Salt companies fail to bid on Ohio state contract

This is not good news for drivers on Ohio roads....

The Ohio Department of Transportation put out a request for bids on 10,000 ton increments of salt. They hoped to get at least 150,000 tons of road salt that they planned give to local communities that are running low. The expectation was that the localities would return the salt to the state once their own supplies were replenished.

But no salt companies responded to the bid, ODOT announced today.

They said they would continue to explore alternative ways to get salt into Ohio and onto Ohio roads.

They also provided the following statistics:

* since the beginning of winter, ODOT alone, has used more than 880,000 tons on Ohio roadways.
* they've treated 11 million miles of roads
* this is one of the most active seasons in history.

Dollar vans - an (illegal) alternative to the public transportation monopoly

I came across this article on The (Illegal) Private Bus System That Works and instantly wondered if something like this might make more sense than TARTA for Toledo and Lucas County.

The article highlights 'dollar vans' in Brooklyn. They're sort of a cross between a taxi cab (plentiful, available, convenient in terms of being willing to wait for you if you're just walking your child to the door of their day care center) but with a set route like the bus.

As the article explains:

America's 20th largest bus service -- hauling 120,000 riders a day -- is profitable and also illegal. It's not really a bus service at all, but a willy-nilly aggregation of 350 licensed and 500 unlicensed privately-owned "dollar vans" that roam the streets of Brooklyn and Queens, picking up passengers from street corners where city buses are either missing or inconvenient. The dollar van fleet is a tantalizing demonstration of how we might supplement mass transit to include privately-owned mini-transit entrepreneurs, giving people alternative ways to get around, and creating jobs.

One of the major complaints about TARTA is that the routes are not convenient to riders and, despite multiple plans, probably millions of dollars for studies, and numerous public hearings, the complaint continues - over decades. It's not that the routes don't eventually get you from place A to place B - it's the time it takes to get you there, with too many requiring a trip into the downtown Toledo hub enroute, despite the fact that such a stop adds time and often requires a transfer.

Another complaint is the cost of the tax levy that member communities pay, with many finding that they pay more than their usage because of the above issue.

So could a private company provide - either entirely or as a supplement - the service the county needs? Would such a system work in a larger area than Brooklyn? I'm sure it wouldn't be identical to the example in the article, but could a private company better meet the transportation needs of our residents?

TARTA obviously believes there is such a need because they implemented their Call-A-Ride service. But because of the way TARTA funding is structured, this means that residents of Toledo are helping subsidize a service they cannot use since the Call-A-Ride is only available in the suburban communities. Conversely, suburban members realize that they're subsidizing the regular bus service within the city of Toledo. Ah - the complications of a public transportation service that relies upon taxpayer funding rather than the cost charged to actual users of the service.

Could a private company provide a better call-a-ride type of service? Probably. But without the income from the suburban communities, TARTA would face problems. Of course, as a Toledo resident, I want to know why I'm paying taxes for TARTA and don't have call-a-ride available to me.

So if a private company could provide this type of service, why doesn't it? What would prevent a private company from recognizing (years ago) the need and meeting it?

The article explains that as well:

"You might want to know why, exactly, jitneys or dollar vans are illegal in most states. The answer lies in the history of public transit. Until the early 1950s, most transit systems in the U.S. were privately owned companies that operated as regulated monopolies (like electric utilities today) and expected to provide transit service to an entire city. In exchange, they got the right to be the city's only transit service. Transit ridership peaked during World War II, but the transit companies slid into bankruptcy afterwards, as they were expected to serve greater suburban areas, service declined, and more and more federal money went into highways -- all of which tempted people to buy cars and abandon the trolleys and buses. Most of the country's 200 private transit franchises died in the 1950s. (Roger Rabbit had nothing to do with it. I swear.) In the late 1950s, cities took over the bankrupt transit lines and tried to make a go of them, retaining for themselves the monopoly on the right to provide service. In the early 60s the feds became involved in propping those systems up, but without much enthusiasm. Meanwhile, private transit were prevented from driving the streets even when they offered serviced different from the public transit agencies.

What's interesting about dollar vans, if they're properly licensed and insured -- and reasonably legal -- is that they could gravitate to where the riders are and where they want to go faster than public transit, which requires more infrastructure and meetings. In some cities, bus routes have histories going back decades, and they don't change to reflect how people's lives and work habits have changed. (They certainly don't stop at daycare centers.) Dollar vans are out there to make a buck, and that's not bad for passengers."

So government has a monopoly and doesn't want to let it go. I guess the hypocrisy of government restricting monopolies in the private sector completely escapes the politicians and bureaucrats.

TARTA and your tax dollars - hard at work lobbying for more tax dollars

APTA, the American Public Transportation Association, has been running ads on local radio urging listeners to tell their members of Congress to support public funding of public transportation. Obviously, I have a few problems with this, especially since they invoke Presidents Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton in doing so.

The first issue I have is with the distortion that today's transportation bills have become. It used to be that they supported the infrastructure (roads, highways, airports) as the quote from Pres. Reagan indicates:

The state of our transportation system affects our commerce, our economy and our future. . .Common sense tells us that it will cost a lot less to keep the system we have in good repair than to let it disintegrate and have to start over from scratch...

But today's transportation bill funds bike and pedestrian paths - and other strictly local items. And they're sucking up precious, limited funding that should be going to national transportation maintenance.

There is no way to construe the limited Constitutional authority of the federal government as allowing for the expenditure of funds on what can only be described as a local desire. A bike path in Toledo has no national - or even state-wide - impact and shouldn't be funded with federal dollars. If Toledo wants a bike path, it should build it with its own money and not expect the rest of the nation to fund, or even subsidize, it. And the same is true of every other city and community in the nation.

The second - and bigger - issue I have is with the federal funding of local public transportation - as in our TARTA, the Toledo Area Regional Transit Authority. Besides the fact that TARTA is strictly a local need and should not be funded with federal dollars, it appears that TARTA and APTA are linked.

I confirmed with APTA that TARTA is a current member. Based upon the information from APTA's membership department and their website, TARTA is a Class A member and their dues are based upon their annual operating expenses, including para transit. With an operating budget around $30 million, TARTA's dues are either $26,000 or $33,000.

So we have a public, tax-funded agency paying dues to a national organization that is advocating for more tax money to go to its members. Is there anyone else who sees a problem with this picture?

As if that's not enough, TARTA is using its website to advocate for increased funding as well. Here is a screen shot asking visitors to send a form letter to members of Congress urging them to allocate more money to organizations like TARTA:

















Public agencies that receive public funding should not be allowed to advocate for more public funding - or pay dues to organizations that advocate for more tax dollars on their behalf.

There is no way to actually separate the public tax dollars TARTA receives from its other funding - and even if the income is kept in different accounts, getting the tax dollars frees up other revenue and allows that other revenue to be used for lobbying for more tax dollars.

This is just plain wrong.

Of course, TARTA has a history of illegally using their public funds. They 'loaned,' without interest, public funds to their levy campaign committee and relied upon their public bonding agency to repay the illegal loans.

Ohio Revised Code, Section 9.03, states that “no governing body of a political subdivision shall use public funds to support or oppose the passage of a levy or bond issue.”

Perhaps it is time to include "or to lobby for other public funding" so we can be sure that our tax dollars are paying for the actual public services and not being used to influence a political agenda.


*** Follow up:

Yesterday I asked you to guess, without looking it up, who said the Quote of the Day on the Second Amendment. It was actually John F. Kennedy - and I'd bet that a lot of Democrats today would find his position on the right to bear arms "extreme."

It just goes to show you how far left today's Democratic Party has come. Of course, the more left they go, the more they think the GOP has gone to an extreme right. I don't see the Republican Party principles as having changed that much over time, though that is not to say that every person with an 'R' on their voter registration actually practices those principles when in office - can you say RINO?

Of course modern Democrats think the GOP has become extreme. The problem though, isn't the GOP - it's the Democrats who have moved much farther from the center than they were in the past, as the quote demonstrates.

It's a matter of perspective - and understanding perspective is critical in a political world.

Fixing Transit and that 'evil' word: privitize

The Cato Institute, a libertarian think-tank, had a great article about how to fix transit problems that many think plague the United States. In Ohio, we're having the on-going discussion about so-called high-speed rail.

I write 'so-called' because the latest proposal to spend $400 million in federal stimulus dollars would give us a system that connects only three of Ohio's major cities; costs more than $400 million to build; won't be 'high' speed as it is projected to be slower than actually driving; and, worst of all, will require Ohio taxpayers to subsidize it to the tune of $17 million a year! Oh - and that $17 million of taxpayer funds it will need is only if the rail system actually meets its ridership projections. And that's the supporters' own projection of costs!

Incoming Governor John Kasich is opposed to the plan and wants to use the $400 million for other transportation purposes. But the federal government is threatening to 'give' the money to another state if we don't do what they want us to do with it.

Convoluted and completely lacking in common sense - I know. But, sadly, that is the way government works these days.

On a local level, voters just approved a renewal of the TARTA levy and Perrysburg is still trying to opt-out of that service because they believe they can provide a better service for the costs they're paying. Other communities are opposed to being forced to join the TARTA service area - or to have a county-wide sales tax fund the organization - because of problems they see in the operation, the service and the failed concept.

Which is why I thought this article from Cato was important to share. The transit needs in Los Angeles are much different from the needs in New York City - and those are much different from our needs here in Northwest Ohio. If we can get government out of the way, including not giving them our tax dollars for one-size-fits-all solutions, we'd all be better off.

Here is the summary of the article:

America's experiment with government ownership of urban transit systems has proven to be a disaster. Since Congress began giving states and cities incentives to take over private transit systems in 1964, worker productivity — the number of transit riders carried per worker — has declined by more than 50 percent; the amount of energy required to carry one bus rider one mile has increased by more than 75 percent; the inflation- adjusted cost per transit trip has nearly tripled, even as fares per trip slightly declined; and, despite hundreds of billions of dollars of subsidies, the number of transit trips per urban resident declined from more than 60 trips per year in 1964 to 45 in 2008.

Largely because of government ownership, the transit industry today is beset by a series of interminable crises. Recent declines in the tax revenues used to support transit have forced major cuts in transit services in the vast majority of urban areas. Transit infrastructure — especially rail infrastructure — is steadily deteriorating, and the money transit agencies spend on maintenance is not even enough to keep it in its current state of poor repair. And transit agencies have agreed to employee pension and health care plans that impose billions of dollars of unfunded liabilities on taxpayers.

Transit advocates propose to solve these problems with even more subsidies. A better solution is to privatize transit. Private transit providers will provide efficient transit services that go where people want to go. In order for privatization to take place, Congress and the states must stop giving transit agencies incentives to waste money on high-cost transit technologies.

The complete policy analysis is here.