Another Trolley Dustup in Mt. Airy
We in Mt. Airy have been having one of our periodic dust-ups with SEPTA. Without giving us any warning SEPTA covered over the trolley tracks on a few blocks of Germantown Avenue. To add insult to injury, they did this right in front of our local eatery, the Trolley Car Diner. SEPTA argued that this was the most efficient way to fix the road bed around the tracks, whose deterioration has lead to a number of accidents in the last few years.
When SEPTA covered over the trolley tracks, many of us in the Northwest got upset because we want our trolley back on Route 23, which was once the longest trolley line in America and, perhaps, the world.
When buses replaced the trolley SEPTA committed itself to eventually bringing the trolley back. (That same commitment recently led to the restoration of the route 15 / Girard Avenue trolley). SEPTA argued that this section of the road was slated for rebuilding by PennDOT in the next year or so, anyway and that the tracks would be restored then. This is not an implausible claim and many folks might have been willing to accept it if SEPTA had made it before acting precipitously. But, as happens far too often, even when SEPTA has a good case to make, its failure to do community outreach makes it look like a bad guy.
Why We Transit Activists Love Trolleys
The dispute has reignited the whole question of when are we going to get our trolley back? There are a lot of transit activists in Mt. Airy and elsewhere who love trolleys much more than buses. The carrying capacity and throughput of trolleys is much higher for a given investment in equipment than it is for buses. Trolleys are more costly initially but last so much longer than buses that they are cheaper over the long term. If the trolleys are well designed and the track well maintained, the ride on a trolley is much smoother than on a bus. (I can’t read in buses. I can read on a trolley. I would happily read a book riding up and down the new / old Route 15 Trolley on Girard Avenue.) Trolleys are much more energy efficient than buses. Riders who flock to trolleys avoid buses. (Ridership fell far more dramatically on the Route 23 / Germantown Avenue line when buses replaced the trolley than it did on comparable bus routes). And tourists really love trolleys. (If you are like me, you avoid buses when visiting a strange city. You never know where a bus is going to wind up unless you read the fine print on a map. Trolleys and subways stick to their fixed rail.)
Why SEPTA Doesn’t Love Trolleys
So why doesn’t SEPTA love trolleys, too? Why have they been reluctant to bring back the trolley on route 23?
The basic problem is that what is rational for the region is not necessarily rational for SEPTA. SEPTA does not pay for the infrastructure for buses—the wear and tear on our roads. PennDOT and the city pay for that wear and tear. And the cost is very substantial. Heavy buses are just killers on the road bed. But SEPTA does pay for the infrastructure for trolleys—the maintenance of the track. Moreover, even if the rolling stock for trolleys is less expensive in the long run than buses, SEPTA has the difficulty of finding money for the upfront costs. So it is financially sensible for SEPTA to keep the buses on Route 23 even if there would be more riders if the trolley were restored and despite the economic and environmental advantages of trolleys.
Now what should we expect our chronically under-funded transit agency, SEPTA, to do in this situation? Should it sink more of its money into trolleys rather than buses? Since that means absorbing more infrastructure costs while living within a fixed budget, the ultimate result will be that SEPTA has to cut back on other services. Is that what we really want?
What We Really Want: Rational Transit Funding and Trolleys
What we really want, I think, is not only adequate transit funding from state but a new funding formula that builds in the incentives for SEPTA and other transit agencies to use forms of transit that are rational in the broader sense. SEPTA and other transit agencies should be given more funding when it increases ridership on trains and trolleys and thereby reduces wear and tear on roads. That would give SEPTA an incentive to run trolleys rather than buses and to do the sorts of things that might encourage more commuters to use our rail and trolley lines and fewer of them to use our roads. We also might be able to justify using the gas tax for transit on these grounds.
I could write lots more on how to get more people on trains and trolleys and will do so soon. To begin with, we should start putting wi-fi access on trains and trolleys. This is done in Europe now.