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  #21  
Old Posted Jan 14, 2019, 6:08 PM
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Originally Posted by jamesinclair View Post
Id note that if gas prices were higher, than Lyft/Uber would be more expensive, so theyre certainly intertwined.

One aspect that keep getting ignored is pricing. Gas prices have fallen over the past decade, but most transit agencies hike their fares every 2 years. Some cities are charging $3 for a bus ride. That's insane to me.
All transit agencies operate at a loss, some of them substantial as fares don't even cover 20 percent of operating costs. That's by design of course. Transit isn't meant to be profitable, but sometimes the operating subsidy is so too large or lacks political support for the city to fill, so they rely on an increase in fares instead.

Gas prices aren't the main cost driver. Look at the breakdown of any budget and at least 70% of the operating costs will be attributable to salaries and fringe benefits. Basic cost of living raises every year, let alone any service expansions, will lead to higher operating costs and possibly hire fares if no other source of revenue. Fuel is probably only 5 to 10% of the operating costs, with the rest being maintenance.

Anyone have access to hard numbers of their transit agencies budget?
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  #22  
Old Posted Jan 14, 2019, 6:17 PM
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Here it is for MTA.

https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/...bl3n9xlNWg.png

Fuel is literally just 1% of the operating cost. Add in electric power + fuel and it's 4.1%.


Bulk of the funds are for salaries and wages, retirement and other employee benefits, and post employment benefits other than pension. Maintenance and other operating contracts professional service contracts are all expenses to have the right personnel needed to operate and maintain the system.
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  #23  
Old Posted Jan 15, 2019, 3:14 AM
CastleScott CastleScott is offline
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Just a reminder here's the APTA link: https://www.apta.com/resources/stati...rship-APTA.pdf
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  #24  
Old Posted Jan 20, 2019, 7:05 AM
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Doady Doady is offline
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Major transit ridership increase all across Canada. TTC +11%. GO Transit and STM +4%. Translink +6%. Brampton Transit +17%. Uber/Lyft must be to blame for that too.
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  #25  
Old Posted Jan 20, 2019, 7:30 PM
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Uber/Lyft have at multiple possible effects, and it plays out differently by city -- in some cities it might encourage more people to use transit, and in others (at least so far) people use it less. Some of the factors that come to mind include:
1. Is the Uber/Lyft driver pay structure favorable for getting plenty of drivers, allowing faster pick-ups?
2. Do the roads make driving easy and quick? Are there HOV-2 lanes?
3. Is transit frequent, quick (can relate to dedicated lanes or rail), and reasonably pleasant (is behavior policed, and does the average worker ride it)?
4. On the flip side, are a lot of transit riders able to pay for Uber/Lyft, i.e. what's ridership by income or net worth?
5. Are Uber/Lyft/transit enough to get people to ditch car ownership?
6. How concentrated are jobs, i.e. near transit?
7. Is transit being added or subtracted?

I bet some of these factors will show themselves in cities that are rising/falling with transit use.

Mine, Seattle, was rising very slowly early in the year at least for a couple agencies. Let's see:
1. I don't know how their pay structure varies, but the city is expensive.
2. The roads are jammed, but HOV lanes are common.
3. Transit is rarely excellent but it's decent everywhere, including HOV lanes to make buses fast, and a lot of sub-10-minute frequencies at rush hours. The average rider income is pretty close to the regional average.
4. Uh oh.
5. Yes. Between cost and these options (along with walking), a lot of people don't have cars. A lot of people spend $2,500 for housing with no parking, take the bus or walk to work, and use Lyft on nights out.
6. Fairly concentrated on the white collar side. Same with most construction.
7. Added. Rail is slowly being added but we've upped bus service quite a bit lately.
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  #26  
Old Posted Jan 21, 2019, 4:41 AM
jtown,man jtown,man is offline
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My hierarchy of urban transport:

Walking
Biking
Train
Uber
Bus


In my city of Norfolk in a year I walk to a destination almost daily. I bike 2-3 times a week. I take the train about 4-7 times(I am downtown, so the destination for the train are limited). I Uber/Lyft 2-4 times a year. I take the bus 1-2 times(mainly when its at school and I don't feel like riding the bike home...because its now raining or something).

However, I think car-sharing could be a great thing in a city like Chicago. If I moved there I would like to know that my gf has her car, I can take the train/bus almost anywhere, bike, walk, or Uber if it makes more sense. Those options would have me, easily, to ditch my car. Heck, I almost ditched it here living in Norfolk because the gf walks to work(she uses about a tank of gas every 2 months) but I decided against it because I never know if I will end up in Dallas or some place like that.

As for the report, whats up with Bostons numbers?
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  #27  
Old Posted Jan 21, 2019, 8:51 AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by CastleScott View Post
Just a reminder here's the APTA link: https://www.apta.com/resources/stati...rship-APTA.pdf
Q3 data is now available:

https://www.apta.com/resources/stati...rship-APTA.pdf
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  #28  
Old Posted Jan 22, 2019, 5:20 PM
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Originally Posted by accord1999 View Post
Many of the Canadian systems are up over double digits percentage from last year. For example, Toronto's heavy rail system is up 37 percent. That doesn't seem right. Looks like they may have reclassified a light rail to heavy rail?
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  #29  
Old Posted Jan 22, 2019, 5:32 PM
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I think APTA made some calculation errors in this release. I see some wacky things happening, like 80% year-over-year declines for huge agencies, but only in one quarter.

APTA is very sloppy with their releases. Couldn't they at least get an intern to eyeball the numbers?
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  #30  
Old Posted Jan 22, 2019, 6:03 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Crawford View Post
I think APTA made some calculation errors in this release. I see some wacky things happening, like 80% year-over-year declines for huge agencies, but only in one quarter.

APTA is very sloppy with their releases. Couldn't they at least get an intern to eyeball the numbers?
I was thinking that because several of the numbers don't align with the official release from the transit agencies. There are things that are higher too high or too low. I understand APTA counts "unliked trips" but that data isn't collected by transit agencies and would have to be calculated somehow.
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  #31  
Old Posted Jan 22, 2019, 8:55 PM
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Nouvellecosse Nouvellecosse is offline
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For the Toronto figures, this was previously addressed on the Canada subforum. It seems there was an error when the previous lower figures the TTC reported to the APTA were linked trips when the APTA normally works with unlinked.

Quote:
Originally Posted by nfitz View Post
Apparently TTC erroneously eported linked subway data to APTA for years, rather than unlinked. Hence the huge apparent ridership increase.

Now Toronto subway ridership (and bus and commuter train ridership) is listed by APTA as higher than Montreal.

I noted in another thread back in 2013 a couple of times that it made no sense that Montreal's subway ridership was higher, given Toronto trains were larger (10% shorter but 25% wider), with more trainsets and a higher peak and off-peak frequency than Montreal. I always figured Montreal's numbers were somehow escalated - I guess it was always more likely that TTC had messed up what they were reporting!
Quote:
Originally Posted by nfitz View Post
The APTA reports have had much higher Toronto numbers for months.

Stuart Green - the senior communications specialist in media relations at TTC is the source confirming the error according to Steve Munro - https://twitter.com/SwanBoatSteve/st...77779055247360

Though that there was an obvious error somewhere seemed pretty obvious to anyone who is very familiar with both systems!
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  #32  
Old Posted Jan 22, 2019, 9:12 PM
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The numbers for Brampton Transit and York Region Transit are also linked trips. Brampton unlinked should be around 35 million, not 23 million, and York Region around 23 million unlinked rather than 18 million.
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  #33  
Old Posted Jan 23, 2019, 1:07 AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Nouvellecosse View Post
For the Toronto figures, this was previously addressed on the Canada subforum. It seems there was an error when the previous lower figures the TTC reported to the APTA were linked trips when the APTA normally works with unlinked.
That would explain it. Thanks!
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  #34  
Old Posted Apr 15, 2019, 9:40 PM
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  #35  
Old Posted Apr 15, 2019, 10:40 PM
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Looks like pretty much every agency is taking a hit from the introduction of Uber / Lyft.

Also, LA will take a big hit in regards to Light Rail this year with the shutdown of the Blue line for a majority of the year for improvements.
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  #36  
Old Posted Apr 16, 2019, 12:58 AM
emathias emathias is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by C. View Post
Here it is for MTA.
...
Bulk of the funds are for salaries and wages, retirement and other employee benefits, and post employment benefits other than pension. Maintenance and other operating contracts professional service contracts are all expenses to have the right personnel needed to operate and maintain the system.
Last time I looked at Chicago's CTA budget, personnel costs were almost exactly 2/3rds of the budget. One of the variances between at least American agencies is that some agencies have their own police force on their budget, some cities provide special police divisions for the transit agency as part of the police budget. The latter is the case with Chicago, which I understand was done as a back-door subsidy of the CTA by the city without violating the state-mandated "fare recovery ratio" which has varied over the years but historically has been slightly over 50% (the fare recovery ratio applies to the operations budget and is a state-mandated percentage of the budget that must be covered by fares instead of direct state or local subsidies).

Quote:
Originally Posted by LosAngelesSportsFan View Post
Its absolutely Uber / Lyft. I no longer take the train for any commute less than 10 miles, as its just easier and faster with uber. Pretty much the only time i take the train now is if im going to Hollywood or Koreatown from Downtown LA
In Chicago and New York and I suspect Boston, Washington, San Francisco and maybe Philly, rail is faster during most rush hours except certain holidays where a lot of people are on vacation, as long as you're origin and destination are within a reasonable walking distance to the stations. I live in downtown Chicago right now and walk or ride a bike to work most of the time, but when I lived on the North Side, whether it be Rogers Park, Lakeview or Ravenswood/Lincoln Square, taking a taxi home was only a comfort option, almost never a speed improvement. When I lived in Gold Coast I lived nearly a ten minute walk to a train station plus it was so close to downtown that I usually had to let one or more trains go by in the morning, so oddly then it was usually faster to take a taxi as compared to a bus, the only real option for my commute then. But the bus was significantly cheaper, and not *that* much longer, so I used that most of the time except when I would work really long hours.

And, if anything, it's gotten harder to get on a Near North Side (Gold Coast/River North) train in the mornings than it was 15-20 years ago and driving has gotten much slower. It was usually a 10 minute ride back then - I even made it home during rush hour in 5 minutes once with a crazy French (from Toulouse) cab driver. More recently, it always takes at least 15 minutes and I live 3/4ths of a mile closer to the Loop then I did then. Some of that additional traffic is just because the population downtown has skyrocketed, but a significant portion of the worsened traffic downtown is a direct result of Uber and Lyft. So that's why I usually walk or bike. Biking is definitely fastest. Walking is frequently the same time from the office home in the evenings. I do walk faster than most people, but I'm definitely still walking and not running.

Long story short, Uber and Lyft have really negatively impacted traffic downtown. I actually suggested in Crains (local business magazine) that the City should tax Uber/Lyft rides that originate or terminate downtown the equivalent of a CTA fare and dedicate at least half of that tax to transit. And for trips that both originate and terminate in downtown, it should be a per-point tax, so such trips should be taxed double a transit fare. I suggested it apply to the area the City calls "The Central Area," which is an area of approximately 8 square miles consisting primarily of the Loop and Loop-adjacent neighborhoods that the city uses for planning purposes. Forcing people to pay an extra $4.50 or $5.00 to take a trip from the Gold Coast to the Loop or vice-versa won't impact everyone, but it would impact enough people that it would reduce traffic and provide an alternate source of revenue for transit both directly and by driving at least some additional trips to the CTA.
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  #37  
Old Posted Apr 16, 2019, 11:50 AM
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Uber/Lyft are clearly impacting PT ridership nationwide, especially for short trips and off peak trips.

Also, it would be nice if the clowns at APTA would actually bother reading their releases. They, very clearly, have mistakes in their 4Q ridership numbers (like it's obvious they forgot a zero or mixed up columns). An intern could probably clean everything up in 30 minutes, but I guess that's too much to ask.
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  #38  
Old Posted Apr 16, 2019, 6:11 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Crawford View Post
Uber/Lyft are clearly impacting PT ridership nationwide, especially for short trips and off peak trips.
For some reason, they had no impacts in Canada, where transit ridership is still growing (4.9% in 2018 in Montreal, for example) despite Uber also being present.

Better, more frequent service attracts more riders and reduces the need to use Uber/Lyft, I would guess.
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  #39  
Old Posted Apr 16, 2019, 6:33 PM
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We very clearly need Canadian gas prices.
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  #40  
Old Posted Apr 16, 2019, 6:47 PM
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Originally Posted by SIGSEGV View Post
We very clearly need Canadian gas prices.
lol! I guess it helps, but I don't think it's a major factor in deciding to take transit vs commuting by car, at least in Canada. The difference isn't big enough. What you save in gas, you need it to buy your transit pass.

Traffic, convenience and frequency are bigger factors imo.
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