Mass Transit Could Be Hotter Than This
If America would completely overhaul the way it thinks about mass transit, we'd have more investment in it to reduce pollution, stop subway derailments & prevent crime on trains
Publisher’s Riff
This was a bad week for mass transit. It was revealed that the rail line system for the nation’s capitol, known as “Metro,” but more formally the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA) had experienced and seemed to cover-up dozens of derailments in recent years, including many involving it’s fairly brand new 7000 series trains. In Philadelphia, a woman was raped on that city’s busy Market-Frankford line run by SEPTA (Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority).
UPDATE, 10.21.21 at 4pm ET: First reports from police, for several days, asserted that the sexual assault on the “El” in Philadelphia occurred in full view of bystanders who inexplicably either filmed the incident or didn’t even bother to intervene somehow or simply call 911. Now, turns out that was not the case, according to the neighboring Delaware County District Attorney …
From NBC 10 in Philadelphia …
The revelation from District Attorney Jack Stollsteimer runs counter to the police narrative of the rape on a SEPTA Market-Frankford elevated train at the 69th Street Terminal in Upper Darby. Police said in that case that passengers took cellphone video without calling 911 before a SEPTA employee called police.
“There is a narrative out there that people sat there on the El train and watched this transpire and took videos of it for their own gratification,” Stollsteimer said using the nickname for the Market-Frankford line. “That is simply not true. It did not happen. We have security video from SEPTA that shows that is not the true narrative.”
In fact, Stollsteimer said, SEPTA security video shows that a “handful” of people who were getting on and off the train as it traveled from Philadelphia to the 69th Street Terminal had observed different parts of the rape, possibly without knowing what exactly was happening.
Meanwhile, from WTOP in Washington, D.C. …
NTSB Chair Jennifer Homendy said a preliminary investigation found similar wheel problems going back to 2017 and that they appeared to have become more widespread recently, raising concerns the problem could affect other transit agencies across the U.S.
As part of the investigation into the derailment, federal authorities were informed by Metro of similar problems with wheel assemblies dating back to 2017, and were told that they appear to have become more widespread in recent years.
In 2017, regular Metro inspections turned up two wheel failures, meaning the wheels shifted too far apart on the axles, Homendy said. There also were two failures reported in 2018.
In 2019 and 2020, there were four and five reported failures, respectively.
This year, however, the reported failures jumped to 18 — and that was before last week’s derailment.
In a round of emergency inspections that began Friday, Metro turned up 21 more failures, Homendy said.
“These are going up,” Homendy said of the wheel-axle failures.
Mass Underinvestment
There’s a lot that can be said about the obvious human failure in each of these situations. Employees at WMATA describe an organizational “culture of fear” inside the agency that paralyzes them from approaching managers and leadership about potentially catastrophic failures on that system. Engineers and other workers are afraid to speak up, even when they know riders could be hurt - especially since that system has been plagued with numerous calamities (including a derailment that killed 6 people in 2009) over the years. In Philadelphia, the open-air sexual assault of a woman that went on for nearly an hour in front of people is also emblematic of total human failure and absence of empathy: while that city is gripped in a gun violence crisis that’s completely petrified that city’s population (maybe other riders were afraid the assailant would have had a gun), it still doesn’t explain or excuse the fact that even after leaving the scene, no one bothered to call police. It’s inexplicable.
But, a larger and arguably more important theme that’s missed in reporting and commentary on the issue is the horrendous lack of investment in mass transit systems. Lack of investment means far fewer public safety resources, surveillance systems and transit police on a large system like SEPTA to prevent serious crimes like a rape from taking place. Lack of investment also means far more derailments occurring because employees and engineers are in fear of losing their jobs knowing that funding is tight; organizations like WMATA also have fewer resources to fix ongoing problems. These money woes make these systems worse, less efficient and inoperable in some cases.
Pandemic has, of course, wrecked the budgets of mass transit systems, especially in major systems, as ridership is down significantly … and that means lost revenue. Here’s the most recent mass transit ridership snapshot from the American Public Transit Association …
In D.C., ridership is down by -63 percent and in Philadelphia it’s down by -44 percent. That’s significant compared to pre-pandemic levels, and especially since both agencies rely on ridership fares for anywhere from 35-40 percent of their revenue. According to APTA, mass transit agencies faced a combined deficit of nearly $40 billion at the start of the year, although pandemic relief funds came in fairly handy. Congress came up with a more than $20 billion investment for mass transit in the Build Back Better act markup that took place in September, but it’s unclear how much of that’s been slimmed down in the more recent round of reductions as both President Biden and Congressional Democrats attempt to get the BBB passed.
Part of the problem is, simply, mindset. Media doesn’t really report on mass transit in any real intentional way, so we’re unclear as to what’s going on with big public mass transit systems: most Americans don’t know that for every $1 billion of investment in mass transit, the economy makes $5 billion. Even the lead advocacy organization for mass transit agencies, APTA, isn’t doing all that good of a job sharing key information about mass transit benefits to the public as a way to rally public support. Policymakers aren’t getting all that outraged about lack of investment in their regional transit systems or about tragedies in places like Philadelphia and Washington, D.C. Hence, agency executives and management aren’t being held accountable for these catastrophies as they should and the systems aren’t being run effectively in such a way as to attract more riders.
Mindset leads to perception. Mass transit is poorly perceived in the United States; the public largely views it as a poor, low-income, Black and Brown people’s system and, thus, it does not deserve a fix or long-term investment. Of course, many White professionals use these systems, too. But, the perception is still there that these are systems mostly used by low-income people and that they are unkempt systems not worthy of riding. Ironically, most public transit riders are actually White, although a disproportionate number are Black …
In terms of income, there are nearly equal amounts of low-income at 55 percent of riders (making under $50,000) and middle-class to affluent riders at 46 percent of riders ($50,000 to $100,000 or more) which shows that system usage is not as lopsided to low-income users as popularly thought. Indeed, more White middle-class people rely on these systems than everyone else.
But, in major metropolitan areas, Black mass transit populations are a higher share of the overall riding population than they are a share of the U.S. population. In addition, urban policymakers find themselves constantly battling rural lawmakers for systems that are viewed as amenities or not as essential as highways for cars trapped in traffic. These battles are most intense in many state capitols. In Pennsylvania, for example, unfriendly Republicans run the state legislature and they are not interested in helping a large, urban, majority Black mass transit system in a large, majority Black city.
Americans are also wedded to their cars. Even as climate crisis intensifies and we should be driving less and doing everything possible to substantially reduce harmful carbon emissions, the American psyche just refuses to do that. Communities should be planned around mass transit systems versus the other way around; highways shouldn’t be expanded to accomodate, yet, more automobiles that only clog highways and choke air quality. Such systems should also be the answer to better worker mobility, particularly for low-income workers who struggle already and must now struggle more from the inability to travel to and from work. Mass transit should be the central mode of transportation for reasons that show more benefits than automobiles. Maybe if more policymakers rode them, it would make a big difference.