Gas prices are dropping. I'm guessing these ridership gains may not be sustained

Some will go back to their cars but I'd be surprised if not a majority of new riders stay on mass transit.

The trend definitely seems to be on the side of mass transit. For reasons ranging from environmental, road overloading to weening off our dependence on foreign oil. Price is a huge part of the whole equation but not the only one.

^ I think once people get past that barrier of unfamiliarity with mass transit they're more likely to continue to use it. I mean, it's not like gas still isn't expensive. Still, it'll take a drastic and sustained increase to really push ridership numbers (and, consequently, pressure on the pols) up to where we want them to be...

on Urb's point about gas prices I am also a bit concerned. It is such a catch 22. When the economy gets bad you are likely to have lower gas prices and when the world economy (and likely U.S. economy by extension) are good they prices will tend to be higher. Pick your poison I guess. I liked Thomas Friedmans idea about setting a price floor for gas though as a solution. Otherwise prices are just seem to volatile to set macro policies and initiative solutions around.

http://www.charlierose.com/guests/thomas-friedman
@ 15:00 min. in

^ The fine print about the new HOT lanes:

It's essentially raising tolls. (cheaper lanes get more congested b/c there are fewer of them, thus more and more people are tempted to use the HOT, thus paying higher tolls. The HOT lanes eventually get more congested but remain just a little bit LESS congested than the regular lanes, enough to continue to attract drivers who pay the higher prices.) And yes, I'm sure it will encourage at least a percentage of people to carpool.

I'm glad Chicagoland is finally doing this. It certainly has the congestion in place to justify it.

One other note:

High gas prices are also partly the reason why Metra couldn't afford to increase frequency of services, etc. Perhaps the lowering of gas prices will finally open a window to make that possible?

Of course not! :)

prices aren't set by the conditions of the economy. Instead, they are loosely set by OPEC by calculating a risk/reward scenerio by dictating amount of production. I'm sure the clout oil companies have on government in the U.S. is also a point of negotiating the final price.

So, at what point does the price of oil encourage a society to really challenge how we pursue future energy policies? Current trends have pushed to see where those boundaries lie.

I disagree with Thomas Friedman and especially with the idea that price floors are necessary since crude prices are too volatile to set macro policy. Friedman's approach deceptively makes sense, but in reality it is a highly oversimplistic view of the market. It also relies on the fact that 90%+ of the American public has never heard of futures and has no understanding of basic economics.

Most institutional users, including airlines and bus fleets, buy gas futures for the exact reason that they do not want to deal with the volatility of gas prices. Further, macro policy is long term and is therefore based on aggregate data. A renewable energy startup surely doesn't rely on day to day crude price changes in their financial models. In addition, the volatility Friedman is talking about is just as great, if not greater, with every other commodity, including gold, corn, and every other raw material in the world. Policy makers don't seem to have a problem setting macro policy with regard to every other issue in the world and startups don't seem to have any problems adjusting. So why with oil?

Friedman's issue is he sees energy startups spring up when prices are high (every summer) only to fold when they are lower (every winter). Of course in reality, the startups will have to be able to compete long term with oil without massive subsidies if they are to have a chance anyway. So Friedman is simply asking the public to subsidize the less efficient and less necessary startups with the most inefficient and regressive subsidy possible.

How is a price floor a subsidy? I suppose the reduced gas sales and increased supply will lead to a loss of tax revenue for the government, but it's not exactly like the government is spending money to support an unprofitable business.

^ It sets a minimum floor price at which gas producers have to sell their gas. So producers aren't forced to price compete and are able to take profits that resemble those of a monopolist rather than an actor in a competitive market. It also results in excess supply of gas, or surplus, that gets pumped and refined but not sold since too many producers are willing to produce at price levels higher than the equilibrium. So producers are taking higher profits, consumers are paying more, and we got a surplus of product.

I think a lot of people are trying out mass transit and realizing that Chicago will become colder than a witch's tit pretty soon here, and will go back to their cars rather than standing outside in arctic weather. I started taking transit again two weeks ago because it just made sense to me and I already have a bad cold unfortunately from standing outside in the cold mornings, which is not good when you are a doctor. This cold weather is only going to get worse. It would be different if the El system was all underground but it is well exposed to perhaps one of the coldest cities on earth.

On the subject of "price flooring" to help out gas price volatility, isn't that why companies buy futures in the first place?

Edit: Marcu already said it.

^ As far as the trains are concerned, most if not all outdoor stations have heat lamps.

Also, transit ridership is usually measured as year-over-year, since both routes and systems have their own cyclical variations. It gets cold every winter, so that alone probably wouldn't account for much of a year-over-year decline in ridership unless it's unseasonably cold/awful, which has little to do with oil prices or CTA service.

I doubt the heat lamps are working yet. And the bus stops are of course the majority of public transit stops in Chicago.

This has nothing to do with year on year changes... it has to do with the new condition of higher gas prices, a one-time event, i.e., an unexpected new variable, leading people to try out rapid transport. Moreover, you use the year on year statistical perspective to obscure the fact that one reason for the low popularity of public transit in Chicago is the inconvenience or hardship of using it in the winter.

Your persistence in denying or explaining away any criticism of public transit is ultimately counterproductive. You do not engage the real-life, practical experience of transit users; your arguments seem to come out of a bureaucratic void. For transit to catch on, we have to do better than this. Instead of your PR-like, "Oh, there are heat lamps"--if whyhuhwhy is a doctor, one should give him credit for having tried out the heat lamps--the more productive answer would be, "Yes, the elevated el stations are exposed to wind because often they are open to the elements. The el platforms should be shielded from the outside, as they are on above-ground lines in Asia... this is unfeasible in Chicago because of X and Y, and this is what we should try to change."

Actually, they are working already, the ones on at red line for sure were on last night. Its unusually early for them to be on, but sure enough they were...

A retrofit program would be quite expensive, but building all new aboveground stations with a system of platform doors would eliminate this problem, and make platform heating possible. For example, I would like to see the new Morgan, 18th, and Cermak stations built with platform doors. These stations, because they are surrounded by mostly 1 and 2-story buildings, would receive quite a bit of wind. Also, the stations with roofs, like upper Clark/Lake or Merchandise Mart, would be relatively cheap to retrofit with platform doors.

Also, if the North Main Line ever gets rebuilt like the Brown Line was, it too should have these installed.

Or, what about much cheaper measures, like wind-breaks? A plexiglass wall on the outside edges of the platform would cut down quite a bit of wind.

That's exactly what I had in mind...

Are there any station platforms that don't already have clear acrylic windbreaks?

A price floor would decrease profits by decreasing the quantity demanded. They would still have to compete with each other; producers have to compete at any price unless they have more market power. A price floor would not necessarily increase any producer's market power and would not increase profits to producers.

I'm not trying to be difficult. I think my 1000+ rides annually on CTA (not to mention the many transit trips taken while traveling) give me plenty of perspective to critique CTA service. I just don't see how winter this year will impact ridership any more than winter does any other year.

I'll give your point a shot, though. One of the problems with the heat lamps at rail stations is that they're so high. On the coldest days (e.g. <20F) they are too high to adequately provide warmth for people standing on the platform below - at a few stations there's a bench nearby that people inevitably wind up standing upon to get closer to the heat. In Chicago, this is necessary because if the heat lamps are reachable by hand, the heating element and metal grating will be stolen instantly, just like anything else that isn't bolted/welded down (and bolting only works if you use an obscure drive type e.g. Torq/Torx and apply enough tightening force that machine power is necessary to unbolt it). Between the theft risk and the maintenance involved, this is also why heat lamps are unfeasible at bus shelters, though I could imagine it's the type of idiosyncracy Daley could latch onto and have installed at downtown shelters.

Getting back to this topic, Metra actually will be increasing service... by adding three roundtrips on Saturdays on the SWS line. Half funded by Metra, and half by additional discretionary funds from RTA.