FTA response blames M’s, wants you to go screw yourself
From the FTA, if you can manage to get their broken contact form to work.
Answer: Thanks for taking the time to share your
comments. The Federal Transit Administration (FTA) has
received a number of questions and comments concerning the
Seattle Mariners’ 2009 baseball season bus service. A lot of
these comments have come from an article published recently
in a local paper that mistakenly gives the impression that
FTA “banned” the service.
I don’t know why they’d think that. Crazy people. The FTA just enacted a regulation that made it cost prohibitive for the M’s to continue. That’s not banning it.
FTA drafted the charter regulation in response to a request
from Congress. There was a charter regulation in existence
prior to the current one that was vague, specifically when
it came to the definition of charter service. The current
charter regulation is the result of over a year’s worth of
work consulting, and negotiating with members of both
private charter companies and public transit agencies. The
result was a rule that provides clear guidelines for the
first time in 30 years, aimed at helping public transit
agencies and private charter companies figure out who is in
the best position to provide bus service for such events
conveniently, efficiently, and economically.
Do you think Metro, or anyone, signed off on this? Really? All the public transit authorities in the country were just begging the FTA “please, please, we can’t figure out what to do with ourselves, or how we can best serve our communities! Ban us from doing anything that’s not strictly scheduled, for the love of God!”
And remember how horrible life was under the previous, vague regulation. Has everyone erased their memories of the Greyhound-Sound Transit War of 2006, when buses armed with technicals ran wild through the city, the air filled with the smell of gunpowder and the chatter of small arms? When the bus barn looked like this?
pictures from an armed convoy trip in Mogadishu, ctsnow
Thank goodness that horrible time is over.
The regulation, in part, protects private bus companies
from having to compete unfairly with federally funded public
operators-a long-standing point of contention. As cities
across the country gear up for their summer festivals and
concerts, many have already successfully adjusted to the
rule. Transit agencies, in turn, are better able to focus on
their core mission-providing high quality, timely, bus
service-without sacrificing any of the services riders
expect from them on regular fixed routes.
Good of them to explain what a transportation agency’s core mission is for us.
I thought Metro’s mission was
Provide the best possible public transit services that get people on the bus and improve regional mobility and quality of life in King County.
Like, say, low-cost public transport to special events downtown.
During the negotiations on the charter rule a concern was
raised about unmet needs several times. As a result, there
are different measures in the current charter regulation
that work to prevent unmet needs, including petitioning FTA
for an exception for an event of regional or national
significance, hardship, or time sensitive events, as well as
an option for transit agency to send out notices for service
they are interested in providing. All of these tools work
together to ensure that a transit agency can work with
private operators to prevent unmet service needs.
Uh huh, uh huh. Except that clearly they do not work, since we don’t have shuttle service any more despite Metro and the Mariners both wanting to provide it.
Organizations like the Seattle Mariners are free to
contract with local companies to provide shuttle service to
baseball games. If an organization chooses not to spend
money to ensure their fans can get to games quickly and
efficiently, then the call that fans should really make is
to the organization–not the Federal government. While we
stand at the ready to explain the regulation, we cannot
explain why the Seattle Mariners organization chooses to
leave its fans out in the cold, while other sports
organization gladly spend the dollars to ensure fans have
easy access to games (the Washington Nationals pay for
shuttle service for its fans, as do the Baltimore Ravens, as
well as many others). In the end, the Seattle Mariners
baseball organization made the business decision to not
provide its fans with shuttle service this year.
Wow. Was there no ASCII art middle finger they could have included in the email?
This is, and let’s just call it what it is, a big fuck-you to anyone who writes them, and whoever came up with this answer should be ashamed of themselves.
The M’s ran, for ten years, a lovely little program with Metro which provided shuttle bus service which was cheap, convenient, got people who might not use public transit a nice introduction, and helped everyone.
As the result of this Bush regulation, they can’t. So they went to Starline, which quoted them a price hundreds of thousands of dollars more. The M’s decided not to foot that bill — which is totally understandable.
So we’re supposed to blame the M’s because the FTA wants to ban Metro from providing extra off-schedule bus service?
I don’t understand, frankly, why anyone could possibly support this. From a common-sense perspective, the service was good for the M’s, it was good for Metro, it was good for traffic. From a free-market perspective, first, why does the FTA get to decide if it’s best for Seattle to hamstring this kind of service? Why not let an existing infrastructure provide a more efficient service, “freeing up” Skyline to do whatever it is they do when they’re not lobbying. And why blame the M’s for making that business decision? And on and on and on
Unless otherwise specified, this message is being sent by
an individual employee in an effort to provide a rapid
response to an email inquiry and may not represent official
FTA or DOT policy. Individuals seeking formal
determinations or opinions are invited to submit their
requests in writing to the agency.
Oh, I will.
Federal Transit Administration
Office of Communications & Congressional Affairs
East Building, 5TH Floor
1200 New Jersey Ave SE
Washington, DC 20590
Update: Much of that FTA response, if you’re curious, is indeed stock, recycled from James Simpson’s May 27 2008 letter to the Washington Post, helpfully found here. Simpson’s a 2006 appointee and came from… wait for it… “an international transportation company.”
Some Thoughts From Week One
Based on my observations of the team from the first week, as well as my observations of the reactions of others to those same events.
1. Perhaps the best thing to come out of week one was the Endy Chavez Small Sample Size Hot Streak. Going into the season, the only people who were remotely excited about the idea of a slap-hitting no power guy in left field were the nerds who have been advocating for the undervaluation of defense in prior years. Had Chavez started the year 3 for 30, the public sentiment would have shifted fairly strongly to LF being some sort of Griffey/Balentien combo, and Wakamatsu would have had his preference for defense challenged pretty quickly.
However, Endy’s single-fest has made it fairly simple for Wak to tell Junior “look, you’re great and all, but I can’t bench the guy who hits .380 and plays great defense – you want to win, right?” So, it’s made the Junior-as-DH plan a lot easier to pitch to both Griffey and the fan base, and that’s only good news for the team. In the long run, there’s probably no more important roster decision that needs to be made than keeping Griffey off the field as much as possible, and the Endy Chavez hot streak helped make that more realistic.
However, it’s apparently also given some people the idea that Endy Chaez isn’t a lousy hitter. No one’s advocated for Chavez more than I, but we have to be realistic in our expectations – Endy Chavez is a terrible hitter. That hasn’t changed just because he won a bunch of coin flips. He has a batting average on balls in play of .407 – his career mark is .297. That’s not skill – that’s good luck. He’s finding holes, and while I love that he’s finding holes, there’s absolutely no reason for anyone to think that this represents some kind of new expectation for his offensive performance level. He’s the worst hitter on the team (okay, he might be better than Rob Johnson), and he should hit as low in the order as possible when Ichiro is healthy. This idea that he should hit 2nd to “ride the hot streak” assumes that hot streaks are predictive, and it’s been proven that they aren’t. Thank the world for its gift of a good offensive week from Chavez, move him to the #9 hole, and keep trying to win games.
2. The bullpen posted a 2.37 ERA last week, but it was the scariest 2.37 ERA of all time. Their combined walk rate was 5.21 and 40% of their balls in play were outfield fly balls, so even while they got some key outs and held almost all of their leads, they didn’t exactly pitch well. I’m as big a David Aardsma fan as anyone, but let’s not kid ourselves – he was no relief ace this weekend. Pounding the upper half of the strike zone with four seam fastballs when you don’t have a great idea of where it’s going isn’t exactly going to make you the new Mariano Rivera.
This bullpen is remarkably interesting, but also still a pretty real concern in the short term. The idea of collecting a bunch of live arms and sorting them out as the season goes on is a good way to build a bullpen, but inherent in the assumption is that some guys will be pretty bad in the process of sorting themselves out of the equation. Those bad outings are going to hurt the team, and if the team keeps playing close games, those implosions are going to occur in high leverage outings, which is going to lead to losses for the club.
What we have right now is a bunch of guys pitching at similar levels, which is the exact opposite of sorting things out. When Tyler Johnson comes off the DL, who goes away to open up a roster spot? Corcoran was the last guy to make the team out of spring training, but he was also pretty good last year and has a terrific sinker that makes him a useful situational reliever. This team needs a LH reliever, though, and with a lot of options for RH specialists, maybe he’s the guy who loses out, but it’s not an obvious call one way or another.
While we’re talking about the bullpen, we have to talk about Wak’s usage so far. Yesterday, he brought Aardsma in to replace Bedard with Giambi/Holliday/Cust due up. He took out an LHP and brought in an RHP with two LH hitters due up in a one run game. If McLaren had done this, I’d have flipped out and gone on some long rant about platoon adantages, but I didn’t. This either reflects on a bias that I have that is interfering with my ability to cover this team objectively or reflects a built up trust in Wakamatsu’s intellect that creates a benefit-of-the-doubt that didn’t exist with prior managers. I guess it’s up to you to decide whether that benefit-of-the-doubt is a bias or is built on a reality that our new management team actually knows what they’re doing.
3. There’s a remarkable amount of wisdom in not extrapolating from early season results – way too many wrong conclusions have been drawn from small sample size data and a lack of understanding of the variability in performance in narrow time spans. My Endy Chavez paragraph up above is based on the premise that luck can be a massive factor in the results of 30 plate appearances. However, some things stabilize faster than others, just due to physical limitations in abilities. Endy Chavez can hit .400 for a little while, but he can’t slug five home runs in a week. He’s just not strong enough.
Likewise, flyball pitchers can’t run up 60% GB rates and bad pitchers can’t post exceptional BB/K rates. Even though it’s only 13 innings, Bedard’s 15/1 K rate suggests that he posseses an ability that guys like Carlos Silva don’t have. You will never see a Carlos Silva-level pitcher run a 15/1 K/BB rate in 13 innings. Last year, guys like me who are constantly warning about small sample sizes whiffed on Cliff Lee despite an amazing April where he pitched like Johan Santana. When we see extremely good or bad performances in the true outcome categories, we need to give them some amount of real credit. You can say “it’s only two starts” all you want, but that doesn’t change the fact that Erik Bedard has established a level of ability that he simply didn’t have last year. That should be exciting to you.
Stone with Ichiro
Construction and Mariner game traffic
Hey, if you’re thinking about driving into the game todaytomorrow, here’s some handy DOT info about the construction (SR519 link) Read more
M’s and Nintendo expand Fan Network features
I’m a big fan of what Nintendo’s attempts with the Fan Network. My expectations aren’t that high, and I’m a little concerned about having fans at the games watching tiny LCDs instead of the event before them. But man, some of the stuff they’re fooling around with is really, really cool. Check out this Kotaku write-up.
Minor League Wrap (4/9-12/09)
From the shores of the Pacific Coast League (where applicable), to the chilly Midwest, this is your weekly Minor League Wrap-Up.
I’m still trying to nail down a form for these to take, so we’re still in the experimental phase. I’ll try to keep going with most of the features where applicable, but in certain cases, I won’t be including every feature. The news clippings, for example, don’t work if the press is especially spotty. It’s pretty ambitious on the whole. We’ll see how long it can stay that way.
To the jump!
Read more
Bush reg, feds end Metro special service to games
Absolutely outrageous. Here’s the Times article.
So the Bush administration put in this amazingly horrible regulation that public transportation agencies can’t (can’t) operate a charter like Metro has if there are private operators who can. Can’t compete… can’t operate. And, as I pointed out last time we talked about this, the way they did it meant that any moron with a school bus could claim they could serve the games and Metro would be entirely barred from trying.
The Seahawks already got hosed over this.
This is a great thing the M’s have done for ten years, and I love them for it. And now it’s dead. The M’s got a waiver last year. But now you’re screwed, because they can’t, soooo… So let’s talk about how this regulation’s working out.
The Mariners say Starline’s costs would have been around $15-20 per passenger. Fares would have paid $5 and the team would have paid $300,000 or more to defray the rest, Hale said.
Last season, the team got a temporary waiver from the Federal Transit Administration (FTA) to hire Metro, which charged $3 a ride, while the Mariners paid a $159,000 subsidy, said Hale.
That’s great! So Metro can provide cheaper service to fans and to the M’s, but they can’t. Because they’re barred from doing so. Oh, but here’s the money quote.
Starline argues that if Metro were to charge for its full costs, including the buses themselves, the bill would be much higher than what Starline seeks.
“The Mariners want the taxpayer to pay for it,” said Gillis.
Screw you.
This is the whole point of public transportation. The system’s in place. The incremental cost for Metro, which has buses, drivers, maintenance, and all that infrastructure in place is low. For Starline, which has to pay people like Chief Executive Gladys Gillis to make objectivist arguments about the societal cost of bus systems, it’s higher.
Unless the choice is “abolish Metro and have the smoking remains bid against charter providers” the clear and obvious winner of that competition is Metro. And because of this ridiculous reg, and the Obama administration’s baffling decision here, now everyone loses.
And it just got a lot harder to go to games — Hale said that shuttles served 300-500 last year, but here’s the thing: the shuttles provide greater value the higher attendance becomes. If there’s four people going to the game, it doesn’t hurt congestion downtown if they drive or not. But the more people and cars we try and stuff in, it doesn’t get +1 annoying for +1 driver, it quickly becomes +2 annoying, +3, and on and on. The shuttles are a huge, huge help there. I’d love to see numbers on how many people were taking them every day in 2001, for instance.
Write the FTA via this form.
Write your Senators (Cantwell, Murray)
Write your Congresscritter (don’t know who they are? hit the “find your representative” link at upper left)
Game 7, Mariners-A’s
Wrapping up the road trip, going for the sweep of the division rival. Bedard v. Cahill.
Three more days until Ichiro’s back.
DMZ adds: another rookie starter for Oakland, which is another great reason to tune in. Cahill’s a rightie and a second-round pick (by the A’s!)
M’s lineup:
LF-L Chavez
CF-R Gutierrez
RF-L Griffey (come back Ichiro!)
3B-R Beltre
1B-L Branyan
DH-R Sweeney
2B-R Lopez
C-R Johnson
SS-R Cedeno
Oakland:
RF-L Sweeney
SS-R Cabrera
1B-L Giambi
LF-R Holliday
3B-L Chavez
C-R Suzuki
2B-R Ellis
CF-R Davis
Just Curious
4-2 without Ichiro and with Morrow having his spring training in April. Bedard looking completely healthy in his first start. The outfield defense living up to their advanced billing. Junior drawing walks and hitting homers off of LHPs. The middle relievers slamming the door in close games.
The first six games couldn’t have gone much better for the M’s. There’s a pretty good chance they head into their first day off at 5-2, and look at adding Ichiro to a first place roster.
I’m curious to see how long it takes Seattle to get excited about this team. There was so much cynicism about the M’s ownership, and expectations were low heading into the season. How long do they have to play well until people start to realize that they may have underestimated this group?
A week isn’t long enough, obviously. But what if they’re still in first place at the end of April? At what point do the people who thought this team would win 70 games say “hey, you know, they aren’t bad”?
Felix Day
Game 6, Mariners at Athletics, 1:05.
LF – Chavez
CF – Ferguson
DH – Sweeney
3B – Beltre
1B – Branyan
RF – Balentien
C – Johjima
2B – Cedeno
SS – Betancourt
Thankfully, Griffey sits against the lefthander.