Mass Transit: A perspective from 1983

[spuwho]

The mayor's office has also been pushing for additional parking for the Landing instead of better utilizing existing spaces in the core. It's also pretty pathetic that the skyway has been around for 20 years and we still haven't coordinated downtown development and land use with it.

+1

[dougskiles]

It is another example of suburban solutions applied to an urban core.  The question is how to reverse it?  How do we change the public misconception that the only way to save Downtown is to provide more parking spaces?  I would contend the exact opposite - the only way to save Downtown is to never spend another dollar on automobile parking.  All of our money should go toward increasing density - office space or residential units per acre - not parking spaces per acre.

Lakelander, do you have any statistical data comparing density per parking space of urban core areas around the country?

[Dashing Dan]

Parking is not the only suburban solution that has been inappropriately applied in our urban core.  Nearly all of our downtown streets are designed for suburban traffic speeds.  A chronic disdain for preservation is yet another symptom of undue suburbanism.

[Ocklawaha]

Many people think mass transportation should be classified as a public sector activity like police and fire protection. However, unlike these activities, public transit service must compete with other modes of travel, primarily the automobile.  The question remains as to whether transit supplies a sufficiently important service
to the general public to warrant subsidizing fares.

This statement was completely bass-ackward, it exhibits a very basic lack of understanding of the role of mass transit.  Good mass transit doesn't "compete" with ANY other mode, rather it compliments them as violins compliment a symphony. Transit is a matter of personal choice (where ever it is available) and promotes a freedom not found in modes requiring a passenger/operator relationship, rather mass transit offers a passenger/passenger relationship to the city.

Likewise transit will NEVER RELIEVE CONGESTION, and to think of it as a congestion solution is simply disingenuous. Good transit will offer an alternative choice to millions of riders that subliminally says, if the gas pump shuts off or skyrockets to the moon, we've got your back, your family won't starve, you will still be mobile. If you become hurt, disabled, have one too many, need time to cram for an exam, catch up on office work, make a few calls, surf the net, or any one of a thousand other tasks that require time uninterrupted by attention to the highway, steering and what ever the heck the guy in front of you is about to do. PEACE!

The main justifications offered by proponent s of mass transit for transit subsidies are that transit:

. Benefits the socio-economically disadvantaged population by providing essential mobility at an affordable price. This mobility may keep persons off public assistance by allowing access to jobs.

. Provides mobility for those who are unable to driven handicapped, elderly, or underage persons.

. Benefits residents of an area served by transit by providing mobility in emergencies when automobiles or friends are not available.

. Benefits transit workers, suppliers, employers by direct support .

. Helps promote the development, or stem the decline, of high density urban areas, particularly central cities.

. Stimulates commercial activity for businesses directly adjacent to the routes.

. Is often considered one of the essential services expected to be provided by a city when comparisons are made for a major plant location. The availability of transit may make real estate more desirable for potential purchases.

Amazing that when I read these points, nowhere did it say to provide clean efficient mobility for all citizens... which would define a TRANSIT SERVICE.  Instead they described a welfare system on wheels that, oh by the way, can help us get new factories, and offices, and help retail and business establishments. In other words transit was seen as a juicy worm on the fishing line for business, but don't expect any respectable citizen to touch the disgusting worm.

The decentralization of the central city population contributed to the decline of mass trans it systems. The efficiency and effectiveness of transit decline as land use densities decrease, and as population and jobs move from the central cities. Automobiles proliferated as auto costs in relation to personal income decreased and the wealth of the population increased.  Transit use was sharply reduced following the  1940's, causing the industry to suffer declining  profits. Postwar inflation cut into the transit  industry forcing the operators to discontinue capital improvements and delay repairs. This  reduced the attractiveness of mass trans it and caused a further reduction in the number of passengers.

In some municipalities, local government efforts to keep fa res low and routes open inadvertently contributed to the problems of the private companies by refusing to allow transit operators to cut back service on less profitable routes or to raise farebox rates.

Why didn't they discover the truth? Why was this report suffering from "asphalt poisoning?"

Truth is that wide decentralization of the core city was due to carefree and endless expansion of highways, and a foolish notion that our supply of petroleum was endless. Financed on the backs of tax payers and special levies against railroad transportation and railroad real properties, including street railways. "Utility companies, including railroads, pay more than 3%," says a 2011 Iowa tax information site (http://www.iowa.gov/tax/educate/78573.html).

While 2011 in the Sunshine State doesn't look all that different from 1920.  Tax imposed is based on the ratio of Florida mileage to total mileage traveled by the carrier's vessels, vehicles or rail cars that were used in interstate or foreign commerce

Rail cars purchased by licensed common carriers and placed in revenue service inside Florida, these items are subject proration.

Repairs, parts, and other items used on vehicles, and rail cars, that are used to transport persons or property for hire in interstate or purchased by a licensed common carrier outside the state of Florida, but installed in Florida, are subject to proration.

Diesel fuel used in locomotives operated by licensed railroad carriers, to transport persons or property for hire in interstate or foreign commerce, is subject to the partial exemption

Paving assessments in municipal area's where railroads operate in street right-of-way.

Municipal taxes

School District Assessments

Real estate property tax

Early years

WHAT REALLY HAPPENED TO JACKSONVILLE TRACTION COMPANY AND OUR MASS TRANSIT?

In 1922, the head of General Motors (GM), Alfred P. Sloan established a special unit within the corporation which was charged with the task of replacing America's electric railways with cars, trucks and buses.

The Omnibus Corporation was formed in 1926 by John D. Hertz with "plans embracing the extension of motor coach operation to urban and rural communities in every part of the United States".  This company owned the Chicago Motor Coach Company which Hertz had founded to operate buses in Chicago and the Fifth Avenue Coach Company in New York. The same year, the Fifth Avenue Coach Company acquired a majority of the stock in the struggling New York Railways Corporation. Hertz was made a board member of GM the next year.

In 1932, GM formed a new subsidiaryâ€"United Cities Motor Transport and looked around to gobble up transit companies to replace its equipment with GM buses.  JACKSONVILLE TRACTION was one of only a few systems for sale so GM did indeed acquire them and substitute buses.

The Public Utility Holding Company Act of 1935 caused great difficulties for the streetcar operators given that it made it illegal for a single business to both provide public transport and supply electricity to other parties. Who was behind it?

When the New York Railways Corporation converted streetcars to buses in 1935 and 1936, the new bus services were operated by the New York City Omnibus Corporation which shared management with The Omnibus Corporation.

In 1936, National City Lines, an existing bus operation which had been founded in 1920 was re-organized into a holding company. In 1938, JACKSONVILLE TRACTION ran it's last streetcar as part of Motor Transit. Pacific City Lines was formed to purchase streetcar systems in the western United States.

National City Lines raised funds to purchase transportation systems in cities "where street cars were no longer practicable" and to replace them with bus transit systems. Investors consisted of Firestone Tire, Standard Oil of California, Phillips Petroleum, General Motors, Mack Trucks, and the Federal Engineering Corporation. American City Lines was organized to acquire local transportation systems in the larger metropolitan areas in various parts of the country in 1943 and merged with National City Lines in 1946.

National City Lines acquired the Los Angeles Railway in 1945 and converted many lines to buses. By 1946, the company acquired 64% of the stock in the Key System streetcars in Oakland, California. Many of these conversions to buses resulted in public outcry.

That same year, E. Jay Quinby published an expose on the owners of National City Lines (GM, Firestone and Phillips Petroleum) which was addressed to "The Mayors; The City Manager; The City Transit Engineer; The members of The Committee on Mass-Transportation and The Tax-Payers and The Riding Citizens of Your Community." It began, "This is an urgent warning to each and every one of you that there is a careful, deliberately planned campaign to swindle you out of your most important and valuable public utilitiesâ€"your Electric Railway System".

By 1947, the National City Lines owned or controlled 46 systems in 45 cities in 16 states.

On April 9, 1947, nine corporations and seven individuals (constituting officers and directors of certain of the corporate defendants) were indicted in the Federal District Court of Southern California on counts of 'conspiring to acquire control of a number of transit companies, forming a transportation monopoly" and "Conspiring to monopolize sales of buses and supplies to companies owned by National City Lines".

The initial court case was in the Federal District Court of Southern California. In 1948, the venue was changed to the Federal District Court in Northern Illinois following an appeal to the United States Supreme Court (in United States v. National City Lines Inc.) who felt that there was evidence of conspiracy to monopolize the supply of buses and supplies.

The San Diego Electric Railway was sold to Western Transit Company. In 1948 the Baltimore Streetcar system was purchased by National City Lines and started converting the system to buses.

In 1949, Firestone Tire, Standard oil of California, Phillips Petroleum, General Motors and Mack Trucks were convicted of conspiring to monopolize the sale of buses and related products to local transit companies controlled by National City Lines and other companies; they were acquitted of conspiring to monopolize the ownership of these companies. The verdicts were upheld on appeal in 1951.

So JCCI was wrong, this was never a deal about the poor, disabled, disadvantaged, nor was it about competition with the automobile or bus. For the street railway companies this was a losing game against governments that wouldn't allow fare increases, demanded pavement and every other imaginable assessments and still requiring certain levels of service, in Jacksonville that level was generally every 8 minutes, and every 5 on busier routes. The one-two punch of all of the above combined with the use of those same tax dollars to extend, pave and widen every available roadway, not only seeded sprawl, it thinned our city densities making financial success of expanded private streetcar lines impossible. Finally the knock out blow was dealt when GM in the role of "JUDGE DOOM" and their host of villains made us and every other city "an offer we couldn't refuse."

OCKLAWAHA