I hope the local media would report on this issue - there must be bus routes or segments of bus routes that actually operate on a profit basis. The bus company used to have cost-per-mile statements - is this true today? When the bus company had such reports, the urban routes serving the CBDs and U of M were, for the most part, profitable. Urbanites, including many of the transit dependant, actually subsidize longer runs and late night service.The routes with the lowest subsidy per passenger trip are most likely 16 (University) and 21 (Lake Street). I don't have the Sector 5 restructuring study book in hand, but you can see the figures in there. Why do these have the lowest subsidies? Because there are lots of shorter trips, with people getting on no matter which direction the bus is going.
If our bus company operates profitably on some routes or route segments, why aren't the managers out there driving the buses that make money? This is what happens in for-profit companies - even when sales/services are reduced during a strike, managers work scads of unpaid overtime to keep the company running.. (I'm waiting to see Mr. Bell driving the #5 in Minneapolis - at least from Lowry to MOA). A terrible injustice in this strike is that bus company actually profits by failing to produce service - and this injustice, with it's heavy burden on bus consumers, affects all of us who pay taxes in Minnesota. Why did we establish a public department that is better served by doing nothing than by serving taxpayers and service users?
What are the bus company managers doing during the strike? (Would like to see this story in the media). Why haven't they been furloughed?
I wouldn't mind a job managing no service at all for a profit guaranteed by the taxpayers of Minnesota! This opens a whole new range of economic development possibilities . . . Hiring managers and giving an agency a surplus for providing nothing!
After all, even with existing health care benefits and a 1% wage increase, the workers, most in the $30,000-$40,000 range, would lose out to inflation anyway. We don't have to look far for signs of inflation - check out the gas pump.
I think the ball is in management's court: they should be at the legislature asking for more money, they should be negotiating for better health care prices, they should be looking at service cutbacks, they should be looking at fare increases, and they should be negotiating, not with a hard line, but in good faith for resolution. But they aren't - the whole system is screwy. It might be time for the legislature to step in - and in the long run, to fix the system. What we need is bus company management that actually manages.
In the meantime, perhaps all bus company managers will give up car access for the duration of the strike. In solidarity with their most vulnerable consumers.
Shawne FitzGerald Powderhorn
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