elpasospeak

The Times reported recently that motorists are not using toll tags on our first toll lane as officials had expected.

Of the 153 thousand or so usages of the toll lane, the vast majority of drivers have chosen to pay via mail.  That option costs them twice as much as using the pre-paid toll tag.

The toll lane has two price points.  Yarbrough Drive costs 40 cents per trip with a toll tag and 80 cents by mail.  Fonseca Drive price points are 90 cents and $1.80.

Get your toll tag here

Toll tags can be purchased online, somewhere in cyber space.  The Times did not tell us where.

The other option is to go to the city’s One-Stop Shop at 811 Texas.  The location is one of several that citizens have to go to in order to conduct city business now that our old multi-story city hall has been demolished and city departments have been moved to several different places.   Making the trip even harder is that getting to and from 811 Texas requires real effort — it is not like driving to a location on I-10.

One shop stop

People in the development and construction businesses tell us that you go there to see your project grow old — slowly.

The red tape, obstructionism, arbitrariness, bureaucratic bungling and general lack of help that those in the business encounter with the city are an unfortunate part of building in El Paso.

We deserve better

Brutus

Our city council has voted to turn control of the street car project over to the Camino Real Regional Mobility Authority (CRRMA).

The CRRMA is under the control of a board appointed by city council.  The governor of Texas appoints the chairman of the board. board.  The board is free to make decisions without fear of facing an election.

We will have to sit back and watch to see what they do with this project.

Questions that come to mind are whether they will change the routes and if they will still be using the PCC cars that we took out of service decades ago.  Sun Metro end up operating the new system.  Sun Metro anticipates fare revenues of about one million dollars and expenses of $2.5 million.  How will they pay for that?

City council has been told that it will have final authority over the design.  Of course when you have a blue ribbon panel of advisers it is easier to vote against what has been promised.

Of particular interest will be who they chose to award the construction contract to.

We deserve better

Brutus

Now that the newly proposed city budget is out we can take a deeper look at one of our former chief financial officer’s whoppers.

When she went before city council to seek approval for $45 million to build a facility for the rental car companies at the airport she told us that we would see a 1% increase in the customer facility charge each year, thereby paying for the facility.

The customer facility charge is a fee that people who rent cars at the airport pay.  In addition to having the highest hotel occupancy tax that the state allows, we nick visitors with other fees too.  Economists probably would not say that those fees are conducive to attracting visitors.

Actually

The proposed city budget projects the customer facility charge revenue to fall from a 2014 budget number of $3,450,000 to $3,300,000.

That is a $150,000 drop.  According to the proposed budget that amounts to a 4.35% decline.

We deserve better

Brutus

The other day we learned about a new city fiction to move part of the debt relating to the new rapid transportation system over to Sun Metro where it would be “self supporting”.

Let’s look.

The Sun Metro site tells us that their fares go as high as $1.50 for regular passengers, fall to $1.00 for military, retired military, spouses of either military group, students, and children aged 6 to 18.  Children 5 and under ride for free and senior citizens (65 and older) pay 30 cents.  Transfers are free to all passengers.

The numbers from the 2012 national transit database show Sun Metro’s costs to be $2.82 per un-linked passenger trip.  They use un-linked to mean every time someone boards a bus — getting on one bus and subsequently transferring to another is two un-linked trips.

Make it up in volume

Most private citizens and I venture to guess some governmental accountants can see that we lose money on each trip.

In fact the 2012 report shows that fare revenues accounted for 17% of what they spent for operating costs that year.  Local funds paid for 63% and federal assistance for 20%.

Capital expenses saw no contribution from fare revenues and 44% from local funds and 56% in federal assistance.

In fact the reports shows that local funds amounted to over $40 million dollars for that one year.

The idea that Sun Metro can “self support” debt is simply fictional.

We deserve better

Brutus