>> From: Tom Wetzel <tom.wetzel@beasys.com>
>
>> Yeah, having lived in the Mission beginning in 1981,
>
>Me too! Where in the Mission do you live? (I'm at 25th and
>Bryant.)
near 19th & Potrero
>
>> Various studies suggest that ridership *is* sensitive to price.
>> The loss of roughly a quarter of transit ridership in the UK
>> (outside London) after the Thatcher privatization is generally
>> attributed to the fare increases, for example.
>
>You defeat your own arguement, here, with your modifier
>"outside London." London ridership is insensitive to price
>precisely because it is a dense inner city and people have
>no real choice.
On the contrary, the reason there wasn't a drop in ridership
in London is that it was not privatized, and there wasn't
the big fare increase there. This supports my argument.
>British Rail (and its commercial spinoffs)
>are outstandingly expensive, so people choose to drive when
>they can. Fortunately, Britian is still relatively "road
>constrained" so rail travel is still an important method of
>transport there.
>
>Likewise, I suspect that whilst BART _is_ sensitive to
>price, MUNI is not.
Why then has Muni lost over a quarter of its ridership
since the mid-'80s? Again, this is why I asked exactly when the
fare increases were put through and what the year to year
ridership figures are. Without this data, we have no real
evidence either way. If there was a big ridership drop after
a fare increase, that would substantiate my contention. This
is quite clear in the case of L.A. Ridership was going up the
very month they raised fares in 1985 and then there was a big
drop in the next couple years.
>Whatever you do to MUNI's price, it
>will not increase the available parking, and the
>approximately eighty-percent of downtown workers who take
>public transit is not likely to change (although if the
Again, this doesn't enable you to account for the big drop in
ridership since the mid-80s. There wasn't a substantial drop
in employment til the recession in the early '90s. To know
whether or not this corelates with the ridership decline, we need
to know the year to year figures. Without that data, it's
all just speculation.
>price got high enough you could probably drive people and
>jobs out of the city, but MUNI is a long way from there).
>(Incidentally, in my opinion, this is one of the best
>arguements for keeping jobs downtown; it forces people not
>to drive.)
>
>> Low income riders in particular will simply use the system
>> less when the fare goes up.
>
>So, what are they going to do? They can't park either.
They will simply forego trips. A large proportion of Muni
rides are not work-related. (In L.A. this is 60% of the
rides but I suspect it may be a lower proportion here.
Even so, it will be substantial.) Or they will walk or
bum rides with friends. Keep in mind also that, insofar
as people use Muni less for non-work-related trips, this
reduces Muni's efficiency, because it concentrates more of
the capacity usage into a few peak hours.
>Which doesn't mean that the poor should not be helped. But
>transportation subsidies should be given to those who need
>it, not applied across the board.
Well, I don't agree with this. Means tested programs are almost
always a failure. The objective should be to maximize public
transit usage in general in S.F.
>The latter only prevents
>MUNI from getting money she needs -- note the article in
>yesterday's EXAMINER that MUNI now needs more money because
>the ridership decline during the ATCS fiasco cost the agency
>(as I recall) $2 million. Riders do provide a significant
>portion of MUNI's budget, and middle class riders should
>provide more of it. You get what you pay for, and we are
>certainly getting the MUNI service that we pay for. Just
>wait until it's "free".
We pay for it either way (fares or taxes). It's not a question of
whether we're going to pay for it, but how.
Tom Wetzel