Now isn't this kind of a major untruth? Since transit never makes any money to begin with and they provide FREE transportation in the downtown area how could they have lost money by providing the FREE transportation after the riots and the loss of ridership downtown DURING the riots?

How much money can you lose when you don't charge anything to begin with?

And if there WERE paying customers, wouldn't they just have lost a little more moeny than the usual daily loss?

Or since they were unable to put buses on the regular routes..didn't they SAVE money by not having the expense normally associated with routes?

-- maddjak (maddjak@hotmail.com), January 11, 2000

Answers

The losses came from providing service TO the downtown area for free. You know, the routes that begin outside the ride-free zone in which riders do have to pay. It was an effort to help the downtown merchants recover some of their losses during the riots.

The losses during the riots also came from paying routes servicing the downtown area that were canceled, AND from having to pay metro drivers overtime to transport the hundreds of people arrested during the riots to the various detention locations.

-- Patrick (patrick1142@yahoo.com), January 11, 2000.

Actually, when you lose money on every transaction, cancellations don't really have to hurt you. The issue really is the MARGINAL costs associated with transit. They shouldn't have needed to put people on overtime, the drivers for the cancelled routes were more than enough to offset transport of a few hundred demonstrators. But since the bus drivers got paid even though the routes were cancelled (not criticizing, ain't some poor transit worker's fault that the mayor is dumb as a box of rocks), there was little real cost avoidance in not running the bus lines. That means that even the piddling little percent of the operating expenses that weren't collected were indeed a net loss.

"It was an effort to help the downtown merchants recover some of their losses during the riots. " Now THIS is an interesting concept since it is a direct donation from a government organization to benefit private businesses. Again, I have sympathy for the businesses, ain't some poor businessman's fault that the mayor is dumb as a box of rocks. Just not sure that this is legal, and if it is, at what point you draw the line.

-- Mark Stilson (mark842@hotmail.com), January 12, 2000.

"....the mayor is dumb as a box of rocks"

He's a wuss, too!

-- (zowie@hotmail.com), January 12, 2000.