Why Does Public Transit Suck?
The lives of our betters are nothing like our lives:
Ford’s agency oversees the city’s public transit, parking enforcement, traffic regulation, pedestrian and bike operations. His current base salary is $315,140.
Not sure if LA is comparable to SF in terms of what the average income of bus riders is, but check this out:
The agency’s buses carry about 1.2 million people per weekday. [Los Angeles] MTA studies show the median income for bus riders, the majority of whom are Latino, is $12,000 a year.
Incredible. Enron-esque.
But not at all surprising.
The people who make decisions about public transportation usually don’t use public transportation. Proponents of BRT never ride the bus, and they won’t start riding the bus when a slightly-less-crappy bus service comes along. The lives of the people in charge bear no resemblance to the lives of folks who are stuck riding mass transit in this city every day.
Nat must be getting a bit worried about collecting all that cash. This move is nothing but self-preservation.
None of this will change unless we get organized.
Leave comment (2)[p.s. The Forums are open for participation.]
January 6th, 2009 at 1:45 am
Now, Ford did give up his standard pay raise this year to help budget Muni. Even tho that’s a drop in the bucket it’s still more then what most elected officials would do! Plus, those sort of jobs are long hours, huge amounts of stress and usually have a short shelf life. It’s not entirely bogus that it should pay so well. Tho, I agree, 200k would be more like it!
March 12th, 2009 at 7:16 pm
I’ve been to transit conferences where public transportation was not mentioned in the conferences materials. Transit professionals don’t always use transit.
One reason why I did this, to help change that:
http://www.trilliumtransit.com/blog/2009/02/19/calact-conference-attendees-can-travel-earth-friendly-easily-with-google-transit/