Tim Cavanaugh at the Reason Foundation “hit & run” blog recently wrote a post asserting that since Metro decided to cut some bus service due to low ridership, the same should be done to Metro Rail. He suggested a cut of 48 percent to Metro Rail service.
Among his reasons: bus service is more flexible and can be added or subtracted where needed or not needed and rail is very expensive to build and operate. Excerpt:
While buses consume only 35 percent of MTA’s operating budget, they move 80 percent of its passengers. That’s a bargain compared to the Authority’s capital-hungry, debt-fueled trains, which continue to underperform the most modest expectations and have arguably depressed overall ridership on L.A.’s mass transit system.
In previous reporting I said L.A. buses carry three times as many riders as L.A. trains. According to current statistics, that’s closer to four times as many: 1,133,636 daily boardings for buses, against 298,932 for trains. These ratios are essentially unchanged [pdf] over the previous two years. You could eliminate nearly all the city’s rail service and have no more impact on customers than MTA will see with its current cuts.
Our response:
•Nearly 68 percent of Los Angeles County voters in 2008 voted for the Measure R sales tax increase to build a package of rail, bus and highway projects, freeze some fares and raise money for transportation projects for cities in the county. Either two million-plus voters had no idea what they were voting for — which we do not believe is true — or two million voters decided they wanted to have the same kind of bus and rail transit system found in many other metro areas across the globe.
•Buses actually consume about 78 percent of Metro’s operating budget, not 35 percent. For fiscal year 2011, the amounts were $922 million for operating buses and $257 million for rail, according to page 23 of the budget, which is available online at Metro’s website.
•The ratio of bus-to-rail riders has been essentially unchanged the past couple of years. But there is another way of looking at it: 79 miles of Metro Rail carry about 20 percent of the daily boardings on Metro while there are 2,543 miles of Metro bus routes carrying 80 percent of the riders. In that context, Metro Rail carries many more passengers per mile than do buses. That number will climb higher as more rail lines are added.
•We reject the argument that Metro Rail has depressed overall transit ridership. This is an oft-repeated assertion made by long-time critics of rail. The Metro Rail program, which began in 1990, has helped total L.A. County transit ridership (meaning all transit agencies) grow from 552 million annual boardings in 1985 to a high of 614 million in 2008. In fiscal year 2010, Metro Rail had an estimated 91.6 million boardings, an increase of almost five million from two years earlier. Note: transit ridership overall in the U.S. reached 10.7 billion in 2008, the highest mark in 52 years, but dropped to about 10.2 billion in 2010, according to industry figures. The Great Recession, unemployment and lower gas prices (until recently) are thought to be among the reasons for the drop.
In conclusion, our take is this: to move people around L.A. County, we need bus, rail and highways. Not just one of those. All three of those. This is a strategy used in large metro areas ranging from the Bay Area to New York to London to Shanghai. We’re no different.
The changes and cuts to bus service narrowly approved by the Metro Board of Directors last week were certainly significant. But they were proposed for a reason — to make the system more efficient and better use scarce resources. Making deeper cuts to a service that people use — Metro Rail — would be, at best, counterproductive.
Mr./Ms. Fukuzawa,
I did not say it could not be done, I said, as you quoted and supported with your comments, it would require a complete redesign of the bus system. The buses currently used for local routes by Metro and every other transit agency in the US (after all, they all buy them from the same set of companies making vehicles to APTA standards) provide for paying a single fare when you board and then getting off where-ever you wish.
The Tokyo model of distance based local buses would then be a departure from the local bus tansit system model used throughout the United States. Whether it was LA, San Diego, San Fransisco, Western Massachusetts or New York, when I have boarded a local bus I paid a flat fare, obtained a transfer if needed and rode the route until I was at my destination.
You speak of Tokyo having these systems “since before you can rememeber”. This points to a very real and important difference: public expectation and acceptance. While the US population may expect and accept distance based fares on rail systems, my opinion is that they would be less willing to accept this kind of system on a local bus where the accepted method is pay once, ride as far as you need, then exit. You are more accepting of this system because you grew up with it, this would not likely be the case with riders who have not.
Lastly, there is a very important difference that makes comparing these two areas (Tokyo & LA) problematic at best. While Japan and California have approximately the same land mass (about 155K sq miles), the city of Tokyo and its surrounding area has the same population as the entire state of California (approx. 35 million people) and Japans total population is more than three times that (125 million) (from infoplease.com). That kind of population density supports all sorts of mass transit and public transit alternatives that are just not feasible in less dense areas.
@Ralph
“You speak of Tokyo having these systems “since before you can rememeber”. This points to a very real and important difference: public expectation and acceptance.”
Your example of the Toei Bus in Tokyo is a good example where flat-fare and distance based co-exist together within the same Suica contactless pass. And yes, the Toei buses are flat fare 200 yen within the Tokyo 23 Ward Metropolitan Area. But; it is also distinguishable that they also offer owl service at double the fare which can be said that it’s time based. Toei buses that go into Metro Tokyo from outlying regions (i.e. similar to Orange County to LA County) are distance based which could be as low as 170 yen to 550 yen based on how far/short one rides it.
Now what does this entail? It’s that fare structures are variable whether it be distance or time. And they all co-exist perfectly with a simple tap-in/tap-out or cash paid fare system that is able to move, as you said, 35 million people around Tokyo in and out and efficiently, down to the minute on time every time despite the traffic jams in Tokyo.
The concerning part that you describe of the distance based model is that low income earners will end up paying more and that all hell will break loose is highly exaggerated. Let’s say you are poor and every paycheck that you earn matters to you. You need to get from Point A to Point B via a transfer at Point T. But the distance between Point A and Point T is three blocks. If you are poor are you going to pay $1.50 for that three blocks are you just going to walk that three blocks? Most poor people are just going to walk that 3 blocks from A to T and just pay for the fare for Point T to Point B. Metro loses out money because from a poor person’s standpoint, it doesn’t justify them paying $1.50 for something their feet can do for them for free.
But now, let’s introduce distance based fares where the first five blocks or so is only 25 cents. Now there’s a difference where a poor person might actually consider taking the bus for the three blocks between Point A and T. It’s not “graveyard robbery” of $1.50 for such a short distance, it’s 25 cents. And Metro earns that extra quarter per ride for such short hops. In the end, more people may begin to use the bus to get from a certain point to another shorter point on a distance based model because instead of paying $1.50, they now pay per distance. Rather than driving ten blocks to the nearest K-Mart, a person might be more willing to take the bus now since it now costs the person $0.50 in each direction to that K-Mart.
Think about that a bit closely. Distance based fares does not mean “oh noes it’s gonna be much more expensive for everyone waaaaah!,” but think in terms of how much more effective and choices one will gain by having a fare structure that’s more fair and equal. And, at the same time imagine how you’d feel if you say, take a taxi and you have to pay $10 just to get from LAX to Santa Monica, when another person who goes from LAX to SF Valley also pays the same $10.
“You are more accepting of this system because you grew up with it, this would not likely be the case with riders who have not”
In rebuttal to this, this is again, making the assumption that people who ride public transit will always be poor.
There is a paradigm shift going on in the US right now where middle income earners, those who make up the majority of Americans, are beginning to ditch the car due to high gas prices and opting to take public transit. Middle America, is the most vocal of all issues in the US, and when they begin to take public transit in mass numbers, it is likely that they will become more vocal about this.
There is a point where public transit agencies all over the US can’t keep on cutting back services and keep fares the same low flat rate, nor can they raise the flat fare too high to keep them running either. Sure, middle income earners right now are saying ok, it sucks I have to pay $1.50~$2.50 for a single ride even though my transfer is five blocks away, but what can you do about it, but sooner or later, they are not going to go for any more cutbacks or an increased fare of say $3.00 or more flat rate.
In all fairness, the time to go distance based is now. Just because any other transit agency in the US doesn’t do it, doesn’t mean we have to fall to their demise. None of the public transit agencies in the US ever make money in this flat rate model, and it’s the prime picking for conservatives to say public transit is a dud and how it’s forever a tax burden.
You can’t keep throwing tax money forever hoping that the federal and state money will continuously be used to keep this afloat. No, public transit needs to prove itself that it can become self-reliant, it can work with less tax dependency, that it can work without constantly saying “we need to increase taxes,” “we need more federal money,” “we need cutbacks,” “we need to raise fares.” Enough is enough.
We need to trying something new, something that departs from the failures other public transit agencies in the US had sunk into. Distance based fares work in all of the “model transit cities” like Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore, and the UK. Those are the cities that we need to example after, not cities like Boston or New York who constantly run in the red, ask for more money, become the bastard child that conservatives use as a prime example of tax burden, mediocre service, cut backs and fare increases.
I was born and raised in Los Angeles. Both of my parents were also born in Los Angeles.
I never utilized any form of public transit until 2008 when I stepped onto the Metro Redline for the first time.
I am hooked on the service and ease in regard to the light rail system of the red, purple, blue, gold, green lines as well as the orange line. I look forward to the expansion of the Metro system.
I feel that the service is generally well run and maintained. Nothing is perfect but I do commend Metro and the organization that is implementing a transportation system that benefits many people.