TriMet and the Trust Gap, Part 2


Tuesday morning’s article, Under New Management: TriMet and the Trust Gap, sparked a lot of discussion–so much so that a followup article is in order. While it would be foolish to pretend that portlandtransport.com’s readers are representative sample of the wider community–the contributors here are self-selected for an interest in transit, whether pro or con–quite a few topics came to the fore.

Tuesday morning’s article, Under New Management: TriMet and the Trust Gap, sparked a lot of discussion–so much so that a followup article is in order. While it would be foolish to pretend that portlandtransport.com’s readers are representative sample of the wider community–the contributors here are self-selected for an interest in transit, whether pro or con–quite a few topics came to the fore.

Transparency, and how the “trust gap” is a two-way street.

One of the most important observation in the discussion, I think came from Michael at PortlandAfoot.com, who stated the following:

TriMet’s ballot issue strikes me an example of an institutional mistrust of the public.

Now, the agency’s policies could certainly be worse, and I know some are trying to make them better.

But after several months of covering TriMet, I’ve found it unpleasantly reminds me of the public housing agencies I’ve covered: A group of well-meaning public servants who are certain that voters, in their hearts, do not approve of their work.

Public servants who therefore conclude that voters must often be kept in the dark, for their own good.

This attitude does not tend to win voters’ trust.

While my direct dealing with TriMet are far more limited than Michael’s, what I have observed tends to corroborate his experiences. There has been much criticism of TriMet’s public participation initiatives from many quarters–a common complaint is that public input is ignored. Michael’s own website documents complaints of this nature–such as the practice of only allowing testimony at board meetins after other business (including voting) is complete. While it would be unusual for public testimony to reverse the outcome of a vote (if TriMet’s done their diligence, then none of the testimony should be surprising); I could see cases where it might delay one while new information is considered. Holding the vote before the testimony Looks Bad.

The agency is a leader in open-sourcing its operations data, enabling applications like TransitTracker and the transit appliance that Chris and others have been working on. Many other agencies regard even this sort of information as top-secret. But it would be nice if TriMet were more transparent about its planning work-product as well (this goes for Metro and JPACT as well) and its performance data–there’s a whole bunch of data which is in the category of if-you-ask-nicely-we-may-give-it-to-you, but which is not available online.

One likely reason for not making this available is a fear that transit opponents would take advantage of this data and use it to throw sand in the gears. Certainly, that is a possibility. But this is a transit-friendly town; and there are a whole lot of activists out there who stand ready to refudiate any such FUD, if only we had the data.

As the cliche goes, sunlight is the best disinfectant.

And, if that argument doesn’t win the day, it is perhaps useful to remind TriMet’s management and board (and every other public servant at all levels of government) of one important fact: You work for us (meaning the entire community). It’s far more important for us to trust you than the opposite.

Governance, and the NCLB theory of public administration

Most of you have probably heard of the No Children Left Behind Act, or NCLB. Those of you who (like me) have school-aged children almost certainly have. NCLB has been highly controversial in the education community, and while discussion of it is off-topic here, there’s one bit that is relevant to the present discussions of TriMet: NCLB’s enforcement mechanism. Schools which fail to meet the prescribed standards risk losing federal funding. Likewise, many opponents of 26-119 have asserted that TriMet management needs to be “taught a lesson”, and that withdrawal of funding is the best way about instituting reform.

In the private sector, where you typically have competing companies providing the same product or service in the marketplace, and a liquid equity market, this works, sometimes. Poorly-performing companies go out of business, or have their management sacked and replaced–assuming that there is in fact effective competition. Success and failure are easily measured–in dollars–and the actual product or service is (in modern Western capitalism) typically a means to the end of making money for investors. (No matter how much a business’s advertising may assert otherwise; the boss almost always gets the first slice from the pie).

What about public agencies? It is highly questionable as to whether this form of correction works in the public sector, where the goods and services provided are far less fungible, and are often unprofitable. Transit agencies (and public schools) don’t exist to make money for taxpayers (on the contrary, they require a tax subsidy), they exist to provide a specific service–public transportation, in the case of TriMet. Ignoring various types of privatization (which is a topic all on its own), there isn’t any way to switch to a different transit agency if one thinks TriMet is under performing in some fashion. Nor is the withdrawal of funds (either by defeat of a tax levy, or by loss of riders) likely to “punish” Neil McFarlane or the board–they’ll just cut back service or delay new bus purchases in response. Public sector administrators, by design, have a far smaller personal stake in their agencies than do private executives; thus it’s not clear that attempts to “teach them a lesson” result in the desired lesson being learned. (Often, the lesson learned instead is that the public is fickle and untrustworthy, leading to the problems discussed in the prior section).

In many cases, though, the public has an alternative for dealing with recalcitrant public officials–voting them (or their bosses) out of office. TriMet, whose board is presently appointed by the Governor, is a bit more isolated from the public, but the governance of TriMet is an issue. Metro has the right under TriMet’s charter to “take” the agency from Mahonia Hall–a right it so far has not exercised; though the latter agency was thoroughly annoyed by the opaque process by which McFarlane was hired. Isolating the agency from politics was probably a wise idea in the 1970s, when it was a bus company and little else; but given its elevated role in planning, a good argument can be made that it should be more directly answerable to metro-area voters.

And one other wrinkle to consider: What might happen if a certain former basketball player were to win the governor’s race on November 2? While Chris Dudley hasn’t commented much on public transit (unlike his primary opponent), his party has long been less friendly to transit than that of John Kitzhaber.

Missions, and what ought to be accomplished?

One of the other take-aways from the debate is that there’s a fundamental disagreement among many of us (and probably in the wider community) as to what TriMet’s mission ought to be; a fact which colors our respective views of the agency. Some may think that the current goals of TriMet are correct (even as they debate the merits of the execution); others believe that the agency’s overall mission is wrong, and it needs to be focusing on something else. Some would prefer to see the agency’s role (and budget) greatly expanded, including the substantial reallocation of resources currently dedicated to road construction. And there are more than a few who oppose public transit altogether and would prefer to simply shut TriMet down.

Yesterday’s Oregonian contained a most curious editorial–curious, considering the fact that the same editorial board expressed opposition to 26-119 (and had some unkind things to say about TriMet management) only a week before. The editorial, timed to coincide with the RailVolution conference recently concluded, praised TriMet’s expansion of the MAX system, and explicitly endorsed the Milwaukie line. (The article took a bit more conciliatory line to management in general, laying blame for the agency’s woes on the transit union). I was a bit surprised, and I suspect the juxtaposition of the two editorials may be astonishing to a few others.

But it might be explained by the paper’s view on what TriMet ought to be trying to accomplish. Just what the paper’s overall view on this subject is, I’m not sure–some of the “obvious” explanations aren’t terribly charitable to the O. But it’s clear that the editorial staff has a different vision of what TriMet ought to be accomplishing than, say, OPAL or Cascade Policy Institute, or AORTA. And the same is true for many of the readers here.

Discussion

I don’t expect calls for greater transparency to be controversial, though if anyone disagrees, feel free to say so. But the other two broad topics should stimulate some interesting debate.

What should Tri-Met’s governance structure look like? As-is? Organized under Metro? A board who is elected by the public? And what should it’s role be in the planning process, compared to other agencies (ODOT, Metro, and the various cities and counties)?

What should the over-arching mission of TriMet be? The primary means of personal transportation within the metro area? What it is now? More focus on the poor? A minimal “system of last resort”?

And a third question, to tie it altogether: How can the public ensure that the agency is striving to meet the goals that the community asks of it?


33 responses to “TriMet and the Trust Gap, Part 2”

  1. I find many situations where there’s a lack of full communication, and it leading to unhappy people, and that extends well beyond TriMet. And seeing transit questions on Twitter that I can answer is why I signed up for an account there.

    But one possibly is to have “town hall”-type meetings where TriMet staff attend and can answer questions. Like what happened at the Line 15 open house, but in general and maybe a little more controlled.

    As for governance, they looked at Metro taking over TriMet in the late 80’s and found there were hurdles regarding bonds, pensions, payroll tax and other things. But one possibility would be for the Metro council just serve as the Board of Directors and keep the agencies separate. Note that don’t bring this up because I think the present board is bad. Instead I see it as a housekeeping measure: there’s already a (elected) board that deals with transportation and has roughly the same boundaries, so why not?

    And to pick at two things:

    Holding the vote before the testimony Looks Bad

    They don’t do this. That only happened at Rick van Beveren’s first meeting he chaired.

    a whole bunch of data which is in the category of if-you-ask-nicely-we-may-give-it-to-you

    I’ve been kind of wanting to do this, and Michael has done some good work on it (I would not have thought about the fare sales figures). Not that I think some official “document dump” wouldn’t be better.

  2. EngineerScotty: What should Tri-Met’s governance structure look like? As-is?
    JK: How about an elected board whose ONLY job is transportation excellence. Not land use planning. Not land speculating. Not promoting lifestyles. Not building high cost systems just because some one else is paying most of the cost (light rail).

    EngineerScotty: Organized under Metro?
    JK: No, Metro is every bit a incompetent as Trimet. Metro has doubled the cost of housing in the region with their artificial land shortage. Metro has given us increased traffic congestion by their reluctance to expand road capacity is sync with the population growth. Metro tends to play down their part in roads by hyping their parks functions – that kind of bait and switch shows intent to hide their actions.

    The second problem with Metro’s organization is a problem that we also have with the city – we don’t directly vote for one person to be responsible for one service, so politicians can get elected by being politically correct on various causes and popular delusions while being completely incompetent at managing anything. We need to have a clearly defined vote on a person(s) who has responsibility for a single job. We need to, as much as possible, set the job so that, at election time, they can only talk about the one job they are being elected for. Funding should also be subject to a vote.

    EngineerScotty: A board who is elected by the public?
    JK: Yes, whose ONLY job is running Trimet. Then we can find out if we want Trimet in the land use planning business and trying to lure yuppies out of their BMWs, while leaving low income people with less service. See above rant.

    EngineerScotty: And what should it’s role be in the planning process, compared to other agencies (ODOT, Metro, and the various cities and counties)?
    JK: The only planning that a transit agency should do is to identify transportation needs of its customers and plan how best to serve that need. It is not their place to recommend narrow streets or high density housing or to contribute money to condo/apartment bunkers.

    EngineerScotty: What should the over-arching mission of TriMet be?
    JK: Providing transportation to those who cannot afford better alternatives.

    EngineerScotty: The primary means of personal transportation within the metro area?
    JK: Absolutely not.
    * Too expensive (close to $1 per passenger-mile compared to a car at around $0.25 – http://www.portlandfacts.com/top10bus.html). Do the math – what would Trimet’s budget be if their ridership increased by 20-40 times? That 0.6818% tax would have to become close to 12-30% of all region payrolls. (I base this on the costs per passenger-mile remaining about the same, which appears to be the case when you look at the big city transit agencies)
    * Too slow – about twice the commute time of a car. ( http://www.portlandfacts.com/commutetime.html)

    EngineerScotty: What it is now?
    JK: A bloated, top heavy agency that has lost sight of its core transportation mission and has gotten into urban design, social engineering and land speculation. Its non-driver staff ratio has dramatically increased over the years. (They probably need to get rid of ½ or more of their non-driver staff, certainly most of the planners.)

    EngineerScotty: More focus on the poor?
    JK: That and exporting parking spaces from downtown appear to be the only value of Triment. (Oh, for sure they provide low cost, subsidized by the rest of us, transportation to thousands of people who can afford their own transportation – the choice riders)

    EngineerScotty: A minimal “system of last resort”?
    JK: Yes, but it would probably serve the needy better if we just issued transportation vouchers to the needy and let them choose between Trimet, de-regulated taxis, jitneys and whatever else springs up in a truly free market. (By free, I mean the only regulations are for safety and honesty. Perhaps a regulation or two to ensure an orderly operation.)

    EngineerScotty: And a third question, to tie it altogether: How can the public ensure that the agency is striving to meet the goals that the community asks of it?
    JK: When it does well against competition in an open transit market.

    Thanks
    JK

  3. I believe that TriMet would benefit from more local accountability, but should probably remain an independent agency. A simple tweak to move in this direction would be to have the Metro Council, rather than the Governor and State Senate, appoint TriMet’s board.

  4. bloated, top heavy agency that has lost sight of its core transportation mission and has gotten into urban design, social engineering and land speculation

    In case you missed it, the position of this blog is that transportation and land-use are fundamentally linked concepts. So as the rules say, dissent is welcome, but lets not get sidetracked by that off-theme remark.

    (You’re entitled to that philosophical viewpoint, of course. It’s just outside the context of what we’re primarily here to discuss.)

    Or this:

    When it does well against competition in an open transit market.

    That’s a very good example of a philosophical difference.

    TriMet is charged with providing a set of public goods (the correct mix of sets, as Scotty mentioned, varies widely given the opinion of who is critiquing/praising the agency).

    But assuming for a moment (as does the official standpoint of this web site) that some kind of widespread _public_ transit is a desirable part of our metro area’s day-to-day life, it makes little sense to force a public agency to compete with the private sector. Either the private sector can meet all the goals (including social service) and therefore we don’t need a public agency (I’m pretty sure JK comes from that perspective), or it can’t and a public agency shouldn’t have its revenue and coverage area eroded by private companies that will skim the profitable routes and leave only the most expensive to TriMet.

    It’s like saying we can have public parks but only if they compete well against private parks, or we can have public fire and police departments but only if they compete well against private police and fire departments, etc.

    We do say this about public schools (speaking of No Child Left Behind), but we also see private schools trying to skim the best students away from public schools (vouchers) without having to operate under the same social service constraints as the public schools, leaving the public schools with students who have more needs and are more expensive per student to educate.

    I’d love to see a good example of a “level playing field” approach where transit covers a large service area, fulfills a social service need (not just market-based transit for those who can afford it in popular corridors), and the public and private sectors compete in a way which improves outcomes.

  5. I’d love to see a good example of a “level playing field” approach where transit covers a large service area, fulfills a social service need (not just market-based transit for those who can afford it in popular corridors), and the public and private sectors compete in a way which improves outcomes.

    Hong Kong actually has a good approach for this. Five (IIRC) major private bus companies operate its bus routes under a franchise system–each route is allocated to a given operator, who pays a fee for the franchise and is allowed to keep fares collected. (I’m not sure how inter-operator transfers are handled). However, companies are not permitted to skim off only the best routes; participating operators also have to take on and operate the less-profitable routes. The HK government regulates fares and imposes a uniform fare structure, and also specifies what the routes are and the schedule. (I’m grossly oversimplying the bus system there; a good introduction can be found here).

    Would such a scheme work in Portland? Probably not–few if any of TriMet’s routes are profitable; and the system overall requires subsidy. Hong Kong is incredibly dense and is an expensive place to own an automobile; Portland is not. And I must disagree with libertarians who insist that we should privatize some function, when there aren’t any private operators ready and willing to step up to the plate–especially true when the function isn’t profitable to begin with.

    In defense of JK, I consider most of his comments on-topic for this thread (not that I agree with him).

  6. Thanks a lot for the hoist, Scotty, and the nice words, Jason.

    On the public testimony issue, maybe they’ve changed their practice, but I spoke with Bekki Witt after it happened and she said voting-before-testimony was always the standard practice. If they’ve changed since, awesome.

    I look forward to the day when governments attempt to displace journalists (not to mention public-records lawyers) by simply posting every public document directly to the web. I think this would save everyone a lot of time and improve government performance in many situations.

  7. Either the private sector can meet all the goals (including social service) and therefore we don’t need a public agency (I’m pretty sure JK comes from that perspective), or it can’t and a public agency shouldn’t have its revenue and coverage area eroded by private companies that will skim the profitable routes and leave only the most expensive to TriMet.
    That is why I included subsidies for the needy. We could also expand the subsidies to hard to serve locations. BUT, there is no point in giving taxpayer subsidized cheap transit to the NON-needy, which make sup most of the riders according to Trimet.

    Once you get over that objection, what is the problem with finding the most efficient vendor, be it Trimet or private?

    If we are going to intimately link transit and land use, then we have to count transit expenses as a cost of density when we discuss costs.

    Thanks
    JK

  8. That is why I included subsidies for the needy. We could also expand the subsidies to hard to serve locations. BUT, there is no point in giving taxpayer subsidized cheap transit to the NON-needy, which make sup most of the riders according to Trimet.

    Replace “transit” with “highways”, and I’ll drink heartily to that!

  9. EngineerScotty Says: (quoting JK)That is why I included subsidies for the needy. We could also expand the subsidies to hard to serve locations. BUT, there is no point in giving taxpayer subsidized cheap transit to the NON-needy, which make sup most of the riders according to Trimet.

    Replace “transit” with “highways”, and I’ll drink heartily to that!
    JK: But highway subsidies are tiny compared to transit – about 1.1 cent/passenger-mile compared to 60 cents (based on a Pew data file). See: http://ti.org/antiplanner/?p=2199
    More takes on subsidies are at: http://www.portlandfacts.com/autos.html

    Thanks
    JK

  10. JK,

    The 1.1c/mile number, which is based on a UC Davis study, is highly suspect, as it ignores a whole host of externalities. A different take on it is this study by the Victoria Transport Institute estimates that automobiles also impose externalized costs of about 60 cents per mile when used for peak-hour urban transit (less for off-peak and rural usage). “External costs” here includes both subsidies provided by the government to users (and paid for by taxpayers), as well as things like pollution which are not captured financially.

    A more important conclusion from the report, which isn’t in the executive summary but which is discussed in the body, is the marginal external cost–which for busses is negative (each additional fare-paying rider reduces the net subsidy while adding negligible additional cost); but for autos is positive (and gets larger and larger the more cars are on the road).

  11. Re: Victoria Transport Policy Institute

    As I mentioned most recently on August 4th, JK said this, a few years ago, about the Victoria Transport Policy Institute:

    Victoria Transport Policy Institute is a highly distorted source of mis-information. I am surprised you present it with a straight face.

    At the time, JK’s claim sent me on a Google Search of the top 100 hits on Victoria Transport Policy Institute and I could not find evidence of the outfit being regarded as “highly distorted”, except for a single post by one of JK’s regular sources, Wendell Cox. Wendell went so far as to invoke Copernicus’s persecution at the hands of the Church.

    So one could be forgiven for posting from a VTPI study with a “straight face”.

    JK never went on to provide specific information as to why the study was wrong (in his view), even though a link was provided, from the very beginning, to the complete study.

    In any case, I chalk that one up merely as another “hung up on the messenger” incident (that time from JK’s side) and hope that rather than get mired in study-vs-study we can actually talk about improving TriMet.

  12. Relax, Bob; I’ve heard that song and dance before. Over on a thread at humantransit, my citing of the same study from VPTI caused a transit critic posting there to whine and wail about such things as peer review, referring to the VTPI as “someone with a fax machine in his basement” (or similar).

    I’ll repeat my response to that line of attack here: The principal at VTPI, one Todd Litman, is a well-respected researcher in the field, one who regularly does produce peer-reviewed scholarship. Litman’s CV can be found here. And the same VTPI study is widely cited in peer-reviewed transit literature, as google scholar reveals in this query.

    As the cited work is a white paper summarizing existing research, rather than a report of new findings, formal peer review is not appropriate. (And given that most transit journals still publish behind paywalls; the formal review process would inhibit access to the paper as well).

    The opponent in that debate never provided any substantial criticism of Litman’s work or methodology, only ad hominem attacks against his academic standing which don’t withstand even a few minutes of scrutiny.

    Maybe JK will do better.

  13. EngineerScotty Says: The 1.1c/mile number, which is based on a UC Davis study, is highly suspect, as it ignores a whole host of externalities.
    JK: Do those ignored externalities also apply to transit?

    EngineerScotty Says: A different take on it is this study by the Victoria Transport Institute estimates that automobiles also impose externalized costs of about 60 cents per mile when used for peak-hour urban transit (less for off-peak and rural usage).
    JK: Apples and Oranges.

    Lets look at apples and apples:
    That page you pointed to has a spreadsheet which I looked at. It shows “Table 4, Average Travel” in “2007 U.S. Dollars Per Vehicle Mile”. If you take the bottom line cost and divide by the occupancy you get little difference in cost between car and “diesel bus”.

    But wait, he appears to have conflated vehicle miles and passenger-miles as you can see from the labels in column A.

    Why don’t you clarify this for us.

    EngineerScotty Says: A more important conclusion from the report, which isn’t in the executive summary but which is discussed in the body, is the marginal external cost–which for busses is negative (each additional fare-paying rider reduces the net subsidy while adding negligible additional cost); but for autos is positive (and gets larger and larger the more cars are on the road).
    JK: Why don’t you look for sources more credible like these:
    U.S. Department of Transportation, : Federal Subsidies to Passenger Transportation :
    * On average, highway users paid $1.91 per thousand passenger-miles to the federal government over their highway allocated cost during 1990-2002.
    * On average, passenger rail received the largest subsidy per thousand passengermiles, averaging $186.35 (in year 2000 chained dollars) per thousand passengermiles during 1990-2002.
    * On a per thousand passenger-miles basis, transit received the second highest net federal subsidy, second to passenger rail, averaging $118.26 in year 2000 chained dollars

    Mark Delucchi, ACCESS NUMBER 16 • SPRING 2000, page 12:
    He figures auto subsidy at 6.9 cents per passenger-mile and transit bus at 40 cents.

    The Pew Charitable Trusts, subsidyscope.org
    However, even if those funds were fully devoted to highways, total user fee revenue accounted for only 65 percent of all funds set aside for highways in 2007, according to Subsidyscope calculations
    Compare this to the 80% subsidy to transit.

    Then correct for their left out/mis allocated items and you get 1.1cents/passenger-mile for autos and 60 cents for transit. (the number I posted above.)

    (One laughable element of this argument is to label road costs as paid by non-users. Can someone explain to me who doesn’t use roads? As opposed to most people being non-users of transit.)

    Thanks
    JK

  14. Bob R. Says: At the time, JK’s claim sent me on a Google Search of the top 100 hits on Victoria Transport Policy Institute and I could not find evidence of the outfit being regarded as “highly distorted”, except for a single post by one of JK’s regular sources, Wendell Cox. Wendell went so far as to invoke Copernicus’s persecution at the hands of the Church.
    JK: Wendell Cox of course being a former Amtrak board member and the one who created the financing for the first Los Angeles light rail line.

    Bob R. Says: So one could be forgiven for posting from a VTPI study with a “straight face”.
    JK: I missed your logic here.

    Bob R. Says: JK never went on to provide specific information as to why the study was wrong (in his view), even though a link was provided, from the very beginning, to the complete study.
    JK: So I should spend hours debunking every crackpot that the transit/smart growth industry produces.

    Bob R. Says: In any case, I chalk that one up merely as another “hung up on the messenger” incident (that time from JK’s side) and hope that rather than get mired in study-vs-study we can actually talk about improving TriMet.
    JK: No, Bob. I actually looked at some of his stuff a few years ago and found it to be badly flawed. Since then I have heard a credible source say the guy (it apparently IS a one man operation, perhaps with a fax machine) comes up with good data, but his conclusions are second rate (to say the least).

    This is reinforced by his apparent adding up costs per vehicle-mile and per-passenger mile as mentioned above.

    BTW, I just come into the possession of a nice, extensive analysis of current transportation policies by a well respected transit system auditor, CPA etc. I’ll let you guys study it as soon as I finish some formatting details.

    Thanks
    JK

  15. Shorter JK: No refutation of the specfic VTPI study and an attack on the messenger as “a guy with a fax machine” as though that has an impact on the data. (Perhaps that means JK won’t quote Mel Zucker’s “Oregon Transportation Institute” anymore, which doesn’t even have its own web site.) It’s been almost three years since JK first strangely declared “I am surprised you present it with a straight face” even though he hasn’t refuted the study.

    As I said earlier, I didn’t want this thread to degenerate into study-vs-study, which it once again has.

    JK: This is a pro-transit, pro land-use-planning blog. It is laudable that Scotty is willing to entertain your repeated attempts to turn this thread (like so many others) into your usual pro-privatization message, but further trips down that (very well traveled) road are simply a distraction from the primary mission here, so I’m declaring this little diversion concluded.

    Back to discussing genuine pro-public-transit/land-use improvements to TriMet.

  16. [Moderator: Comment initially removed but now restored so people can see what was said, as Chris replied to it (below). That’s it for this attack-the-messenger diversion. – Bob R.]

    EngineerScotty: Litman’s CV can be found here.
    JK: Now I see what the problem is. He was educated in environmental studies and urban planning – two fields that tend to be based on superstition rather than scientific methods.

    Thanks
    JK

  17. governments attempt to displace journalists

    But wouldn’t there still be a desire to have the information analyzed/filtered and put into story form for non-geeks?

    Also, the fax machine comment did make me think of Mel Zucker.

    label road costs as paid by non-users

    The thing is that when costs are not based on actual usage, the amount of use gets distorted.

  18. Jim, you’re crossing the line on getting personal to undermine Litman’s perspective. You’re welcome to disagree with him or indicate that you don’t consider him a useful source. Under our rules you may not attack him personally.

  19. I said: The 1.1c/mile number, which is based on a UC Davis study, is highly suspect, as it ignores a whole host of externalities.
    JK: Do those ignored externalities also apply to transit?

    Some do, some don’t. Transit had a similar amount of externality (this is in the paper), but most of transit’s externalities are financial in nature. Transit pollutes far less, and does not contribute noticeably to congestion, etc. And as noted previously, the marginal externality for transit is negative, as one additional passenger on the bus doesn’t increase pollution or traffic, and reduces (by a small amount) the need for public subsidy.

    Me: A different take on it is this study by the Victoria Transport Institute estimates that automobiles also impose externalized costs of about 60 cents per mile when used for peak-hour urban transit (less for off-peak and rural usage).

    JK: Apples and Oranges. Lets look at apples and apples: That page you pointed to has a spreadsheet which I looked at. It shows “Table 4, Average Travel” in “2007 U.S. Dollars Per Vehicle Mile”. If you take the bottom line cost and divide by the occupancy you get little difference in cost between car and “diesel bus”. But wait, he appears to have conflated vehicle miles and passenger-miles as you can see from the labels in column A. Why don’t you clarify this for us.

    Be glad to. I was using a different chart for autos, one which clearly says “passenger-miles”; but I think you’ll find that for peak urban travel (i.e. the daily commute), the ratio between the two is nearly one-to-one.

    EngineerScotty Says: A more important conclusion from the report, which isn’t in the executive summary but which is discussed in the body, is the marginal external cost–which for busses is negative (each additional fare-paying rider reduces the net subsidy while adding negligible additional cost); but for autos is positive (and gets larger and larger the more cars are on the road).

    JK: Why don’t you look for sources more credible like these:

    [snip; see JK’s post above for references]

    Again, that excludes externalized costs not captured as taxes, which are much higher for automobiles. Nobody disputes that transit is subsidized. The point is that claims that autos “pay their own way” tend to exclude a whole lot of stuff that isn’t easily spotted on some agency’s books.

    (JK: One laughable element of this argument is to label road costs as paid by non-users. Can someone explain to me who doesn’t use roads? As opposed to most people being non-users of transit.)

    Quite a few people don’t use roads, JK–at any rate, the whole “almost everyone uses roads, so no road costs can be considered externalized” line is hogwash. Roadway congestion, in addition to inconveniencing commuters, has all sorts of other effects on non-motorists, such as raising the price for shipping (and thus the prices paid for goods and services). When a delivery truck is stuck in traffic, the driver’s still getting paid. I might point out that a similar argument can be applied to numerous other public services, so this line of argument is a rather dangerous neighborhood for libertarians to go wandering through at night. :)

    >Thanks
    >JK

    You’re welcome.

  20. “I don’t expect calls for greater transparency to be controversial, though if anyone disagrees, feel free to say so.”
    The recent audit was a good dose of transparency but what good did it do.
    McFarlane and company essentially ignore it and even distort it as Neil did with his comment about “apples & oranges added together to come up with an unreasonable number”.
    I don’t think it matters what sort of transparency there is when distortion and manipulation quickly dismisses or neutralizes any red flags or fatal flaws.
    Milwaukie Light Rail is the ultimate example.
    Never has there been a more costly misappropriation so misrepresented.
    The perpetual pretense of due diligence where none really exists is a demonstration of wholesale irresponsibility.
    Allowing labor contract agreements to pile up a $1 billion unfunded liability because a loop hole requiring no set aside was available is mismanagement on a grand scale.
    Raiding their own operating budget and many other vital services to advance a capital project riddled with fatal flaws is gross negligence and irresponsibility.
    There’s more than enough transparency to know this project must be halted.
    Yet there is simply too much lipstick available for this pig.
    Chris and others who earlier were adamantly opposed to TriMet’s bonding against future operation revenue are seemingly now not so concerned? How is that? TriMet’s fiscal condition is now know to be much worse than when they spoke up?
    And at the it was crickets about the funding components which will do the same exact thing.
    Bond against future revenue that cannot be identified as being available.
    Quite the opposite.
    Any honest analysis show that essentially every level of government services being raided for MLR will need additional revenue to maintain their current services without the added burden of more MLR debt to service. This is especially true with TriMet itself. Nothing but the most reckless abandon can view their own borrowing for MLR as prudent.

    Our lengthy earlier discussions of this produced claims of TriMet fiscal soundness and business normalcy for their borrowing.

    So what good is transparency or public input? JPACT, TriMet, Metro and MLR is entirely disconnected from any considerations that would influence any change in direction at all.
    Even TriMet’s own demise is not influential.
    There’s some not so nice special wording one could use for those who run this sort of cabal.

  21. Allowing labor contract agreements to pile up a $1 billion unfunded liability because a loop hole requiring no set aside was available is mismanagement on a grand scale.

    I’m sick and tired of hearing that providing decent jobs and benefits for UNITED STATES CITIZENS PROVIDING SERVICES TO UNITED STATES RESIDENTS AND VISITORS is something that is supposed to be so gosh darn evil and sinful! I AM SICK OF IT SICK OF IT SICK OF IT….I’M GONNA VOMIT!

    Just ignore the war where the real evil tax money is going, because that is on the same level as NAZISM killing innocent people and making billions for war profiteers!

    Its ok to use our tax dollars for that but not for my benefits huh?

    HELL NO!

  22. Dear Al,

    War or no war it was and is entirely possible, with responsible and realistic management, to fund and provide you with very good benefits.

    You keep trotting out the cost of wars as if TriMet management is hobbled by military spending. Huh?

    Or that there’s a movement to take all of your benfits away because of the wars.

    TriMet benefits, now 156% of wages, and unfunded is out of control.

    If your benefits were 100% of beneifts they would still be great benefits funded with tax dollars.

    But you’re screaming in oppostion to any reduction to the current unfunded calamity.

    Frankly I am perplexed at why you can’t seem to even imagine why people would view your benefits as exessive? Screaming at them like they are out of line doesn’t help either.

    TriMet made agreements they could not keep and never put anything aside to even try.

    I don’t know what your war pitch is supposed to
    mean. Are you demanding the Pentagon write TriMet a $1 billion check so you can have 156% in beneifts? Anthing less is the same as having NO benefits?

    New York has a $200 billion in unfunded public employee benefit liability.

    Nationwide it’s a $3.6 Trillion in unfunded public employee benefit liability.

    There’s a huge problem. And it isn’t not the only huge problem. So it’s not a matter of stopping war spending and transferring the borrowed $3.6 Trillion to public employee benefits as you seem to be suggesting.

  23. Bob R.: Back to discussing genuine pro-public-transit/land-use improvements to TriMet.
    JK: OK, lets consider if Trimet is sustainable. Looking at Trimet’s payroll, I find:

    100 “Operator”(s) making between $70,000 and $101,000
    100 “Operator”(s) making between $65,000 and $70,000
    100 “Operator”(s) making between $63,000 and $65,000
    100 “Operator”(s) making between $61,000 and $63,000
    100 “Operator”(s) making between $59,000 and $61,000
    100 “Operator”(s) making between $56,000 and $59,000
    100 “Operator”(s) making between $53,000 and $56,000
    100 “Operator”(s) making between $49,000 and $53,000
    100 “Operator”(s) making between $40,000 and $49,000
    100 “Operator”(s) making between $20,000 and $40,000

    100 “Rail Operator”(s) making between $57,000 and $94,000

    10 “Streetcar Operator”(s) making between $58,000 and $99,000

    Now add ANOTHER 150% (average) in benefits to the above numbers for their full pay (for each dollar add $1.50 for a total of $2.50)

    Question: is an annual outlay of up to $250,000 for a bus operator sustainable?

    Is having 54 people making more that $100,000 (+150% benefits) sustainable?

    Source: Trimet 2008 payroll as received via public records request.

    Thanks
    JK

  24. Al, you’re a TriMet bus driver, right?

    Don’t you think it might be a little “icky” that you’re joining these conversations with such unreserved objections, when it’s kind of clear there’s a conflict of interest? I know I couldn’t argue in good faith about my salary — I’d always be against getting less even if it was a neccessary and wise move for my organization and their customers.

  25. Just because Al drives a bus doesn’t mean he isn’t welcome to discuss the appropriate pay, benefits, and working conditions for bus drivers. Obviously his point of view may on this subject may differ from that of others–but that’s perfectly OK.

  26. JK Writes: 100 “Operator”(s) making between $70,000 and $101,000
    100 “Operator”(s) making between $65,000 and $70,000
    100 “Operator”(s) making between $63,000 and $65,000
    100 “Operator”(s) making between $61,000 and $63,000
    100 “Operator”(s) making between $59,000 and $61,000
    100 “Operator”(s) making between $56,000 and $59,000
    100 “Operator”(s) making between $53,000 and $56,000
    100 “Operator”(s) making between $49,000 and $53,000
    100 “Operator”(s) making between $40,000 and $49,000
    100 “Operator”(s) making between $20,000 and $40,000

    100 “Rail Operator”(s) making between $57,000 and $94,000

    10 “Streetcar Operator”(s) making between $58,000 and $99,000

    Hmm. Those numbers are suspect. Even for the 2008 payroll, and I don’t care if it did come as a result of a “public records request”.

    At the start of the 2008 Operator wage cycle, hourly wages ranged from 12.80 (for a brand new bus operator, who usually works part time) to 23.26 (for a bus operator at the “top” of the scale). This yields $26,624 to $48,381 for base salary. There can be a lot of overtime, and it is not uncommon to hear about “Board” operators who double their base salary working overtime. These operators are relatively few and far between though.

    For Rail (and Streetcar is included here, because Streetcar operators earn the same rate as Light Rail Operators), the rates were $18.04 (which practically speaking, no light rail operator earns because they are all at “top” scale when they become Rail Operators) to $24.08, or annualized base $37,524 to $50,087. The same can be said for overtime at Rail as at bus, but there are a much lower number of operators who fall into that category.

    [For what it’s worth, the numbers are currently $13.83/$28,767 to $25.13/$52,271 and $19.50/$40,560 to $26.02/$54,122.]

    Also, remember that even though in the aggregate that TriMet’s liability for benefits outside of wages is 158%, it is not 158% for each employee. This is yet another problem with TriMet’s current union benefit package, and one that should have never been agreed to. Sure, go ahead and cover *the employee* at 100%, but add dependents and the employee should pay some percentage of that additional coverage (because the health of a spouse or dependent child of a bus operator is not usually as tricky as that of an operator him/herself).

    As to some of the other issues by the OP, you couldn’t be closer to the truth. TriMet spins so much of it’s business to the media that it literally makes someone with inside knowledge of the system sick. Oh, we can’t tell the public *what is really happening* because then we couldn’t collect all that political capital… Mary Fetsch needs to be removed from her post at TriMet. She puts words in the Agency’s mouth that the Agency (and it’s various components) then have to run around playing cleanup with because she gets it so wrong so often.

    It all boils down to the fact that the TriMet board need to be elected officials for a fixed term, not political appointees that serve at the pleasure of the governor. The Board of Directors also needs to exercise it’s authority to say NO a little more often.

    PMLR needs to go down. There is no benefit to the area at this time (and the claims of the increases in local jobs that will occur will be transitory in nature, just like every other LR project that Portland has built), and sit on the planning and revisit it once some of the political nastiness has evaporated a little bit more into the collective memory. The biggest waste in PMLR isn’t the construction of the LR line itself, but some of the other “waste” that TriMet insists is required by the terms of the FFGA (assuming it ever gets signed).

  27. “and $19.50/$40,560 to $26.02/$54,122.]

    Also, remember that even though in the aggregate that TriMet’s liability for benefits outside of wages is 158%, it is not 158% for each employee.”
    JK: IF we assume that 158% applies to those $54,122 people, we get a total cost of $139,634 (2.58 x $54,122)

    I wonder how that compares with teachers?

    Thanks
    JK

  28. IF we assume that 158% applies to those $54,122 people

    Why do we have to assume? Didn’t you just say you were in possession of TriMet’s payroll, via a Freedom of Information Act request?

    So, are “Ann M. Mouse”‘s comments about actual wages an benefits germane, or not?

    You should post this data online somewhere (suitably anonymized if applicable) and save people the effort of filing duplicate FOIA requests.

  29. I would agree with Chris in this instance. The TriMet board should be appointed by the Metro council, but I don’t foresee the Governor’s office giving up this power. If Metro could select a pool of qualified candidates to suggest to the governor for selection, this might be a good middle of the road arrangement that might be more attainable than legislative action.

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