Tuesday, March 21, 2006
Consolidation? How About Privatization?
The County Executive plans to appoint a panel to study mass transit in Allegheny County—a Transportation Action Team. He wants some hard-hitting recommendations on getting transit to the airport, Oakland, and opening up the use of PAT’s busways and park-and-ride facilities in order to enhance revenues.
One recommendation that he wants to have in place by fall is to create a larger transportation authority in the counties of Southwestern Pennsylvania. It will likely turn out to be modeled on SEPTA, hardly an endorsement of its merits. The panel should take a look at our study from last summer since it examined PAT and the smaller carriers in the region. There were no surprises on wages and salaries (PAT’s average driver wage was double that of the other carriers) or performance indicators (PAT’s vehicle miles and passenger trips were well in excess of those carriers).
It was surprising to find that there is significant experience with private operators driving the buses of the smaller authorities. The Westmoreland Transit Authority never directly operated its own buses, while the Beaver County Transit Authority was a non-operating entity for many years.
The results of creating a larger transit authority are predictable: costs will grow, not fall, as there is no way PAT drivers will take a pay cut to get to the level of non-PAT operators. Of course, taxpayers will foot the bill and the riding public will once again suffer subsequent rounds of service cuts or fare hikes, or both.
Here’s the solution: if the Executive wants the coordinated planning that comes with a regional authority, then work on making the board of directors regional and leave the operations to the private sector. The board can make decisions and negotiate the contracts, while the private operators concentrate on what they do best at a low cost to taxpayers.
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/06075/671120.stm
One recommendation that he wants to have in place by fall is to create a larger transportation authority in the counties of Southwestern Pennsylvania. It will likely turn out to be modeled on SEPTA, hardly an endorsement of its merits. The panel should take a look at our study from last summer since it examined PAT and the smaller carriers in the region. There were no surprises on wages and salaries (PAT’s average driver wage was double that of the other carriers) or performance indicators (PAT’s vehicle miles and passenger trips were well in excess of those carriers).
It was surprising to find that there is significant experience with private operators driving the buses of the smaller authorities. The Westmoreland Transit Authority never directly operated its own buses, while the Beaver County Transit Authority was a non-operating entity for many years.
The results of creating a larger transit authority are predictable: costs will grow, not fall, as there is no way PAT drivers will take a pay cut to get to the level of non-PAT operators. Of course, taxpayers will foot the bill and the riding public will once again suffer subsequent rounds of service cuts or fare hikes, or both.
Here’s the solution: if the Executive wants the coordinated planning that comes with a regional authority, then work on making the board of directors regional and leave the operations to the private sector. The board can make decisions and negotiate the contracts, while the private operators concentrate on what they do best at a low cost to taxpayers.
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/06075/671120.stm
