 |
| Photo: ridemetro.org |
METRO announced they will give free rides to the voting booths for the 2022 midterm election. The League of Women Voters is partnering with METRO to offer rides to polling locations across the Houston area for registered voters on certain dates. METRO says voters can ride at no charge on METRORail, local buses, METRORapid, curb2curb, and METROLift paratransit services.My favorite part of that report is this:These free rides will be available the first week of early voting from Oct. 24 – Oct. 30, 2022, and on Election Day on Nov. 8, 2022.
METRO says voters only need to tell the bus drivers and/or fare inspectors they are going to or returning from the polls.
In other words, you could get free rides all day on November 8, 2022 if you simply told the driver that you're on your way to vote. They had to take riders at their word, apparently, since they didn't require anyone to show their Texas Voter Registration Certificate — and even if someone did, it doesn't mean they hadn't already voted, intended to vote, or that the certificate was even theirs.
So for two days in November, Houston METRO gave away ALL of its fare revenue. And here's a dirty little secret: They don't care. In fact, METRO seems to dislike money.
Here is what METRO says (image) about its offerings of free fares:
 |
| https://www.ridemetro.org/Pages/FareDiscountedFare.aspx# |
No problem there, right? Who would argue against helping kids, the disabled, jurors doing their civic duty, or seniors? Only the heartless.
BUT THERE IS A BIGGER PROBLEM with the way METRO regards money. Or funding, or subsidies, or whatever you want to call it. Apart from many drivers giving homeless people free rides regularly, they actually turn down money.
Well, not all money. Just money they would have to earn. I'm specifically referring to their very long history of allowing commercial advertising on their buses and trains. While just about every other city in the world gets paid good money for ads on their public transit vehicles, METRO thinks a commercial promo on the side of a bus would make Houston less attractive. Let me point out that the first word in "business" is "bus." But METRO's overlords are not the only ones scared to death of a Coca-Cola ad on the side of a bus.
Take Ed Wulfe, for example, who wrote an absurd (in my opinion) op-ed in the Houston Chronicle back in 2013. In his piece, "If buses become rolling billboards, city's image will suffer," Wulfe nervously wrote that Houston's very reputation would be sacrificed:
It is difficult for a city to obtain a positive image - and very easy to lose it. Our commitment to quality of life and quality of place is paramount and cannot be compromised. Houston cannot afford to sacrifice more than three decades of remarkable progress by allowing rolling billboards across our city, on our thoroughfares, through our parks and in our neighborhoods.
Good lord, really? Does Ed Wulfe think that the quality of life in Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, Milwaukee, Phoenix, Miami, or hundreds of other cities across North America, Europe, Africa, South America and Asia declined because of advertising on the sides of their buses? Are people like Ed Wulfe blind to the already billboard-and-sign-rich environment that is Houston? Do they hate commerce? Are they just control freaks? I'll never understand their fear and loathing of something so useful and so harmless.
 |
| The first word in business is "bus" |
When I first moved to Houston nine and half years ago from Chicago, I almost immediately noticed the complete lack of commercial advertising on the buses. The only placards on board are non-commercial, almost exclusively from METRO itself, telling riders such things as it's against the law to assault a driver (duh), multilingual info about contacting police (that's cool), telling us that there's free WiFi on board, and so on. I was baffled.
This annoyed me. Let's be honest: Even if you find ads to be annoying, you must admit that many can be informative. Being new to the city, ads for restaurants and stores would have been helpful to me. But commercial ads on buses and trains would also help the local economy. After all, there are agencies that place those ads, and they employ people. Advertising helps drive customers (no pun intended) to businesses, thus increasing their profitability. With more businesses that are profitable, more people can either be hire or retain their existing jobs. And so on. You probably get the picture.But the leadership of METRO turn their collective ("collectivist?") noses up at such revenue opportunities. In late September, 2022 it was reported that METRO had "adopted the largest budget in its history for FY 2022-23, totaling nearly $1.8 billion. The budget, approved by METRO during its Sept. 22 board meeting, addresses rising operations costs and includes a slew of capital improvements with a 38% hike from last year’s $1.3 billion budget." [Emphasis mine]
A 38 percent hike (half a billion dollars) to cover "rising operating costs?" Inflation right now is about 8 percent, nowhere near 38 percent. Whatever. I'm not writing this give a detailed analysis of their budget which, being run by quasi-government authoritarians, is probably full of waste and mismanagement. Legal disclaimer: It didn't say it is, I'm opining that it probably is.
In August, 2022 it was reported that "The Federal Transit Administration awarded METRO $21.6 million to purchase 20 new electric buses and charging infrastructure. The project was estimated to cost $25.2 million, according to agenda documents from a May 19 METRO Finance & Audit Committee meeting." [Emphasis mine]
Keep that $25.2 million figure in mind. Shortly after moving to Houston, I phoned METRO's offices and asked someone why they don't take advertising on buses, trains, bus shelters and train stations. The answer shocked me. "We don't need it," I was told.
"What do you mean, you don't need it?" I asked, adding, "even if you have enough now why not make extra money for any future need?"
"It's just not something we want to do," they said. I thank them for their time and hung up. That was nine years ago, and the response still blows my mind.
About that $25.2 million figure...
The Chicago Transit Authority (CTA) has long had adverts on its trains, buses, stations, and shelters. They're not only informative, but a lot of riders enjoy them. Many are entertaining and become the topics of conversations and social media posts. The sourpusses at METRO would be horrified, but Chicagoans (and New Yorkers and city dwellers worldwide) generally either don't mind them or find the commercial adverts to be amusing and even informative.
In the same report, CTA also noted that "Revenue from non-farebox sources—such as advertising, concessions and charters—helps CTA hold the line on fares and maintain service levels. Digital outdoor advertising on CTA has proven very popular with advertisers, including newer additions to CTA’s outdoor advertising options, including the large format video wall at Clark/Lake in downtown Chicago and 21 interactive digital screens located at select pilot locations across the system. Over the course of its 12-year partnership with Intersection (formerly known as Titan), CTA ad revenues increased from $17.2 million in 2010 to at least $32.4 million in 2019."
That 2019 five-year CTA contract included this:
- $204.6 million in shared revenues, with $187 million guaranteed to CTA
- $30.3 million in capital investment in new digital screens by Intersection
- $12.6 million investment in software upgrades to run digital advertising screens that also display customer information.
But METRO of Houston/Harris County say they "don't need" that kind of money. While $247 million is a fraction of METRO's FY 2022-23 budget of nearly $1.8 billion, it's not a small fraction. It's nearly 14 percent, or approximately one seventh (1/7), of the new budget. That's nothing to sneeze at, and as shown above, it would be enough to buy 200 electric buses for METRO. That would be like a person earning $100,000 per year happily turning down an easy additional income of nearly $14,000. No rational person would do that.
Like any public transit system, METRO has to maintain its system. They also want to expand it. As noted earlier, METRO's FY 2022-23 is almost $1.8 billion. Coincidentally, CTA's budget is virtually the same amount;
For fiscal year 2023, the CTA is proposing a $1.8 billion operating budget that keeps fares at their current levels, maintains the agency’s commitment to improving service, and continues important investments to upgrade and modernize the system.
It must be noted that Chicago's public transit system faces far more challenges (in my opinion) than METRO does. Houston does not have a subway or an elevated rail system. Instead, it has some light rail trams that cover a very, very small part of Houston and doesn't even extend beyond the city's borders. Chicago not only has a much larger rail system, but much of that includes underground tunnels — one of which runs underneath the Chicago River. And, of course, CTA has buses. More buses, in fact, than Houston has.
- Chicago's CTA has 1,864 buses. CTA daily weekday ridership is well over 1.5 million (as of 2016). Source
- METRO has fewer than 1,400 buses (and it's much more spread out than Chicago, meaning more are desperately needed). METRO has a daily ridership of only about 188,200 (weekdays, Q2 2022). Source
Some people call Houston "Space City," LOL. But they still haven't mastered twentieth century ground transportation. And don't even get me started on the sidewalks here.
RELATED:
- Metro: No Ads On Buses, Despite (Or Because Of) Tough Economic Times - Wayback Machine
- TOP 10 UGLIEST CITIES IN THE WORLD - ucityguides
- Houston: Ugliest City In The First World - Houstonia Magazine
- Top 7 Ads Using Public Transit - Medium.com
No comments:
Post a Comment
Thanks for commenting! Keep it classy.