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Re: Why Posters Lie
Author: mook
Date: 01-19-2015 - 09:54
With rare exceptions like the SF Muni, practically *ALL* local transit (not just in the NEC) was privately operated until the 1960s. One reason why rail vanished, replaced by buses, was that the fares did not cover the cost of operation and other investments no longer threw off enough money to keep subsidizing the rail systems - which by the 1950s were over 50 years old and falling apart. There was no future and no profit (had been no profit since the 1920s in most cases) in private rail transit, so in a few cases it was spun off to the public and in the rest it went bus or vanished entirely. People by then (certainly by the 1950s) had cars and used them. Later on, in the late 1960s and 70s, new public programs came around just in time to accept the remains of the private bus systems, which had the same problems as the rail systems eventually. That's why practically all transit service now is publicly owned, even if operations are sometimes contracted out to private companies.
Your point about getting what we're willing to pay for is valid, and goes a long way toward explaining why modern public transit sucks so badly in many places. The 150K station agents are a sham, though - as documented above, there are only a few of them, as is the case with most other slams against public employee wages (picking the highest-paid, and implying that everybody gets that). Looking at those BART numbers, I doubt that the majority of the agents, who get less than $110K INCLUDING pension and other benefit allowances, can live well on that in the Bay Area. Certainly not without a second income in the family, or working a lot of overtime. Private Sector types should understand that too: how much does the boss or the Executive VP or the store manager get in salary and perks, vs. those on the floor? I could go on about the consultants I worked with, who normally billed (and were considered a bargain by my management and the politicians) more than double what I got (fully-allocated, not just salary) as a public employee for doing the same work, and sometimes re-doing theirs to correct errors. But that has nothing really to do with trains. So let's move on, and please find a political blog to rant about the other things.
Your point about getting what we're willing to pay for is valid, and goes a long way toward explaining why modern public transit sucks so badly in many places. The 150K station agents are a sham, though - as documented above, there are only a few of them, as is the case with most other slams against public employee wages (picking the highest-paid, and implying that everybody gets that). Looking at those BART numbers, I doubt that the majority of the agents, who get less than $110K INCLUDING pension and other benefit allowances, can live well on that in the Bay Area. Certainly not without a second income in the family, or working a lot of overtime. Private Sector types should understand that too: how much does the boss or the Executive VP or the store manager get in salary and perks, vs. those on the floor? I could go on about the consultants I worked with, who normally billed (and were considered a bargain by my management and the politicians) more than double what I got (fully-allocated, not just salary) as a public employee for doing the same work, and sometimes re-doing theirs to correct errors. But that has nothing really to do with trains. So let's move on, and please find a political blog to rant about the other things.
