Okay questions for @mysteriousrook about transit from @RadioBoston … (thread)

1. Poftak: "when riders come back we can scale up."
Lyons: "We're not in charge of running a railroad."

If it's so scalable, then why hasn't the T changed bus run times since March? And why should we believe suddenly such scheduling will become a lean, quick process?

With congestion down, buses at rush hour are completing their routes in 1/2 to 2/3 of normal time in many cases. yet schedules weren't changed, so three, four or even five buses sit idly by at route termini.

So why this is suddenly an emergency at the agency when the T hasn't made these sorts of changes when they could have. And where was Poftak in June saying "if we run normal schedules, we will account for reduced congestion, and run just as much service with fewer vehicles?"

If the people who are have not made common sense changes to react to congestion, why should we trust that they are experts?

(Sidebar: before being appointed to his role by Baker, Poftak had minimal, if any, experience running a transit system. https://www.linkedin.com/in/steven-poftak-75a2a1/)

Lyons: "The cuts are informed by what is most needed and when."

Then, why are they proposing to fully cut weekend Commuter Rail, which has retained 45% of ridership (66 pax/train), and not weekday service, which has retained 15% (37 pax/train)?

"If my store doesn't have any customers, raising revenue from investors to stay open might not make sense. … We don't know that people are going to come back again."

But we you close up shop, you will lose all of your customers.

Further: the marginal cost of operating a store might be only a small proportion of the total cost. You pay rent, inventory, utilities, etc, whether you're open or not.

The same is the case for transit.

You may save some money not operating service, but still have to maintain the vehicles, rights-of-way and systems. You lose fare revenue. And when service returns, ridership winds up being lower anyway.

For instance, weekend Commuter Rail service.

Today: 14,000 riders per weekend (normally: 31k), ~$5m in revenue (normally $11m). Savings from cuts: $15m ($10m net)

Let's say you cut it for a year, and when it's reinstated only 75% of passengers return.

You've saved $5 to $10m (net, depending on what ridership would have been), but lose $2.5m per year going forwards. If it takes more than a couple of years to rebuild ridership, it's a bad value!

Unless … your goal is to cut weekend service forever. In which case, yeah, it would make sense. Which is why the T has massaged the numbers in the past to try: http://ariofsevit.com/apb/2015/12/09/the-profitable-capeflyer-innovation-or/.