Will They Ever Return?

Gilbert B Norman wrote: ↑Mon Mar 27, 2023 9:56 am Funny how I read in both The Times and Journal how companies are corraling their workers back into the office, but yet how the return to mass transit seems to be lagging.

Is it because of fear of crime - even if nil to nonexistent on the rail lines has become more prevalent on urban mass transit?

I'm honestly now afraid to ride the CTA. Last November, I went into town for a Funeral Mass at Holy Name. It was "drizziling", but rather than taking the CTA the 1.5mi from CUS, I walked.

I also used to have my "poor man's way to O'Hare ($8.50 RT Senior)" BNSF to CUS, then Blue Line. Not anymore!!! Now it's $120 round trip to a livery car.

I think the issue here is that during the pandemic, everyone who had a home was home. Everyone who didn't... sought shelter where they could. That included on transit.

Now that (some) folks are returning to work... they're returning scared, because they're returning to a dystopia. Lots of shops closed for good. Others struggling. The regular office traffic isn't back yet, and it won't be for a decade at least. The vagrants, the bums, the minor criminals have moved in... and it's going to take a while to move them out.

WMATA's MetroRail seems to be OK, and they're trying to make it better. But a 24/7 system like NYC? Well, you gotta have officers and social workers sweep and move 'em into services. That needs resources... and from what I've heard, NYC likes to squander them.

This Journal article appearing today would suggest that "RTO is now the thing".

Fair Use:

Working remotely is becoming increasingly rare a few years after the pandemic caused millions of Americans to decamp from worksites to their basements and bedrooms.

Some 72.5% of business establishments said their employees teleworked rarely or not at all last year, according to a Labor Department report released this week. That figure climbed from 60.1% in 2021. The survey showed about 21 million more workers on-site full time in 2022, compared with the prior year. An establishment is defined as each business location—such as an individual restaurant in a chain.

The new number is also close to the share of establishments—76.7%—that said they had no employees teleworking before the Covid-19 pandemic, and that were open in February 2020, the Labor Department said. Employers recently have begun pushing harder to get staff to work on-site more often, as recession fears prompt an increased emphasis on worker productivity.

We have noted here that return to rail transit (RTRT ) has not matched the rate of RTO's. Urban mass transit has done better because so many of its riders have no other choice.

Too bad there was not some means to measure what percentage of the RTO's who have returned to the rails can do the "last mile" on foot without use of urban mass transit vs. the number who need such. From my "universe of one" who goes in only for the Symphony and special occasions such as the Funeral Mass I noted earlier and is admittedly now afraid to ride the CTA - or for that matter drive (carjacking) - applies to the population who must go in to get the daily bread.

Some survey work from Massachusetts on the changing demographics of transit riders here in the Boston area.

https://commonwealthmagazine.org/transp ... -t-riders/

TL;DR - Riders of choice (more affluent, more white-collar jobs, more white) have left, leaving the overall ridership on the MBTA less affluent and increasingly non-white.

THE NUMBER of riders taking the MBTA declined significantly during COVID, but their demographic makeup also changed, shifting far more toward minorities and people with lower incomes.

A new passenger study conducted by the MBTA found that minorities, those who self-identify as Hispanic, Latino or Latina, or a race other than white, accounted for 34 percent of T riders in the period from 2015 to 2017. In 2022, however, that percentage had risen to 58 percent.

Worth noting, of course, that our MBTA has been caught up in ongoing service quality and safety issues which rival or surpass the challenges faced by WMATA, which are now compounding with post-COVID impacts. But the overall trend remains - riders with choices (WFH, driving, etc) are departing. Service quality and rider experience continues to deteriorate, and the cycle just repeats.

Some 72.5% of business establishments said their employees teleworked rarely or not at all last year, according to a Labor Department report released this week. That figure climbed from 60.1% in 2021. The survey showed about 21 million more workers on-site full time in 2022, compared with the prior year. An establishment is defined as each business location—such as an individual restaurant in a chain.

That statistic seems a bit misleading. Restaurants, barber shops, car repair shops etc. can't really have teleworkers, and a bunch of in-person businesses & restaurants shut down entirely during the lockdowns. Those "establishments" are also where the bulk of job growth was in 2022, so of course there's going to be a higher percentage of on-site workers.

Subways hit 4 million this week: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles ... mic-record

MTA has removed access to their ridership page: https://new.mta.info/coronavirus/ridership-archive

The NY MTA has a fancy new ridership page,
https://metrics.mta.info/

Would have been nice if someone put in a redirect before the took down the old ridership page.

WFH/hybrid is a significant and permanent factor in rail ridership, but if rail service were made more widespread, faster, more frequent, and more efficient, and TOD promoted around the rail infrastructure, the NYC metro region could grow by several million people, entirely with rail transit and road capacity opened up by modal shifts to rail and backfilled by population growth. There is clearly a demand for housing around NYC, the high rents and property prices in the region tell us this, so if you build it, they will come.

OPM will end the ”maximum telework” status for the US government on May 15th. https://www.fedweek.com/fedweek/maximum ... -opm-says/

RandallW wrote: ↑Fri Apr 28, 2023 11:49 amOPM will end the ”maximum telework” status for the US government on May 15th. https://www.fedweek.com/fedweek/maximum ... -opm-says/

WFH is going to go through cycles. The trend long term is towards more WFH, not less. Jobs that require people to be on site are going to have to create compensation structures and perks to make people want to do those jobs.

Right now we are in a reaction to the WFH boom during COVID where companies are pulling people back, it will swing back and forth a few times before the trend slowly moves continuously towards more WFH in the long term.

There are also cultural factors in poor managers who want to justify their own existence by having a lot of people sitting in the office to physically manage, people who want to get away from their kids, and people whose entire lives revolve around their coworkers in the office that are creating more friction to the long-term trend of WFH.

None of this means that we don't need effective and efficient rail transit, however. There are still plenty of jobs that people need to be in person to do, and other reasons why people want to get around to conduct business or for pleasure trips.

NJ Transit "Director Kevin Corbett said weekday rail ridership is fluctuating between 55% and 75% of pre-pandemic levels, depending on the day of the week, with Mondays and Fridays now lighter travel days." https://www.njspotlightnews.org/2023/05 ... -pandemic/

The table in that article shows a significantly reduced contribution from the Turnpike. How come? If anything, one would think more funds from the turnpike and the port authority (from the hudson crossings) should be used to encourage people to shift travel from those modes of transportation to transit.

The difference seems to be the Covid funds. Those go up in 24/25 and are probably use it or lose it. So the Turnpike temporarily keeps some money it would otherwise transfer over.

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Interesting theory, but then you would expect their share to go back up in 2026 when the Covid funds are gone. Instead, the funding levels remain at the same reduced levels as the prior two years.

It's pretty obvious to me they're trying to frame things in a way to get more Federal funding.

Network Rail trials mid-week engineering work to reflect post-pandemic travel demand

Weekend rail passenger traffic is 121% of pre-pandemic traffic, while weekday traffic has remained below pre-pandemic levels in England. Don't know how the rail traffic breaks down in the NEC, but found that interesting.