases reflect the M.T.A.'s attempt to address projected financial woes, including huge out-year budget gaps, while also improving service and expanding the system. Its proposed solution depends on raising fares and tolls possibly as early as January. Foregoing a fare hike entirely, as the city and state comptrollers have both urged, may not be possible; there hasn't been an increase in more than three years. But every effort should be made to minimize the riders' pain.

There are ways this could be done. The M.T.A. is proposing to raise $262 million through higher fares and tolls. Gene Russianoff of the Straphangers Campaign, a nonprofit riders' advocate, suggests a more equitable sharing of costs. His group is calling for the city and counties to contribute $65 million, and the state to pitch in an equal amount. If they did that, riders would face only a 10-cent fare hike. It is a reasonable approach, and lawmakers should give it serious attention.

Keeping fares affordable is critical in a city where so many riders have low incomes. It also encourages people to use mass transit instead of their cars.

We, together, can make SEPTA work better for all of us.

SEPTA is having a difficult time. As citizens and riders, there isn't much we can do directly that will affect the big, expensive challenges of city and regional mass transit. These must be handled by politicians and managers and employees. But, we can help make SEPTA work better for us.

In fact, YOU can help make SEPTA work better for us.

On this website, you will find signs that you can print out and post—providing better information for riders at stations, shelters and stops.

New buses leave Berkeley vendors in dust
Rapid line goes too fast down Telegraph Avenue, critics say
By Doug Oakley, MEDIANEWS STAFF
Inside Bay Area

BERKELEY - Philip Rowntree says every time AC Transit's new express bus speeds by his T-shirt stand on Telegraph Avenue, he gets covered with dust and filth kicked up by the vehicle's exhaust.
And, Rowntree also notes, he and other street vendors fear the new speeding buses are going to slam into someone on the crowded four-block stretch from Dwight Way to Bancroft Way.
AC Transit added an express 1R bus line that runs from San Leandro to University of California, Berkeley, and back. It has fewer stops and generally goes faster than the one line that runs the same route.
"It's disgusting," Rowntree said Wednesday. "Something happened about three or four months ago, and it's not the pollution they are kicking out but the air from the exhaust blows all this filth off the street onto me."
Russell Chatman, who sells jewelry next to Rowntree, said the buses dirty him too and go way too fast.
"I realize it's a rapid transit because the drivers have their deadlines to beat, but for them to come as fast as they do, it's only a matter of time before someone gets hurt," Chatman said.

 

September 4, 2007
In Rail Link, Angelenos See a Door to Prosperity
By ANA FACIO CONTRERAS

LOS ANGELES, Sept. 3 - While Carlos Sanchez, a guitarist, waits in front of Mariachi Plaza in Boyle Heights to be picked up for his next job, he likes to look at a mural behind the plaza's kiosk on First Street.
The mural, with colorful squares and spheres and scenes of local flavor, is reminiscent of the work of Mexican muralists like David Alfaro Siqueiros, but it is functional, too. It hides construction of a light-rail link that supporters in Boyle Heights and neighboring East Los Angeles say will change the face of their communities.
Boyle Heights, part of the City of Los Angeles, and East Los Angeles, an unincorporated area of Los Angeles County, have long been home to thousands of Latinos. Both communities are cut off geographically from the city's beach districts and central business areas.
The light-rail train, set to begin running in 2009, will allow passengers to get to areas throughout the county. For many low-income residents, like Mr. Sanchez, 38, who do not own cars, the train will replace bicycles, unreliable buses and costly taxis.
"I'll be using the train because it's going to be more convenient and a faster way to get to where you want to go," said Mr. Sanchez, who often car-pools to jobs with fellow musicians.
The train, named after Edward R. Roybal, who in 1949 became the first Mexican-American elected to the Los Angeles City Council, will travel six miles from the Little Tokyo/Arts District in downtown through Boyle Heights and East Los Angeles. It will link to the Los Angeles subway system on the Gold Line, which runs south from Pasadena. A one-way trip now costs $1.25.

September 4, 2007
Strike Shuts Most of London's Subway
By SARAH LYALL

LONDON, Sept. 3 - London's subway network virtually shut down at the height of the rush hour on Monday evening when 2,300 maintenance workers walked off the job in what they said would be a three-day strike over pensions and security.

Transportation officials then closed nine subway lines, the bulk of the system. They said it was too dangerous to keep the network going without the workers, who are responsible for maintaining and repairing tracks, signals, trains and the like. Just three lines - the Jubilee, Northern and Piccadilly lines, which are maintained by workers who belong to another union - were operating Monday night.

Commuters across London left work early in a rush to make it home before 6 p.m., when the strike began. Commuters arriving later found that their stations were locked or - in those stations still operating - that signs had been put up explaining that most of the lines had stopped operating.

Transport for London, the local agency that runs the subway system, predicted that the strike would cause "massive disruptions for millions of Londoners" and urged passengers to seek "alternative routes" - a difficult proposition in a city as large, sprawling and choked with road traffic as London.

The maintenance workers say that if their demands are not met, they will remain off work for three days, and strike again for another three-day stretch next week.

Adding to the general feeling of annoyance, the mayor, Ken Livingstone, said motorists driving into central London during business hours would still have to pay the congestion charge of 8 pounds a day, or more than $16, during the strike.

baltimoresun.com

Scrapping of traffic-congestion plan urged - Proposal tilts too heavily toward highways, mass-transit advocates say

By Michael Dresser

Sun Reporter

August 29, 2007

 

 

 

 

A coalition of mass-transit advocates urged the Baltimore Regional Transportation Board yesterday to scrap its $8.7 billion draft plan for traffic congestion relief over the next 28 years, contending that the proposal is heavily skewed in favor of highway projects.

The advocates are attacking a potential blueprint for what the region's transportation system would look like in 2035. They say the draft Transportation Outlook 2035, prepared by local governments and the transportation board's staff, directs too much money to road projects, including many that would encourage sprawl and violate the state's Smart Growth policies.

At a public hearing last night, speakers almost unanimously turned thumbs down on a plan that critics described as lacking in regional vision.

Advocates demanded a roughly even split of the funds to finance a full regional rapid transit network and MARC system improvements.

The Greater Baltimore Committee expressed disappointment that the draft didn't include a Metro system extension to Morgan State University and Good Samaritan Hospital.

Gregory Schaffer, president of Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center, asked why the East Baltimore campus, with more than 6,300 employees, had been left out of plans for a new transit line and a MARC system upgrade.

The Professional Geographer

Volume 59 Issue 3 Page 365-377, August 2007

To cite this article: Edmund J. Zolnik (2007)
Cost Attribution in Unlimited Access Transit Programs: Case Study on the UConn Prepaid Fare Program Failure
The Professional Geographer 59 (3), 365-377.
doi:10.1111/j.1467-9272.2007.00619.x

Abstract

Using a case study approach, this article explores the potential to increase public transit ridership via the expansion of Unlimited Access (UA) from a university- or employer-based program to a community-based program. UA partners universities or employers with regional transit organizations to provide free or discounted public transit service to students as well as employees and, potentially, to local community residents. A case study on the only known UA program failure highlights the importance of equitable cost attribution as well as stakeholder coordination and dedicated operations funds to the long-term success of community-based UA programs.

SEPTA ordered to keep transfers
The agency vowed to appeal the ruling in a suit brought by Philadelphia
By Paul Nussbaum
Inquirer Staff Writer

The transfers live.

A Common Pleas Court judge ruled yesterday that SEPTA must not eliminate the paper transfers that permit bus and subway riders to change vehicles for 60 cents.

The transit agency said it would appeal Judge Gary F. DiVito Jr.'s decision.

SEPTA had wanted passengers to pay full fares ($2 with cash or $1.30 with tokens) whenever changing from one bus to another. The city sued, saying that poor and minority passengers would be especially hard-hit by the elimination of the transfers.

In ordering the board to reinstate the transfers, DiVito called the SEPTA decision "capricious and . . . a manifest and flagrant abuse of discretion."

"What the evidence demonstrates," DiVito wrote, "is that SEPTA's board (1) voted to eliminate paper transfers (2) to mollify the legislature in hopes of ensuring funding (3) without any study of the impact on those who would be most adversely affected (4) without any semblance of a 'modernization plan' ready (5) with no agreement with the school board in place when (6) they could have designed a plan with an equitable impact on all of its riders."

Los Angeles Times

By Steve Hymon
Times Staff Writer
August 6, 2007

In November 2004, voters in the Denver metro region went to the polls and, much to the surprise of some political observers, decided to tax themselves to begin the nation's largest ongoing expansion of mass transit.

If all goes as planned, the Denver region is expected to build 119 miles of light rail and commuter rail by 2016. Among the projects are six new lines from Denver to the suburbs, including one to the airport, the extension of two other light-rail lines and a new rapid transit bus line.

It's a relatively unusual approach. Constrained by a lack of money, most cities build one or maybe two lines at a time. In Denver, they're betting the entire system can be built at once.

As with any massive public works project, there are reasons for skepticism. The projected cost of the program — called FasTracks — has grown from $4.7 billion to $6.2 billion because of rising construction costs, before construction has started. Transit officials and politicians continue to insist that each of the new lines will be built, but cuts will have to be made, perhaps in the form of smaller stations or lines that have only one track.

Tango 73: A Bus Rider's Diary

by Gabriela QuirÛs

This film illustrates the vital importance of public transportation in urban areas by exploring one bus line and the people whose lives are shaped by the bus schedule and the elements.

Upon arriving in the San Francisco Bay Area from Costa Rica, and having failed to master the quintessential American skill of driving a car, the filmmaker manages as she always has: on the bus. Tango 73: A Bus Rider's Diary reveals an underfinanced system, stricken by recent service cuts, and the people who depend on it.

Traveling on board bus line 73 along the east shore of the San Francisco Bay, a feisty nanny, a wheelchair-dependent activist, a Mexican grandmother and a politically incorrect bus driver speak of their love-hate relationship with the bus. With wry humor, this first-person documentary uncovers the social rituals and secret codes of a world hidden in plain view.

Appropriate for:
Middle School•High School•College/University

28 minutes • VHS

 

Posted on Tue, Jul. 31, 2007

SEPTA expands senior discounts
On the day transfers disappear, those 65 and up can ride buses and subways free even during rush hour.

By Larry Eichel
Inquirer Senior Writer

Tomorrow, even as it begins charging higher fares for transfers, SEPTA will start passing along a new break for senior citizens.

Thanks to the new state transit bill, restrictions on senior discounts will disappear.

That means riders 65 and up will ride free on buses, as well as the Broad Street Subway and the Market-Frankford Line, all day every day. Seniors have had to pay full fare on weekdays from 7 to 8 a.m. and 4:30 to 5:30 p.m. They rode free at all other times.

On Regional Rail, all senior rides contained within Pennsylvania will cost $1. Most senior rides have cost that, but seniors have had to pay full fare for weekday trains arriving in Center City between 7 and 8 a.m. and departing between 4:30 and 5:30 p.m.

Money to finance the new policy, being implemented statewide by the state Department of Transportation, comes from the transit bill signed by Gov. Rendell this month. A PennDot spokesman said the bill removed language that barred using state funds to pay for discounted rides during peak hours. The breaks for seniors are funded through the Pennsylvania Lottery.

Posted on Wed, Aug. 01, 2007

WAS THIS LAWSUIT NECESSARY?
SEPTA'S TRANFER CRISIS DOESN'T NEED TO BE ONE

IS IT NECESSARY for SEPTA to eliminate transfers?

According to a Common Pleas Court judge, no . . . at least not quite yet.

Judge Gary DeVito granted a stay of execution for riders, ruling the transfers to remain in effect at least until Aug. 6.

In an all-day hearing yesterday, the day before it was set to eliminate transfers, SEPTA made a case that the 50-year-old paper transfer is outdated, puts a cash-handling burden on SEPTA drivers, and is hard to monitor.

And the city argued that SEPTA's proposal is unfair, unwise and, now with an expected influx of state dedicated funding, unnecessary.

Judge blocks SEPTA transfer cancellation
By Larry Eichel
Inquirer Senior Writer
After a daylong hearing at City Hall, a Philadelphia Common Pleas Court judge decided that he needed a few more days to decide whether to prevent SEPTA from going ahead with its plans to do away with the 60-cent transfer.

So last night, Judge Gary F. DiVito issued a temporary injunction maintaining the status quo until Monday - blocking a plan that was supposed to go into effect this morning.

Under the transit agency's plan, passengers using cash or tokens are to be charged a second full fare whenever they move from one bus to another - or between buses and the Broad Street Subway or Market-Frankford Line.

Attorneys representing the City of Philadelphia had asked DiVito yesterday to issue a temporary injunction blocking the change.

City officials said that as many as 45,000 adult riders and 18,000 schoolchildren could be affected by the change, which Mayor Street opposes.

Posted on Tue, Jul. 31, 2007

...

The city is protesting that the elimination of transfers will impose an undue hardship on some riders by increasing their fare by 200 percent. It is also concerned about the burden this could put on the 30,000 schoolchildren who get tokens.

The city claims that SEPTA and the school district have not talked about the transfer situation. The district says otherwise, and that it has had a series of meetings with SEPTA on moving to an all-transpass system, but that many problems remain to be fixed.

Is elimination of transfers critical to SEPTA's ability to make its budget? SEPTA needs to make a better case for exactly how. Can it postpone the transfer elimination for even a few weeks to make the transition easier? That shouldn't happen unless it forces the key parties - the city, SEPTA and the district - to get in a room and find a win-win solution for everyone. Unless these players find a way to be better allies, malt-liquor ads are going to be the least of our problems.

 

Ambiance Of Metro Might Take Sharp Turn

By Lena H. Sun
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, July 2, 2007; A01

Metro's new general manager wants to get rid of the carpet in trains, brighten the lighting in stations and increase advertising in stations, trains and buses.

In many places, such mundane changes would be met with a shrug.

But this is the Washington area Metro, which has long prided itself on a dignified ambiance that is supposed to make it better than the average commuter system.

The changes are intended to help make the nation's second-busiest subway more modern and functional. As the system struggles to keep pace with growing demand, Metro's new top executive, John B. Catoe Jr., wants to focus the agency's limited resources toward moving people to and from work and away from some costly features that gave the subway a distinctive, first-class feel when it opened 31 years ago.

With ridership continuing to swell, the debate over those trade-offs is sharpening.

June 30, 2007
M.T.A. Web Site Went Dark, Too
By WILLIAM NEUMAN

When the power went out in a broad swath of the Upper East Side and the Bronx on Wednesday, a record number of commuters turned to the Internet to learn if their subway lines or commuter trains were running. But the Metropolitan Transportation Authority's Web site provided no help.

The site became inaccessible shortly after the electricity went out at 3:41 p.m. and was down for about an hour, a little longer than the 49-minute power failure.

"Because the incident occurred right before people were getting ready to leave the office, we had a huge surge of traffic at one time, unlike anything we'd had before," Jeremy Soffin, a spokesman for the transportation authority, said yesterday.

The failure cut power to signals on several subway lines. Service was disrupted, with delays extending well into the evening, making the trip home for many commuters even more uncomfortable on a hot and muggy day. Service on the Metro-North Railroad was also briefly interrupted.

Wiki for Triboro RX - proposed rail line for bronx, queens and brooklyn

In its 1996 Third Regional Plan, Regional Plan Association describes a rapid transit line in Brooklyn, Queens, and the Bronx that could be built almost entirely on pre-existing rail rights of way. The so-called Triboro RX (TRX for short) presents a unique opportunity to provide mobility and accessibility to New Yorkers living or working within these three boroughs, at a fraction of the cost of most transit projects of similar size. This web site documents a possible alignment for the Triboro RX, and a crude estimate of what levels of initial ridership one could expect to see if it were built. The results, as you will see, are encouraging to say the least.

SEPTA board readies for doom
By DAN GERINGER

Cash-strapped SEPTA's board of directors is expected to approve two drastically different survival plans tomorrow: one a modest 11 percent fare increase for existing service, the other a "doomsday" plan - raising fares 24 percent while cutting service 20 percent, which could devastate low-income workers, fixed-income seniors, the physically disabled and students.

If the state Legislature comes up with $100 million this summer to fill the chronically underfunded transit agency's budget hole, then the "doomsday" plan will be ditched, and only the 11 percent fare hike will go through.

But if the Legislature fails, riders will be forced to foot the bill by enduring longer waits for fewer buses and trains, and by paying much more for service:

SEPTA's base cash fare would rise from $2 to $2.50, tokens from $1.30 to $1.80, a TransPass from $18.75 to $25 weekly and from $70 to $95 monthly, and one-way Regional Rail fares would rise by as much as $1 during peak times and $2.50 off-peak.

June 11, 2007
City's White Elephant Now Looks Like a Transit Workhorse
By SEAN D. HAMILL

MORGANTOWN, W.Va., June 4 - During its troubled years of construction and testing in the early 1970s, the Personal Rapid Transit system that snakes through this hilly college town was derided as a fiasco and a waste of money that perhaps should be dynamited rather than finished.

But now, 32 years after it began operating, the P.R.T. - as most people here call it - is lauded as probably the best answer to the traffic that has found its way to these increasingly popular Appalachian hills.

"I would hate to see Morgantown without the P.R.T. system," said Mayor Ronald Justice. "We're a small town with big traffic issues, and the P.R.T. could be the reason we're able to continue our growth."

Originally built to shuttle students and employees between West Virginia University's two campuses, which sit two miles apart, Morgantown now sees it as more than just a way to get students to class on time. With commuting times increasing in the region, the university, which operates the system, is considering expanding it.

Projects and Reports
The Price of Inaction: An Analysis of Economic Impacts Associated with SEPTA's FY 2008 Operating Budget "Plan B" Alternative
Executive Summary
As of May 2007, SEPTA has a budget shortfall of $129.6 million. Without a source of funding that can balance the transit organization's budget this summer, SEPTA would be forced to implement "Plan B," which would cut service by 20 percent and increase fares by 31 percent.

The Economy League worked with Econsult Corporation to analyze the economic impacts of Plan B on individuals, businesses, governments and the region's overall competitiveness. The analysis builds upon generally accepted data sets and research models including SEPTA's ridership figures, Delaware Valley Planning Commission congestion modeling, Philadelphia Tax Reform Commission work, and U.S. Census data.

May 13, 2007
Cool Reception for Plan to Let Elderly Ride Free
By ALISON LEIGH COWAN

STAMFORD, Conn, May 11 - To many commuters in Connecticut, the state's overworked mass transit system would be vastly improved by an infusion of new rail cars providing more seats and new bus routes to cover more ground.

But to Senator Donald E. Williams Jr., the system would also benefit from the infusion of something old, namely more residents 65 and older. Lots of them.

March 26, 2007
Trains (and Patience) Stretched Thin in Chicago
By LIBBY SANDER

CHICAGO, March 25 - The century-old elevated train system here is as much a city fixture as the towering skyline and the piercing blue waters of Lake Michigan.

But deteriorating tracks and trains, chronic budget shortfalls and a region ever more dependent on rail service are forcing Chicagoans to confront the possibility that the system, commonly known as the El or the L, may be at a breaking point.

"We're living on borrowed time," said Frank Kruesi, the president of the Chicago Transit Authority, which runs the rail service. "The fact is, there's no magic wand when we're looking at modernizing a system that's 100 years old in a very dense urban environment."

The El, with its 1,190 rail cars and 222 miles of track, is the rail component of the transit authority, the second-largest public transit system in the country after New York's. The C.T.A.'s trains and buses serve the city and 40 suburbs, logging 1.55 million rides daily. The El alone accounted for more than 195 million rides last year.

All aboard to ride The El
On Sunday, the Market Street Elevated will mark a century of service. SEPTA plans to celebrate with free rides.
By Paul Nussbaum
Inquirer Staff Writer

The Market Street subway-elevated line turns 100 years old on Sunday, and riders get the birthday gift: free trips for the afternoon.

The birth of the Market Street Line, which allowed passengers to travel easily from 69th Street to the Delaware River, linked Center City to burgeoning new development in West Philadelphia. And it helped spawn more growth west of the Schuylkill, as 69th Street Terminal sprouted in the midst of cow pastures.

Philadelphia's oldest high-speed line - which has since grown into the Market-Frankford Subway-Elevated - emerged at the dawn of intraurban rail travel, coming just a decade after the last horse-drawn car finally left the streets, following the rise of cable cars and electric trolleys. New York, Chicago and Boston already had built elevated rail lines to whisk riders above congested streets, and Philadelphia had been contemplating one since the 1890s.

Built in optimistic boom times of a city whose population was growing by 2,000 people a month, the new train line was an instant success. Within three years of its opening on March 4, 1907, the Market Street line was carrying 29 million riders a year, at a nickel a ride.

 

Give L.A. a free ride
Eliminating subway and bus fares could put local mass transit on the road to success.
By D. Malcolm Carson, D. MALCOLM CARSON, an attorney and urban planner in private practice, is a member of the Los Angeles Board of Transportation Commissioners.
February 25, 2007

CLOSE TO HALF the travel time on most L.A. bus routes is spent at the curb. Bus riders know the frustration of waiting to board while someone coaxes a floppy dollar bill into the fare box. Likewise, plenty of irritated local drivers have been stuck behind that bus in the right-turn lane. Oh, and the despair of the train rider left struggling with an uncooperative ticket vending machine as the train pulls away.

So what would happen if, instead of hiking MTA fares as is currently under consideration, we made all the buses and subways free?

Eliminating transit fares is the logical flip side to the anti-congestion pricing schemes so favored by economists. London, for instance, charges a daily fee equal to about $15.60 to drive in the traffic-chocked central city between 7 a.m. and 6 p.m. weekdays. Just as such fees on cars supposedly discourage driving, eliminating fares could encourage public transit use.

Title: The Connection Between Public Trans it and Employment The Cases of Portland and Atlanta.
Authors: Sanchez, Thomas W.
Source: Journal of the American Planning Association; Summer99, Vol. 65 Issue 3, p284, 13p, 5 charts, 2 graphs, 1 map

Abstract: Much attention is being paid to the role of public transit in employment-related mobility for urban residents, yet there is very little evidence of the degree to which one affects the other. Little research has focused on how labor participation is affected by increases in urban workers' access to public transportation. Research on the spatial mismatch hypothesis has dealt with the relationship between labor participation and the spatial separation of workers' residences from suitable jobs; however, most analyses concentrate on commuting time or distance as a function of auto use. Few studies have considered the impacts of public transportation on labor participation. This article describes a study analyzing the locations and employment characteristics of workers with varying levels of access to public transit. Using census data and a variety of spatial measures generated by a geographic information system (GIS), a two-stage least squares regression was used to estimate the relationship of access to public transit with labor participation levels for Portland, Oregon, and Atlanta, Georgia. The results suggest that access to public transit is a significant factor in determining average rates of labor participation within these two cities.

Mayor rides the SUV, not the MTA
Villaraigosa promotes the use of public transit, but he doesn't spend much time on the city's bus and subway system.
By Duke Helfand, Times Staff Writer
November 14, 2006
From the moment he took office nearly 18 months ago, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa made traffic gridlock a cause celebre - exhorting Angelenos to help solve the problem by forsaking their cars whenever possible.
"You've got to use public transit," Villaraigosa said just last week while unveiling an automated signal system to help unclog busy intersections. "You can't keep on pointing to someone else and saying it's their responsibility."
But Villaraigosa's own travel habits don't match his public pronouncements.
The mayor rarely, if ever, takes the bus or the train to work. Instead, he rides around town in a GMC Yukon chauffeured by a Los Angeles police officer who doubles as a bodyguard.
Unlike many others in Los Angeles, Villaraigosa has easy access to public transportation.

Reconsidering Social Equity in Public Transit
Mark Garrett and Brian Taylor

Abstract: Over the course of this century, public transit systems in the U.S. have lost most of the market share of metropolitan travel to private vehicles. The two principal markets that remain for public transit systems are downtown commuters and transit dependents — people who are too young, too old, too poor, or physically unable to drive. Despite the fact that transit dependents are the steadiest customers for most public transit systems, transit policy has tended to focus on recapturing lost markets through expanded suburban bus, express bus, and fixed rail systems. Such efforts have collectively proven expensive and only marginally effective. At the same time, comparatively less attention and fewer resources tend to be devoted to improving well-patronized transit service in low- income, central-city areas serving a high proportion of transit dependents. This paper explores this issue through an examination of both the evolving demographics of public transit ridership, and the reasons for shifts in transit policies toward attracting automobile users onto buses and trains. We conclude that the growing dissonance between the quality of service provided to inner-city residents who depend on local buses and the level of public resources being spent to attract new transit riders is both
economically inefficient and socially inequitable. In light of this, we propose that transportation planners concerned with social justice (and economic efficiency) should re-examine current public transit policies and plans.

	Publisher:	Routledge, part of the Taylor & Francis Group
	Issue:	Volume 9, Number 1 / April 2005
	Pages:	51 - 66
	URL:	Linking Options
	DOI:	10.1080/13604810500050161

The abandoned social goals of public transit in the neoliberal city of the USA

Joe Grengs

Abstract:

 

A preface and a bus rider’s story: “two-tiered” transit system in the making?

Imagine a bus stop in a typical working-class neighbourhood of inner-city Los Angeles, a city with an extraordinary array of peoples and cultures. The bus pulls up with standing room only, filled with a variety of people: Mexican, Salvadoran, Korean, Filipino and African American; men and women going to jobs, some of them janitors, some street vendors. People on the bus include women clutching children and grocery bags, kids going to school, elderly folks off to the Senior Centre. The ride is like always: hot, noisy and desperately crowded. The riders come from decidedly different backgrounds, yet share the same experience daily—jostled against one another, staring blankly out cracked windows, minding their own business, intent on getting where they need to go. And getting it over with as quickly as possible.

In another part of town, people of a different income class are riding in a new train. They come from the suburbs, clacking away at laptops and sipping cappuccino on their way to downtown jobs. These are people taking advantage of what Mike Davis (1995, p. 270) calls “the biggest public works project in fin de siecle America”, an ambitious series of commuter rail lines that were budgeted at $183 billion over 30 years (Sterngold, 1999). These train riders choose to leave their cars at home to avoid the maddening freeway jams of Los Angeles. Some ride the train on principle. Trains are, after all, better for the environment.

Back on the inner-city bus … someone’s handing out leaflets and talking about forming a union—of bus riders? First in English then in Spanish, the organizer tells riders how the train that’s always in the newspapers is costing more than planners expected, and that politicians now propose to take money away from buses to keep building the train lines. Then the organizer talks about racial discrimination. Racial discrimination? What do buses have to do with racial discrimination?

Public transport
All aboard!

Aug 31st 2006 | PORTLAND
From The Economist print edition
Light rail and buses beckon. But will Americans really abandon their cars?