EDITOR’S NOTEBOOK
Leveling the Playing Field
It’s time for surface transportation funding to catch up
with the shared mobility paradigm to allow agencies to
provide tax payers the most effi cient options.
L
Federal
funding
needs to
reward
innovative
solutions
that lead
to more
effi cient
mobility.
6 | Mass Transit | MassTransitmag.com | FEBRUARY 2018
Editorial
Advisory Board
Andrew Johnson
Chief Operating Officer
Champaign-Urbana
Mass Transit District
Gary Thomas
President/
Executive Director
Dallas Area Rapid Transit
Keith Jones, P.E.
General Manager
DC Streetcar
Kristen Joyner
Executive Director
South West Transit
Association
Matthew Tucker
Executive Director
North County
Transit District
Patrick LeClerc
President & Chief
Executive Officer
Canadian Urban
Transit Association
Paul Larousse
Director
National Transit Institute
ast year ended with public transportation being brought into mainstream
media coverage aft er Elon Musk made comments at a Tesla
event during the Neural Information Processing Systems Conference
in Long Beach, California. In response to an audience question, part of
his response included, “I think public transport is painful. It sucks. Why
do you want to get on something with a lot of other people, that doesn’t
leave where you want it to leave, doesn’t start where you want it to start,
doesn’t end where you want it to end? And it doesn’t go all the time.”
Th ere’s a much longer story of what unfolded than what I can fi t in
here, but a Twitter debate between Musk and transit planners created a
storm of tweets and articles. To bring you up to speed: Transit consultant
Jarrett Walker wrote a blog about the detrimental impact of elite
projection, Musk called him an idiot, and in response transit consultant
Brent Toderian started the hashtag #GreatTh ingsTh atHappenOnPublicTransit
to highlight to the public the good of transit.
With nearly 90 percent of the transit ballot initiatives passing in 2017,
it’s pretty clear the industry and local agencies have done a good job
of justifying the importance and need for public transportation. What
seems to get lost on people are the regulations governing transit. Friends
and family see how easy it is to use an Uber or Lyft , and how cheap it
usually is, and are always asking me why transit doesn’t operate like that.
Without sounding like a social service industry complaining about
things not being fair, working to change some of the regulations that
are most detrimental to managing effi cient mobility in a service area
is something that we can be doing. Case in point is this issue’s cover
story with the Jacksonville Transportation Authority and its Beaches
Community Shuttle.
Th e Beaches Community Shuttle was a limited service operated by
JTA, used sparingly. A private operations using golf carts to provide
door-to-door service started up — Beachside Buggies. JTA terminated
its shuttle, subsidized the beachside buggies, and even expanded the
service. An ideal win-win situation.
Except it’s not. Th e service is better for the riders using it because it’s
door-to-door and now runs year-round, it’s better for the local businesses
because it’s bringing more tourists and beachgoers to their stores and
restaurants, and it’s better for the tax payers because they’re moving
more people at a lower cost in the community, but JTA is losing those
ridership numbers.
Transit systems need to be able to look at the most effi cient way to
move the most people and in many instances, that could be to share
mobility. We need to advocate at the federal level for
funding that’s about moving people because the current
structure is detrimental to fi nding the best solutions for
sustainable cities.
Leah Harnack, Editor
Advertiser’s Index
Alpina ........................................ 29
AngelTrax .....................................5
Complete Coach Works ........... 31
Digital Signage Expo ................. 7
Future Systems, Inc. ................. 18
Genfare .........................................2
Noble Pine Products ............... 26
ORX .............................................32
Progress Rail Services ..............23
Radio Engineering Industries . 15
Railquip, Inc. .............................. 21
Rosco Inc. ....................................12
Siemens Industry, Inc. ............. 19
Slec, Inc. .......................................13
Talkaphone ..................................3
Vericom LLC .............................. 26
Western Cullen Hayes, Inc. .....25
/MassTransitmag.com