Was the Bus Shelter Story Misreported?

[stjr]

Perhaps because $73 million is better used for more impactful capital projects....

If people don't want JTA to best utilize their financial resources, they should be willing to step up and come up with alternative solutions that don't alter other JTA-based services or donate some funds...

Lake, following your advice, JTA, best utilizing its financial resources and using them for more "impactful" capital projects, should immediately shut down the barely used, never-to-be-more-useful, $ky-high-way and reallocate its $14 million annual losses to better projects.  Like improving our bus system operations and infrastructure with more headways, routes, and bus shelters to encourage more riders.  That would leave the entire $73 million for advancing rail oriented options.

It only hurts a second to give your full endorsement! 

[Ocklawaha]

The difference in Route Miles/and all of their stops, and Highway Miles/and all of their stops, is not a lie or misleading, its just a different way of calculating the services.

OCKLAWAHA

[stephendare]

I spoke with several people today STJR.

They did confirm that Cleve Warren had been appointed in a good faith effort to review the alternatives.

which says to me that there was no false reporting in the T-U article....just misinterpretation by some.

What made you claim that there was false reporting in the first place, tufsu?  What a bizarre claim.  Misreporting is usually caused from misinterpretation of the facts not falsity---its a huge leap to claim deliberate falsification, and any such accusations that you might have certainly don't reflect the opinions of metrojacksonville.

[stephendare]

The do have minutes of their meetings.  Ive gotten them a couple of times.

Ill get a copy of them monday or so.

http://www.metrojacksonville.com/article/2009-jun-jta-board-minutes-march-2009

[tufsu1]

ok...sorry...I was not suggesting that the T-U reported anything falselt...just that the viewpoint that the story was misreported is not correct.

Looking back at wha appears to have been said, the T-U article seems to be accurate...it just may have been misinterpreted by some

[stephendare]

Perhaps you could clarify.

Do you think that the objections that JTA has to the article have to do with their reporting of Cleve Warren?

Because if you do, let me clear it up for you.  It has to do with the misrepresentation that JTA is not going forward with the plan.

[CS Foltz]

Well perhaps there should be a standardized method of reporting that kind of information. A mile is a mile , not a route mile! Makes me wonder just what consulting firm came up with this accounting method..............why not make the information plain and simple so most people could understand the blipping stuff? Sometimes some people make things more complicated then they need to be just to substantiate their being involved! I say speak in plain language.....come up with some plain talk to explain how to account miles,mileage and all of the other factors pertaining to a transportation system. Everyone seems to have forgotten the $73 Million Dollars found in an unused account and I have to ask.............what about it?

[Ocklawaha]

I met with the TU yesterday, they DID NOT understand why or how JTA could have used two figures. I explained the difference in the reporting methods used in transportation, either of which could be applied depending on what information you are looking for. It REALLY is plain and simple and was NOT a JTA invention by any stretch:

EXAMPLES:

A bus leaves Rosa Parks, turns right on Main, and makes 3 stops before crossing the bridge into the southside...
Assume that this bus goes on 10 miles, straight south to complete it's route, then it returns on the same roadway. The total trip or was 20 route miles, but only 10 highway miles (since we used the same road both ways). When the bus stops are counted, one could say we have 3 stops downtown, on Main St., Southbound.
If 10 other buses pass the same 3 stops, we now could say we have 30 stops downtown, on Main St., Southbound.

So both miles, and stops can be wildly different and still be CORRECT. With railroads it's the same thing, we have Route Miles and Track Miles, For example Talleyrand Terminal Railroad is perhaps 4 route miles long, from Commodore Point to Springfield Yard. But Talleyrand Terminal Railroad might have 38 miles of tracks in that same space, if one counts all tracks.

At least this is what the TU did not get... They do now.

OCKLAWAHA

[stjr]

I met with the TU yesterday, they DID NOT understand why or how JTA could have used two figures. I explained the difference in the reporting methods used in transportation, either of which could be applied depending on what information you are looking for. It REALLY is plain and simple and was NOT a JTA invention by any stretch:

Ock, here is the issue.  There was a discussion on the table about how many bus shelters might be needed to service the system.  One piece of relevant info would be how many physical locations are in the system where buses stop.  JTA did not provide this information but rather let fly a different calculation that had no relevancy to the discussion at hand.  For this reason, JTA allowed the decision to proceed based on misinformation.  They did the same thing when computing the annual maintenance costs.  JTA again allowed inappropriate info to be relied upon in arriving at a decision.

If JTA did this in error, with respect to such a simple matter, I would question the competency of anything JTA says, especially on more complex issues, because all of it could be based on bad info.  I certainly would hate to be a test pilot for a plane built by JTA.  Their failure rate is unacceptable.

If the misinformation was known to JTA and they deliberately made a decision not to correct it, heads should roll.  This is an out and out fraud on the decision makers.  The issue isn't keeping multiple sets of numbers, it's about timely giving people the right set for the right reason.  Your defense of this behavior I just don't understand.

It's really laughable that now JTA wants to split hairs about "misrepresentation" in the Times Union.  Let he without sin cast the first stone.

[tufsu1]

It has to do with the misrepresentation that JTA is not going forward with the plan.

see...I didn't ever get that impression from the article...just that JTA agreed to look into the issue more...check my post in that thread.

[tufsu1]

dude...any journalist knows that often the title and the article aren't written by the same people

Title: JTA says it will put the brakes on bus shelters with ads
Subtitle: Agency will work with opponents to try to find a way to build them without ads

First line of article: Bus shelters with advertisements may not be coming to Jacksonville after all

[stephendare]

?
Tufsu.

You really puzzle me sometimes

We go out of our way here to make sure to do some old fashioned investigative journalism and get right to the source as stories are happening.

It seems like you always take the opportunity to dilute that by casting doubts on the authenticity or the phrasing of the articles.

I wonder why you do that?

Obviously both the people in the other thread and the JTA all had the same read of the article.

Hence STJR's posts about the embarrassment of it all and the JTA's reaction to the article.

You never post anything to the contrary, just imply that the information was flawed or that you know better whats happening behind the scenes.  Are you just fishing for more information when you do this or does it empower you personally in some way?

for example what does this mean? 

dude...any journalist knows that often the title and the article aren't written by the same people

Ive been a journalist for a while, and published a few publications, while this is sometimes true, what does it have to do with anything? 

The public sees the final product.

Similarly with the comment: 

at this point I wouldn't take everything said by "JTA spokesmen" as gospel.

What do you mean when you say things like that?  Are you calling the jta spokesmen mistaken about the public message of the JTA?

Did you speak to any of the JTA board members or any person in the JTA organization about this or any other topic regarding the issue over the past couple of days?

If so, then do enlighten?

Don't just imply that there's more to the story.  The suspence is too gripping.

[Ocklawaha]

Ock, here is the issue.  There was a discussion on the table about how many bus shelters might be needed to service the system.  One piece of relevant info would be how many physical locations are in the system where buses stop.  JTA did not provide this information but rather let fly a different calculation that had no relevancy to the discussion at hand.  For this reason, JTA allowed the decision to proceed based on misinformation.  They did the same thing when computing the annual maintenance costs.  JTA again allowed inappropriate info to be relied upon in arriving at a decision.

If JTA did this in error, with respect to such a simple matter, I would question the competency of anything JTA says, especially on more complex issues, because all of it could be based on bad info.  I certainly would hate to be a test pilot for a plane built by JTA.  Their failure rate is unacceptable.

If the misinformation was known to JTA and they deliberately made a decision not to correct it, heads should roll.  This is an out and out fraud on the decision makers.  The issue isn't keeping multiple sets of numbers, it's about timely giving people the right set for the right reason.  Your defense of this behavior I just don't understand.

It's really laughable that now JTA wants to split hairs about "misrepresentation" in the Times Union.  Let he without sin cast the first stone.

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Silver Eagle Model 15.

In defense of JTA, (YES PEOPLE OCK SAID THAT!) I don't think anything misleading, was done. Hell, you and I working on the Skyway could have made the same statements. According to the TU THEY DIDN'T UNDERSTAND, how the stops were counted, and quite possibly, two different JTA guys gave them two different answers. Imagine the headlines, "OCK AND STJR MISLEAD PUBLIC TO THE BUS STOP."  You and I are now in the hot seat publically for something that is not our fault. You told them we needed seating for 8 Skyway stations. Then they called me, and asked how many stations total of all route's and I told them 10... (counting Central Station one time for each route). The TU didn't intentionally screw this up either, and I'm sure if the question came up in front of the Council about exact numbers, all it took was ONE person to have spoken with someone using the alternate method and all of hell breaks loose.
 
Your question of revenue is the same answer too, Cost to Revenue PER Route mile or Highway Mile. 70 bus routes might use the same mile, of the same highway, and stop 1 time each. Your operating cost per mile on this section is high because you are paying for 70 bus routes on that mile, but they only serve ONE STOP. Dismal financial numbers, so the government allows you to count that stop 70 times, for 70 routes, as each route is calculated on it's own merit. Something like this could stem from someone identifying 9 routes to get new shelters, based on demographics of the ad company. We needn't count every stop on all 9 routes, just the actual total number of stops, that way shared stops won't be multi-counted.

This all probably started with the railroads. Imagine Amtrak asking for funds for 100 miles between Jacksonville and Daytona Beach, damn! Nobody mentioned the fact that there are 160 miles of NEW TRACK to build in this same spot. (not real figures)

I can't wait to see what ending is put to this whole thing, LMAO!

OCKLAWAHA

[tufsu1]

I find it interesting that the post questioning why I would not understand the meaning of the T-U article's title is now missing.

[stjr]

Ock, I don't get your point and I don't think you get mine.

You seem fixated on why there are multiple sets of numbers.  I don't care.  I care that JTA allowed a decision to be made knowing that those making said decision were using the wrong numbers.  It's that simple and you have offered no acceptable explanation for that as I see it.

In the end, JTA did wrong and I see no way around that.  They should be held accountable and their credibility, whatever there is of it, is in question for the future.