[Sosfbay-discuss] VTA Gets Unsatisfactory Grades: 7% VTA lines carry 50% of VTA passengers. A Metro editorial

[JamBoi]

http://www.metroactive.com/metro/04.25.07/fly-0717.html

April 25-May 1, 2007

Radical Thoughts for Big VTA Problems

Valley Transportation Authority got a bad report card
this month, and they were the kind of grades any
middle-schooler would be terrified to bring home to
Mom and Dad. Unsatisfactory at best was the verdict in
many areas, including cost and efficiency. Sixty-seven
of the 70 bus routes fail to reach the agency's goal
of 33 riders per hour. As of now, 7 percent of the
lines carry 50 percent of VTA passengers. And the
agency has one of the lowest fare-box returns in the
country: only 14 percent of operating costs are
covered by the riders' ticket purchase, about half of
what's needed. But taking a page from the schoolkid
handbook on spinning Report Card Day, VTA acted fast
to demonstrate that there's no reason to take away its
Playstation 3 for a month. New changes that will be
voted on in August and go into effect in 2008 include
consolidating or eliminating two of every seven bus
routes and offering more express buses and smaller,
cheaper vehicles on certain lines. However, one city
employee tells Fly that VTA needs to think way, way
outside the fare box at this point. The biggest
problem, he believes, is that the VTA and
Redevelopment Agency are working from entirely
different agendas: "The hub of all VTA bus routes are
downtown, with so many routes serving it. So
hypothetically one would think this would be a focus
for the powers that be. Who are the primary users?
Those without vehicles. But even though the downtown
developers pay a fee to support affordable housing,
those projects are delegated out of downtown, as the
RDA focus is for upscale clientele." The irony, he
says, is that "the condo buyers are the least likely
to set foot on public transit. They are not making
those Beamer payments so their cars will stay at home
during their workday."

___________________

JamBoi: Jammy, The Sacred Cow Slayer
The Green Parties' #1 Blogger
http://dailyJam.blogspot.com

"To the brave belong all things"
Celt's invading Etrusca reply to nervous Romans around 400BC

"Live humbly, laugh often and love unconditionally" (anon)


       
____________________________________________________________________________________
Moody friends. Drama queens. Your life? Nope! - their life, your story. Play Sims Stories at Yahoo! Games.
http://sims.yahoo.com/