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(MA) State budget cuts hit Worcester-Boston bus services

 
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RailBus63
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PostPosted: Fri Nov 07, 2008 9:19 pm    Post subject: (MA) State budget cuts hit Worcester-Boston bus services Reply with quote

Worcester-Boston bus services reduced over state budget cuts

By Lee Hammel - Worcester Telegram & Gazette

Bus service between Boston and Worcester and Boston and Marlboro will be reduced because of the elimination of state subsidies to two bus companies.

As part of more than $1 billion in cuts Gov. Deval L. Patrick proposed to reduce a budget deficit, subsidies to four bus companies are being cut by $408,500. That includes the entire $126,000 that Peter Pan Bus Lines in Springfield receives to provide service between Boston, Framingham and Worcester.

It also includes the entire approximately $98,000 that Cavalier Coach Trailways in Boston gets to provide bus service between Northboro, Marlboro and Boston. Other companies affected are Coach Service in the Haverhill area and Plymouth and Brockton Street Railway Company.

Michael H. Sharff, Peter Pan director of planning, questioned the fairness of reducing the relatively small subsidies for buses at the same time the state has announced an increase in commuter rail service between Worcester and Boston. “Our customers have told us they like that the service in Boston serves Copley Square, Park Square and the Statehouse.”

Adam Hurtibese, a spokesman for the state Executive Office of Transportation, said “These were difficult decisions made necessary because of budgetary constraints. The availability of Worcester commuter rail service was a prime consideration in targeting the reductions” in bus subsidies because there is a commuting option to the buses.

He also said that, “There’s no direct budgetary connection between bus subsidies and commuter rail services.” The Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority, through which commuter rail subsidies flow, is funded with fares and the sales tax, while the bus subsidies come from the state’s operating budget, Mr. Hurtibese said.

Both Mr. Sharff and Joan A. Libby, president and owner of Cavalier Coach, expressed the hope that their riders and others will contact state representatives and senators about the importance of bus service. Mr. Sharff said he is hopeful, if not optimistic, that the subsidy can be at least partly restored.

Under the subsidy, Peter Pan Bus Lines operates buses that leave Worcester at 5:55 a.m. and 6:25 a.m. and go to Boston; and two buses that leave Boston at 5 p.m. and 6:40 p.m. for Worcester. Beginning Nov. 24 only the 5:55 a.m. bus leaving Worcester and the 5 p.m. bus leaving Boston for Worcester will remain in operation, but without subsidies, Mr. Sharff said.

The fare is $8. The fare will be reassessed at the end of the year, he said.

Peter Pan operates a number of other longer distance buses that stop in Boston and Worcester that are not state subsidized and will continue to operate.

Cavalier coach has two bus runs along Route 20 from Northboro, Marlboro, Wayland and Weston into Boston and back and two runs from Marlboro to Southboro and Framingham to Boston and back. On Nov. 28 Cavalier will drop the Marlboro-Southboro run and, for a 90-day trial, add a second morning run on the Northboro Route 20 route, Ms. Libby said.

The highest fare on that route is $5.50. At least through the trial the fare will not be raised because “my feeling is if we raise rates people aren’t going to be able to afford to ride the bus.” Ms. Libby said.

The ridership on the Post Road route is as high as 25 per trip, but “ridership is not constant and that’s the issue,” Ms. Libby said.

Ridership on Peter Pan’s subsidized routes is 80 to 100 per day, Mr. Sharff said, which is an average of 15 people per bus trip. Last night the 5:30 p.m. bus arrived in the rain at Union Station 32 minutes late, with no passengers.

Bus driver Walter Thompson said six passengers had been on the bus between Boston and Framingham. One passenger alighted from the 5 p.m. commuter bus and said that about 15 passengers had gotten off in Framingham.


© 2008 Worcester Telegram & Gazette Corp.
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JA




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PostPosted: Sat Nov 29, 2008 6:29 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Does Cavalier do any advertising for their service?

I find that many subsidized operators fail to do so.
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RailBus63
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PostPosted: Sun Nov 30, 2008 7:29 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I'm not aware of any advertising, but the MBTA does print schedules for this run and the other subsidized bus routes.
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HwyHaulier




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PostPosted: Mon Dec 01, 2008 10:33 am    Post subject: Re: (MA) State budget cuts hit Worcester-Boston bus service Reply with quote

JA wrote:
Does Cavalier do any advertising for their service?

I find that many subsidized operators fail to do so.

JA -

It gets especially galling when the claimed advertising displayed is just so much copy from still another taxpayer supported State agency.
It is about as phony accounting as anything since, well, well, ENRON!

In Maryland, the same budget cutting antics are also in play. In particular, some longer, suburb/ ex-urb runs radiating to and from Baltimore
are in question...

There's going to be a lot more of this as we go along. The Transit Workers Union website has reported on numerous incidents of various
locales bailing on attempts at any more money at underwiting transit operations. It wasn't all that hard to discern these storm clouds, for
many years. Laws Of Inevitability, and all that... http://www.atu.org/content/atu_news_archive/

....................Vern................


Last edited by HwyHaulier on Mon Dec 01, 2008 12:31 pm; edited 1 time in total
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RailBus63
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PostPosted: Mon Dec 01, 2008 12:14 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Link to the online version of the Cavalier schedule on the MBTA website -

http://www.mbta.com/uploadedFiles/Documents/Schedules_and_Maps/Bus/CavalierCoach.pdf
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JA




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Location: Brooklyn, NY

PostPosted: Sun Dec 14, 2008 6:36 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Many people have heard me abuse the New York MTA for its illegal and wasteful behavior.

However, there is absolutely nothing that drives me crazy more than a government contractor that does not run its business better or equal to its own operations for the government. Included as part of the bid should be a reasonable amount of visible marketing so that the subsidy needed is minimized. The amount of advertising for a service really helps in terms of letting people know that it is an option.
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HwyHaulier




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Location: Harford County, MD

PostPosted: Wed Dec 17, 2008 1:55 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

JA -

Because the vice is in the financing, which you and I cheerfully and voluntarily pay! There is no incentive for running better than prescribed
Farebox Recovery levels! So, it makes it a near certainty that the operations can never return surpluses, or much betterment in financial metrics.

Neither of us would have any appetite to run a store where we know we lost money on ever sale, yes? Vigorous marketing of any of it is
ludicrous? Well, obviously different rules apply for this New Age transit...

.................Vern...............
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timecruncher



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PostPosted: Wed Dec 24, 2008 8:52 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

My own experience and observation has been that when a transit agency is running the service, it tends to be wasteful, but the service is generally more reliable.

When service is privatized, the private company has to take it's profit from the subsidy, so the tendency is to pay far less, spend less on maintenance, less on training and do absolutely no more than is required by the contract (and less than that if they're not being watched~) on anything.

There are really only three or four contractors in the business big enough to be significant players in the operation of urban transit. These are First Transit (U.K.-owned, and includes former Laidlaw properties), Veolia (U.K. and French-owned, formerly Connex), and M.V. Transit Services.

First Transit has been around the longest and is known to transit historians as the former ATE Management. They have both management-only and manage/operate contracts throughout the U.S. Their operations include both fixed-route and paratransit operations. First Transit also has numerous school bus operations throughout the U.S. and Canada. This outfit, while the largest and most experienced of the transit contractors, is also well-known for labor strife among its unionized operations.

MV Transit Services has some smaller fixed-route operations, but is primarily involved in paratransit operations. The company was founded by former ATE/First Transit people.

Veolia Transit Services is a relative newcomer in the U.S. Their area of expertise is in rail commuter operations, but in recent years they have jumped into urban transit in a big way. Rail operations under their wing include Metrolink (Los Angeles area), and Railrunner (Albuquerque area), while they will operate the new light rail service starting in Phoenix this coming Saturday (December 27), and have a big chunk of Valley Metro's bus operations as well. Their first big property -- correct me if I'm wrong -- was the last privately owned transit system in North America, in Columbia, South Carolina. The former Carolina Gas and Electric operation in that city is now the Central Midlands RTA. Service has gone to heck but they have a pretty website. CG&E was one of the last operators of new-look coaches in the U.S., I might add.

Look to Phoenix, Las Vegas and Reno for big operations that are entirely privatized. Two of those three properties have had lengthy and ugly strikes in recent years.

Many transit systems contract out their paratransit work because it is much less costly to have the operations handled outside of the expensive labor contracts so common at fixed-route agencies.

I have mixed feelings about privitization. It holds the promise of being less-bureaucratic than in-house operations, but because of lower wages and an ever-diminishing pool of transit managers who are willing to put forth the effort necessary to run transit well, it doesn't look good from where I sit.

Our paratransit contractor operates four fixed-route "experimental" routes here, and I will freely admit that those four routes are abysmal in both execution and performance. Our road supervisors ignore them, and their own supervisors never bother to look in on them -- they're too busy trying to find enough drivers to run the paratransit service. The result is service that is an embarrassment to those of us with operating experience, but don't seem to bother our upper management.

We can't afford to bring these routes in-house, because operating costs would more than double. Really.

There are numerous contract routes in New Jersey, as well as up and down the east coast from Washington, D.C. to Boston. Some are run by old companies that originally ran the routes, and others are run by [relatively] new bus operators, smaller charter lines that have branched out into contract work. Hey -- its like printing money for those small operations! I would guess that some private operations are better than nearby major transit agencies, while others are more a political toy than a true transit service.

Nowadays transit is all about the money -- how much can be spent, and how much can be pocketed without getting caught.

timecruncher
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RailBus63
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PostPosted: Wed Dec 24, 2008 9:42 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Hi Cliff - good to hear from you again!

In regards to the Worcester to Boston run in the article, it is one of a group of privately-operated commuter runs that have been subsidized in recent decades. It was originally operated by B&W Lines (the successor to the Boston & Worcester Street Railway Company). B&W Lines sold its operations to Gray Line in 1971, and the service was subsequently operated by several other operators of varying financial health and ethical behavior before Peter Pan took over in 1988. The state began subsidizing various commuter lines after they complained about competition from the MBTA's growing commuter rail system, but there has never been any effort to properly promote these services and they have gradually withered in ridership.
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Dieseljim
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PostPosted: Tue Jun 30, 2009 6:03 am    Post subject: Boston-Worcester bus Services Reply with quote

Peter Pan showed four weekday t rips each way in its timetable as well as timetables published by MBTA over the years. This service was shown in Peter Pan' s own system timetable to boot..
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ctrabs74




Joined: 29 May 2007
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PostPosted: Sun Jul 05, 2009 12:00 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

timecruncher wrote:
Veolia Transit Services is a relative newcomer in the U.S. Their area of expertise is in rail commuter operations, but in recent years they have jumped into urban transit in a big way. Rail operations under their wing include Metrolink (Los Angeles area), and Railrunner (Albuquerque area), while they will operate the new light rail service starting in Phoenix this coming Saturday (December 27), and have a big chunk of Valley Metro's bus operations as well. Their first big property -- correct me if I'm wrong -- was the last privately owned transit system in North America, in Columbia, South Carolina.


Veolia/Connex took over operation of NJ Transit's Monmouth County local routes (830-837; formerly M-2x series) either in the late 1990's/early 2000's. That may have pre-dated Columbia, but I'm not positive.

Quote:
There are numerous contract routes in New Jersey, as well as up and down the east coast from Washington, D.C. to Boston. Some are run by old companies that originally ran the routes, and others are run by [relatively] new bus operators, smaller charter lines that have branched out into contract work. Hey -- its like printing money for those small operations! I would guess that some private operations are better than nearby major transit agencies, while others are more a political toy than a true transit service.


In New Jersey, most of the "contract" routes are centered on the local routes in Bergen (Academy), Passaic (Coach USA/Community Coach, although some routes were moved in-house and are now operated by NJT), Middlesex (Academy, was previously CUSA/Suburban), and Monmouth (Veolia). A couple of the Hudson County routes were operated by Academy subsidiaries before becoming part of the NJT system (but still operated by Academy - the 22/23 routes). Most of the NJT-owned buses used by private carriers are subsidized routes similar to the MBTA system in that they are operated and managed by the contractor independent of the NJT system; a lot of those routes pre-date the creation of NJ Transit and were subsidized by NJDOT starting in the 1970's.

Getting back on topic, trying to figure out funding for the T and other transit systems in Massachusetts is tied to political machinations, which at times can be considered corrupt (the last three House Speakers in Ma. were indicted in separate criminal complaints by the Feds). Personally, I'm thinking that the reductions in subsidies for the Boston commuter runs are Beacon Hill's way of giving the MBTA a monopoly on inter-city transit within Massachusetts via the often unreliable commuter rail system.
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