In the old days city bus systems were privately owned and operated on city streets via a “franchise” granted by the city for use of the streets. Privately owned bus systems were regulated by the Arizona Corporation Commission (ACC) as to rates and services.

For years Tucson had two bus systems…Tucson Rapid Transit that served the north and east sides, and Old Pueblo Transit, a company owned by the Laos family. Tucson bought out TRT and created its municipal bus service now called Sun Tran. The Laos family fought City takeover of their system.

In the 1970s the city got concerned about the differential in levels of service between what they offered to north and east side residents, and the less frequent service to the south side (mostly Hispanic) offered by Old Pueblo Transit.

City officials were also concerned that the equipment used by Old Pueblo Transit (smaller buses than the City operated) was sort of discriminatory to south side residents.

This was also a time when the federal government was making big grants to cities to buy new buses, and offering big subsidies to cities to operate their mass transit systems.

Tucson entered into a very innovative agreement with Old Pueblo Transit to buy “supplemental service” meaning if Old Pueblo only ran up and down 6th Avenue once an hour, Tucson agreed to pay to run the buses 3 extra times on that route, with the fares from the extra runs going into the City’s cash register.

Even though there is a state constitutional ban against a city subsidizing a public service corporation like Old Pueblo Transit (Article 9 Section 10 of the Arizona State Constitution) the courts agreed that the Tucson supplemental service agreement did not violate that limitation because it was the riders who benefited from the deal, not the owners of the private bus company.

I know all this because I was the Assistant City Attorney for Tucson who handled the City’s mass transit department, negotiated the “supplemental service deal” and represented Tucson in court to validate the agreement.

Tucson eventually bought out the Laos family’s system, and consolidated the municipal transit system under its ownership. That’s where the name for the Laos Transit Center on Irvington came from.

We also had a bus driver strike back then.

The deal where the City contracted out the management and operation of its bus system to a private company goes back to those days. Thus the bus drivers were not city employees, and could not negotiate directly with the City over their wages. Labor negotiations were the responsibility of the contract management company.

The Teamsters Union represented the bus drivers in the 1970’s strike, and failed to “reach around” the City’s contracted management company and get the City Council directly involved in the negotiations.

Jump forward a few decades and we had another bus driver strike which was not only about wages, but also about whether or not the City should continue to be directly responsible for the bus service, or turn it over to the new Regional Transportation Authority (RTA).

For a good discussion about the fuss between Tucson and the RTA read Three Sonorans post on the issue and the August 7 Arizona Daily Star article about the possible end of the bus strike.

With this background, here are some thoughts about the whole mass transit issue:

First, it seems to have always been the case that the majority of Tucson’s bus riders are “customers of need”…they don’t have cars and need the bus system to get to school or work or where ever. They are mostly lower income folks and kids. If you ever rode the 5/th/6th street bus in the morning you know about the kids.

Efforts to attract “customers of choice” meaning people who have cars but give them up in favor of mass transit has always been the goal of Tucson’s bus system, and every mass transit system in the country.

One of the elements of attracting “customers of choice” has been putting really nice new shiny buses on the ground so people will give up their cars and ride the bus.

How many of you have done that?

The reality is, especially in a massively sprawled urban area like Tucson, is that most people prefer their cars and the freedom that gives them to go hither and yon from one parking lot to another.

Second, mass transit is very much a function of land use density. Sprawl exists because of cars. Mass transit begins to work when land use densities are so high that cars become a liability…especially if there is no where to park them.

Not surprisingly, mass transit has worked the best in older cities that were designed and built before cars dominated the transportation system. You can live happily without a car in New York or Boston or DC. It is a pain in the ass to not have a car in Tucson.

Land use densities in the central parts of Tucson have been on the rise…fought tooth and nail by neighborhood associations who oppose urban densities. Folks want a mass transit system, but not the land use density that supports such systems. Buses are good as long as someone else rides them.

One idea, not so jokingly suggested, was to eliminate parking space requirements for all new development along mass transit routes. Developers would love to build on every square inch of land they own and get rid of parking space requirements now imposed by the City. The City could ask for a “contribution” towards the capital costs of the mass transit system for every parking space eliminated in a development…buy a bus instead of a parking space.

However, until and when Tucsonans are willing to accept much high land use densities along mass transit routes, the viability of the bus system will always be in question.

Third, oddly enough, the same people who refuse to ride a bus out of choice seem willing to ride trolleys and light rail systems. There is some kind of class system bias at work in that…but the fact remains is trolleys and light rail systems do attract more “customers of choice” in cities that have such systems.

The trolleys and light rail systems replace the buses, with the bus part of the system feeding the light rail hubs.

Take a look at what Phoenix and Valley cities are doing in building a massive light rail system in their urban area. Tucson sees itself as more progressive than Phoenix….but Tucson is light years away from developing a light rail system in our region.

Light rail also is a land use density-driven solution, with much higher density around the stations.

Fourth, the whole mass transit business is dominated by federal subsidies. When the day comes that federal subsidies dry up for mass transit, fares will obviously have to increase. Cities such as Tucson have become addicted to federal and state subsidy money to keep the busses rolling and fares artificially low. It will be hard for Tucson or anyone else to kick the habit of subsidized transit systems until they are cut off and have to go cold turkey and revise their business plans.

I frankly do not understand the fight between Tucson and the RTA over control of the bus system because neither one of these outfits will be able to keep the levels of service now being offered in the region and the current fare structure without massive taxpayer subsidies. The question to me is where the subsidies come from…federal grants or local taxpayer revenues.

It would obviously be very beneficial for Tucson to quit spending one penny of local taxpayer money to subsidize the bus system. But it is another thing to give up federal grant money, for which grantees like Tucson get “indirect cost” shares of the grant for running the city government. One could see where RTA would like to be sucking the teat of the federal grant system and getting the “indirect cost” share of the grants for their management.

Fifth, there is a power and control agenda here. Tucson pays the lion’s share of the subsidy to run the buses, but under the RTA approach it only has one vote, along with Marana, Oro Valley et al. The priorities for the towns and others are not the same as Tucson’s. Where would the buses run to under RTIA control….to city work centers and shopping centers that generate sales tax revenues to Tucson? Or to shopping enters in Marana or Oro Valley?

As with any regional intergovernmental deal, there is always a fight over who pays and who benefits. Tucson arguably should get the lion’s share of contol over the RTA if it generates the lion’s share of riders, revenues and pays for the subsidies. The enabling law for the RTA doesn’t allow that.

The RTA threat to cut off funding for the modern street car looks like the first shot in what will likely be a long and protracted battle over who controls what in the region. If nothing else, a great new topic for newspaper reporters and Citizen bloggers.

This entry was posted on Saturday, August 7th, 2010 at 5:41 am and is filed under tucson life and heritage. Tags for this post: bus service in Tucson, mass transit in tucson, RTA. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.