Last year ended on a high note with public transportation being brought into mainstream media coverage after 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.”
There’s a much longer story of what unfolded than what I can fit in here, but a Twitter debate between Musk and 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, Mush called him an idiot, transit consultant Brent Toderian started the hashtag #GreatThingsThatHappenOnPublicTransit in response to highlight to the public, the good of transit.
Early on in the debate, a Twitter user was supportive of transit, but said the industry needs to do a better job of marketing itself. 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 is always asking why transit doesn’t operate like that. They aren’t aware of the different requirements and they also aren’t aware that those companies aren’t nearly as profitable as they imagined.
According to a recent Forbes article, “Why Can’t Uber Make Money?” Uber reported a third-quarter loss of nearly $1.5 billion, bringing its year-to-date 2017 loss at that time at $3.2 billion. And, the article also listed major ridesharing companies from around the world — all of them experiencing steep losses after five or more years of operation.
Without sounding like a social service hand-out industry complaining about things not being fair, working to change some of the regulations that are most detrminental to managing efficient 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.
The Beaches Community Shuttle was a limited service operated by JTA. It was used sparingly and a private operations started up — Beachside Buggies. Beachside Buggies used golf carts and provided door-to-door service. JTA terminated its shuttle, subsidized the beachside buggies, and even expanded the service. An ideal win-win situation.
Except it’s not. While the 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, JTA is losing those ridership numbers.
Transit systems need to be able to look at the most efficient 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 finding the best solutions for sustainable cities.
