Homeless in Arizona

It costs about 4 times for these government runs mass transit services to provide the bus and train service then they collect in revenue. And Uncle Sam, or the Federal government pays for the loses.

I believe that Uncle Sam will pay up to 75 percent of the loses of a mass transit bus or light rail system.

Light rail systems lose even more money. I think it costs about 10 times to provide the light rail services then they bring in in revenue.

So in Phoenix while it costs $1.75 for one trip on the light rail, it costs the government $17.50 to provide that service.

The light rail system in Phoenix is nothing more then a government welfare system to provide the hotels, bars and professional sports teams in downtown Phoenix and Tempe with dirt cheap transportation for their customers, which of course the rest of us pay for.

Source

Phoenix-area transit riders could face fare hike, light-rail stoppage in 2013

By Sean Holstege The Republic | azcentral.com Wed Dec 12, 2012 11:37 PM

Valley transit riders will likely face fare hikes in March, service changes in January and may have to navigate a light-rail strike as early as New Year’s Day.

The transit board is expected to vote today to finalize a 25-cent fare increase. Last weekend, train operators voted unanimously to authorize a strike, the first step toward a possible walkout. Their contract with the private company operating the system has been extended twice this year, but the company is saying it will refuse another extension beyond a New Year’s Eve deadline.

The Regional Public Transportation Authority vote on a fare increase is the final step after months of public hearings and preliminary votes. Metro light rail and the Valley Metro bus network have a state- imposed goal of covering 25 percent of operating expenses via fares. They said the fare increase is needed to meet that goal and keep pace with rising costs.

A rate hike and labor discord over wages and other issues come amid record popularity for mass transit in the Valley. In October, passengers boarded buses and trains 7 million times, a one-month record. That same month, Metro carried a record 65,000 passengers on a single day. In November, average weekday ridership on light rail was 47,783.

If the fare increase is approved, as expected, bus and rail passengers will have to pay more starting March 1.

The one-way base fare would rise by 25 cents on local routes, including light rail, bringing the cost to $2 from $1.75. Rapid and Express bus fares would go up by 50 cents, and the cost of passes also would climb. Among other changes, the 15-day pass would go away and a three-day pass would be added.

The RPTA and its member cities have approved service changes — tweaks to schedules and routes and, in some cases, minor service reductions — after three years of sometimes deep cuts.

The most recent adjustment, decided last month, is more modest than in the past. Fourteen local, express and neighborhood routes will face minor rerouting Jan. 28. Five will be enhanced. Two new lines will be introduced, and 23 routes will get schedule tweaks. Many of the changes are in response to light-rail construction on 19th Avenue in Phoenix and in anticipation of the SkyTrain service between Sky Harbor International Airport and Metro light rail’s 44th Street station.

Train operators voted unanimously Saturday to authorize a strike on New Year’s Day, an action sanctioned Wednesday by their union.

For many drivers, non-economic issues are almost as important as wages.

Drivers often cannot fit a bathroom break into their 14-hour work shift because stations have no restrooms. A train takes 65 minutes to go from one end of the 20-mile line to the other. Operators, if they’re on schedule, get 10- and 14-minute breaks on either end, which they say isn’t enough to get a meal or use the restroom.

If an agreement is not reached, it would be the Valley’s second transit walkout in nine months. Thousands of bus passengers were inconvenienced during four days in March, when striking bus drivers disrupted about a third of the routes in Phoenix.

A contract extension between Alternate Concepts Inc., the Boston-based company hired by Metro light rail to operate the trains, and 47 train operators represented by Amalgamated Transit Union Local 1433 expires at midnight Dec. 31.

“I don’t want to go out on strike, but ... I will pull the pin at midnight on New Year’s Eve if I have to,” Local 1433 executive director Bob Bean said. “If there isn’t any intervention by then, the ATU will have a block party on the Tempe Town Lake Rail Bridge.”

That doesn’t necessarily mean a strike is imminent. The bus walkout neared the brink several times over two years before Bean led bus drivers out.

“ACI wants negotiations to continue and feels December 31 is an artificial deadline,” said Suzanne Treviño, a spokeswoman for the company. She said ACI would “sign today” another extension.

“We want to continue to negotiate and resolve any remaining issues so we can reach agreement and avoid any service disruption,” ACI’s general manager Bruce Browne said in a statement.

Treviño said the company is proud of its labor-friendly stance and it has never had an employee strike in its 20 years.

The company said it has begun crafting a contingency plan. Metro said it has monitored developments and is considering public-service announcements for the trains and platforms. For now, Metro’s message is to the two parties.

“We want to avoid any impact to our riders,” Metro spokeswoman Hillary Foose said. “Our message is we want them to stay at the table.”

The Phoenix Public Transit Department is following events but hasn’t intervened. It took city hall’s involvement to broker an end to the March bus walkout.

The transit company, ACI, and the union, ATU, haven’t met since Nov.27, but late Wednesday they agreed on meeting dates after Christmas.

The sides say 15 issues are unresolved, and only four involve compensation. About two-thirds of the contract has been settled, but wages, health care and some work rules remain open.

Train operators were promised, and got, annual 3 percent raises when they joined Metro light rail. They aren’t seeking wage changes, but ACI is offering a 2.5 percent increase over two years.

A starting operator makes $14 an hour, plus annual increases. The pay scale tops out at $24 an hour, or $50,117 a year plus annual raises. Most train operators were recruited as veteran bus drivers when Metro went into service four years ago, and earn top scale.

Metro advises passengers to visit the agency’s website and social-media links for updates. For more detailed information about fare and service changes, go to ValleyMetro.org or call 602-253-5000.

Proposed rate increases

The Regional Public Transportation Authority is expected to vote today on a fare increase. Some of the proposed increases:

Increase of 25 cents, to $2, for one ride on bus, LINK or light rail.

Increase of 50 cents, to $3.25, for an Express bus ride.

Increase of 50 cents, to $4, for an all-day pass.

Increase to $20, from $17.50, for a seven-day pass.

Increase to $64, from $55, for a 31-day pass.

Increase of 50 cents, to $4, for an ADA Dial-a-Ride fare.

Valley Metro Fares going up???

Phoenix-area public-transit cost may rise

By Sean Holstege The Republic | azcentral.com Mon Oct 22, 2012 9:56 PM

Phoenix-area transit riders may have to dig deeper into their pockets to ride a bus, light-rail train or on-call van.

The Regional Public Transportation Authority is proposing a fare hike to take effect on March 1. If it’s adopted in December, the cost of a single ride would climb from $1.75 to $2, and most other fares would rise proportionally.

It would be the first fare hike since 2009. The transportation authority, or Valley Metro, considered a fare hike a year ago, to take effect this July, but then postponed the decision.

On Monday, the transportation authority, which governs Valley Metro bus service and Metro light-rail operations, held the first in a series of announced public meetings that will continue through early November on the proposal. Afterward, a series of votes by the transit boards, city councils and regional transportation boards is needed to ratify the changes.

Almost every rider would have to pay more, typically 14 percent more. The steepest increase is 23 percent for rural bus passengers. The resulting base fare would still be cheaper than what passengers pay in peer Western cities, except Dallas and San Jose, Valley Metro says.

Fares would not change for Dial-a-Ride customers in Sun City, Surprise or unincorporated parts of the county. Most patrons of the on-call van service would pay $4, rather than $3.50 a ride.

Seniors, youths and disabled riders would continue to pay half-fare on local service, or $1 for a single ride and up to $32 for a monthly pass.

Monthly transit passes for general riders would cost $64, up from $55 for local service. Many riders who get passes through employers or education institutions would pay less, depending on the size of the subsidies they’re offered.

Valley Metro plans to eliminate the three-day pass and establish a new 15-day pass, costing $33.

Fares for Rapid and Express service would climb higher than for local service. The price of a single ride would climb from $2.75 to $3.25, an 18 percent increase, while a monthly pass would rise from $85 to $104, or 22 percent.

Those proposed fares were adjusted upward after transit planners learned that their initial plan to peg all increases to a base 25-cent hike would disproportionately affect low-income and minority riders. That’s because local service tends to carry more such passengers, while the Rapid and Express buses tend to cater to more-affluent suburban commuters. Under the original plan, local riders would have faced a higher percentage fare increase, and federal transportation laws discourage service that puts minorities and other groups at a disadvantage. That’s because for many such passengers, a bus, train or van is their only means of getting around, while many longer-haul riders have cars.

If adopted, the latest proposed changes would generate $6.5million in revenue a year. By state law, the Valley’s public-transit system must take in enough fares to cover a quarter of its operating costs. Currently, Valley Metro recovers 23 percent, the agency reported. The rest is paid for with a combination of regional sales tax and local subsidies.

Talk of higher fares comes after four years of service cuts, in which dozens of bus lines were axed, rerouted or truncated and wait times lengthened. The cuts were enacted after sales-tax revenue and city subsidies plunged during the economic downturn. There is no discussion about restoring lost service with the fare increase.

Despite the cuts and prior fare increases, the Valley’s transit system remained one of the nation’s most administratively top-heavy, a July 2011 Arizona Republic analysis found.

The region’s transit system is a complicated amalgam of locally funded services, provided for by more than a dozen separate contracts. Partly as a result, administrative costs accounted for nearly 24 percent of all operating costs. Only New Orleans and Sacramento had higher shares of administrative overhead.

A standard transit-industry measure of efficiency is administrative cost per mile of service. By that measure, the Valley’s service was more expensive than the average of peer Western cities with similar transit systems. If Valley Metro had performed on par with those cities’ systems, the savings would have been enough to offset one year of proposed fare increases.

Transit officials are sensitive to the concern. Last year, the governing boards of Valley Metro and Metro light rail acted to put the running of bus and rail systems in the hands of one executive for the first time. With that and other staff consolidations, the agency saved about $2 million, spokeswoman Susan Tierney said.

For details of the proposed fare increases or a schedule of public hearings, visit valley metro.org or call 602-253-5000.