NYSW OnTrack's dirty laundry?

RussNelson wrote:Why shouldn't everything be affordable, Otto? Why not subsidize everything? Heck, why not make everything free?

C'mon, I'm not trying to say that. Not everything is black and white. And I'm not trying to attack you, I just disagree with your idea.

No, my argument isn't simplistic. I want to know: from whence comes the right to force somebody to pay for something? I don't have that right, no collection of railroad.net members has that right, how does government suddenly gain that right?

Simple. We gave the government the authority to collect taxes. I'm sure its in the Constitution in there somewhere. We give the government the authority to collect tax revenue, then we charge them with coming up with a budget that benefits as many people as possible. Those benefits include schools, roads, garbage pickup, parks, museums, and yes, public transit service. What we don't get to do is pick and choose where our tax contribution goes. But like I said, you can lobby your elected officials and let them know what is important to you.

Easy. They had a monopoly on transportation until private automobiles became practical

They did NOT have a monpoly on transportation. There were steam railroads, there were horse-drawn cabs, people could walk, or ride a horse.

You're right, Russ, I should have been more specific. Trolleys and interurbans had a pretty good hold on the markets they served. For instance, if you wanted to get somewhere, and you didn't want to ride your horse or walk, you dug out a nickel and paid the trolley to take you there. The trolley ran down the side of the road, through the city streets, out accross a farmer's field, down the hill to another city and down their city streets. They ran places steam railroads did not, or chose not to. And the places where trolleys did compete with steam railroads, the zippy electric cars often gave them healthy competition. Why wait for the steam train that comes twice a day when I can take the trolley that runs every 15 minutes or so and gets me there quicker?

and roads were improved so people could get around. Say, who improved those roads, anyway? Ah yes. The state. And later on, the Federal government. Hrm. Using Russ' logic, "Why are they making me pay for a highway if I want to take the train instead?"

What gives us the right to force people to pay for things they won't willingly buy? How can this be moral when a certain group of people does it, when it's NOT moral for other groups of people to do it? Or is morality simply not a concern for you?

I don't know why you're questioning my morality... or the morality of anyone who supports public transit... but like I said, you can't pick and choose where "your" tax dollars go. I mean, I guess you could stop paying taxes, but that will get you in trouble. I mean, really, I don't have a good answer for you- or at least an answer that satisfies your morality question. I don't want to pay for a new highway to the airport, but I'll gladly pay for a new rail link. But I don't get to make those decisions. Are my elected officials amoral because they didn't build the railroad I wanted?

Many of the trolleys went bankrupt due to effects of the Great Depression and the inability to adequately raise fares to meet inflation and reinvest in the physical plant. The raising of fares meant approval from the government (in this case, the New York State Public Services Commission, since the trolleys and interurbans were intrastate services).

That only explains how the government helped kill trolleys. That doesn't explain how trolleys were profitable in the first place.

Well, trolleys were profitable on volume. If you runs more trolley cars, you can transport more people and collect more nickels. One would think, as a private enterprise, the trolley company could raise the fare as needed in order to meet rising operating costs. However, many companies were working under a franchise agreement. "You have the right to run your trolleys in the city streets as long as you promise to maintain a nickel fare in perpetuity," or something like that was how many of them read. It didn't seem like a problem at first... but later it came to haunt the operating companies. Though many trolley companies had other revenue streams- some were also electric utilities (think of the Rochester Railway & Light Co., for instance). Also, some trolley companies carried mail (government contract) and some carried express shipments (Adams Express or Railway Express). When costs were low, and volume was high- the trolley companies were profitable. When costs began to rise, and more people purchased automobiles, and with more improved roads, trolley companies were in trouble. Which is why many converted to bus operations in later years! No tracks to maintain, no overhead wire, no electricity to produce or purchase. I could go on and on about the trolleys, but I think we're getting far afield from OnTrack.

To bring it back to OnTrack, and to revive an old explanation about passenger trains in America... passenger trains don't make money. Sure, they made money in the early days of railroading when they were the successor to walking, horses, and wagons. Then, as costs began to rise, railroads were still making a healthy profit from freight. They also carried a lot of U.S. Mail (government contract) and express shipments (Adams or REA). If the passenger trains were losing a little money, they simply dipped into the freight profits. Traffic was still high, the losses from passenger trains were minimal, and the railroads were proud of their passenger services. Fast forward to the 1950s with the advent of the Interstate Highway System and commerical jet aviation, the costs to run passenger trains were skyrocketing. The government moved the mail contracts to the jets. REA went out of business. Now the railroads didn't have any additional revenue streams to support passenger operations, and they were losing millions a year. Passenger train service either ended, was taken over by Amtrak, or was subsidized and operated by local state agencies for commuter trains. Passenger trains were recognized as a public service that the private companies no longer could afford, so they were subsidized or abandoned. If you really really want to debate this point, please take it to the Amtrak Forum, this point comes up often.

Let's keep the discussion related to the NYSW and OnTrack, if we can.

But this thread is about OnTrack's dirty laundry, which includes subsidization.

Okay, if you insist. >shrug< Can we discuss the OnTrack subsidy and not the broad topic of subsidy across the board? Does anyone even know what kinds of subsidy the service got besides the company getting a tax break?

-otto-

Otto Vondrak wrote:

RussNelson wrote:Why shouldn't everything be affordable, Otto? Why not subsidize everything? Heck, why not make everything free?

C'mon, I'm not trying to say that. Not everything is black and white. And I'm not trying to attack you, I just disagree with your idea.

I'm trying to find out what principle you're following when you say that one thing should be subsidized and another thing should not. Surely you've got a rule of thumb you folllow.

How can this be moral when a certain group of people does it, when it's NOT moral for other groups of people to do it? Or is morality simply not a concern for you?

I don't know why you're questioning my morality... or the morality of anyone who supports public transit.

Because I don't believe it to be moral to take money from one person and give it to another at the point of a gun. It's not moral when I do it to you, and it doesn't become moral when we do it to us.

To bring it back to OnTrack, and to revive an old explanation about passenger trains in America... passenger trains don't make money.

Which is another way of saying that passenger trains consume more resources than the value they create. Which, if you're an environmentalist or an economist, is another way of saying that passenger trains should not exist. If OnTrack consumes more resources than people are willing to freely trade for its services, then maybe OnTrack is better off dead?

Let me make the same argument a different way. From an economic point of view, everyone in the Syracuse area (at least) is being forced to buy an OnTrack coupon. Most of them simply throw it out. Only a few people use the OnTrack coupon to buy OnTrack tickets. Is it either rational or moral to force everyone to pay for something that very few of them use?

RussNelson wrote:I'm trying to find out what principle you're following when you say that one thing should be subsidized and another thing should not. Surely you've got a rule of thumb you folllow.

But you're saying subsidize everything or subsidize nothing, right? I don't remember saying other things "should not," but maybe we lost something in going back and forth.

[Because I don't believe it to be moral to take money from one person and give it to another at the point of a gun. It's not moral when I do it to you, and it doesn't become moral when we do it to us.

So stop paying taxes. What do you want me to say to this? I'm not going to sit here and tell you public transit benefits everyone whether you ride it or not, I'm not going to try to convince you of something you don't believe.

To bring it back to OnTrack, and to revive an old explanation about passenger trains in America... passenger trains don't make money.

[quotee]Which is another way of saying that passenger trains consume more resources than the value they create. Which, if you're an environmentalist or an economist, is another way of saying that passenger trains should not exist. If OnTrack consumes more resources than people are willing to freely trade for its services, then maybe OnTrack is better off dead?[/quote]

Okay, fine, don't run passenger trains, I don't care, I don't live in Syracuse. :-) No private company will operate a money-losing operation out of the goodness of their hearts.

Let me make the same argument a different way. From an economic point of view, everyone in the Syracuse area (at least) is being forced to buy an OnTrack coupon. Most of them simply throw it out. Only a few people use the OnTrack coupon to buy OnTrack tickets. Is it either rational or moral to force everyone to pay for something that very few of them use?

Yeah, it kinda is. Look, I know it sounds like a sily fairy tale type of intangible thing when I say public transit means fewer cars on the highway and less damage to the environment, therefore benefitting everyone. Past that, I got nothing.

-otto-

Otto Vondrak wrote:You're assuming that the tax break subsidizes the passenger operation. That's like saying, "I want my tax dollars to pay for pothole repair, and nothing else!" The tax break goes to the company, it is not applied to the operation of the train. It just means that NYSW pays $400K less taxes each year, not that they get $400K to spend on a passenger train.

My assumption is based on my interpretation of the original Post-Standard article from last November. I'm assuming the $400k subsidy was provided to cover the On-Track operation in part or in full, but I could be wrong.

Speaking as a Syracuse-area resident, I just don't see the end of On-Track being a great loss for this community. On-Track was a perfect example of trying to do rail transit on the cheap. It sounds great on paper - you can connect Syracuse University on one end to the thriving Armory Square area and the Carousel Center mall and the train station. But that's still a niche market at best - the real congestion in this town is found on I-81 and I-690 five days a week. On-Track does nothing to address that, and the other railroad infrastructure in this town offers no realistic options to offer a basic commuter train service that could bring people from Camillus, Dewitt or Cicero to downtown and the S.U. hill.

That's not to say the situation is bleak, though. Centro does offer peak-hour express buses from the outlying communities to these key employment centers that are decently patronized by modern standards. I also believe that the long-discussed Inner Harbor revitalization project would be an excellent opportunity to consider an economical Portland-style streetcar project that could link the Carousel/transportation center/ballpark area with downtown and the university in a more direct fashion than OnTrack's meandering route. I doubt such a project will ever happen, but at least it would be an attempt to pursue a solution that actually addresses the area's transportation needs.

railbus- This was something we discussed earlier. The service that existed (SU-ArmorySq-Carousel) was all they could do since that bridge to the Transportation Center was never built. If you looked at the maps, they wanted to connect the new baseball stadium (station built and never used) and other points around the city. It would have been an augment, not a replacement for CENTRO service. They also occasionally offered expanded services to Jamesville...

We gave the government the authority to collect taxes. I'm sure its in the Constitution in there somewhere. We give the government the authority to collect tax revenue

We over threw the British crowen becouse we did not agree with there taxes! The greedy Rich people who ran the government and still do just want are money and care nothing for the little people.

They attempted a park and ride commuter service to the Jamesville area several years ago to relieve traffic congestion during an expressway reconstruction project. I don't recall what year it was.

Park and ride stops were established at Rock Cut Rd, Jamesville and Jamesville Beach to serve commuters from the Jamesville area or who commuted from the south via I81. I don't believe it ever got much ridership.

I happened to be in Syracuse as the highway project was winding down and decided to ride to Jamesville Beach and back since there was a rumor the service was about to shut down. It turned out to be the last day of operation. An official got on at Armory Square and posted notices in the car that sevice was terminated effective that day and gave the engineer notices to post at the stations.

There were only about 5 passengers besides myself beyond the University on the run to Jamesville and I was the only passenger inbound until Colvin St. The engineer stopped and posted the "station closed" notices at the park and ride stations on the inbound trip.

There was one more outbound trip that day to get riders back home but I doubt there were many as the park and ride lots were mostly empty.

Ick. This has grown into a sticky topic.

Allow me to inject some points here, albeit belatedly.

Otto hit the nail right on the head for why trolleys went away. More about this can be shown from the Jamestown, Westfield, and Northwestern. The trolleys stopped running in 1947, but the line stayed around for a bit longer because it helped break the Erie's monopoly in Jamestown, NY. Otto is right that the decline happened around the time autos became popular.

Otto originally said that "if you want continued regularly scheduled passenger service as a transportation alternative, and you want it to be affordable, it will be subsidized." Let's keep the subsidy point to the topic at hand, not about subsidies in general.

Let's also not get into taxation questions. It's not something that belongs here, and we're already getting the crazies to chime in on it.

Dave Becker