SEPTA Ridership Growing

Due to the increase in gas prices and the demand for service SEPTA is now adding additional service on their existing routes:
* Route 14: Frankford Transportation Center up the Roosevelt Boulevard corridor to Neshaminy and Oxford Valley malls serves 12,000 riders a day with service every two minutes during rush hours. It's not enough.
"There's been so much growth in the job markets along the Northeast Philadelphia and Lower Bucks corridors, as well as in riders on shopping trips," Webb said, "so we're replacing 40-foot standard buses with 60-foot articulated vehicles by fall. This increases the sitting load from 40 to 60 riders, and the standing load from 60 to almost 100."
* Route 124 and 125: Center City to King of Prussia. "There's been huge employment growth as well as shopping demand," Webb said, "so we'll increase weekday and weekend service."
* Route 108: 69th Street to the airport will run every 10 minutes instead of every 12 at peak hours.
* Route 37: From the Broad Street Line in South Philadelphia to the airport and Harrah's Casino in Chester - will become a 24-hour night owl service to accommodate demand.
* Routes 93, 96, 99 (Norristown to Pottstown, Lansdale, Royersford respectively) and 105 (69th Street to Ardmore) will get extended evening service to accommodate workers and shoppers. "We will now be able to take a rider to work and bring him home at night," Webb said.
* Regional Rail from Center City: R5 (Paoli/Thorndale), R6 (Norristown) and R7 (Chestnut Hill East/Trenton) will test-market late-night service on Fridays and Saturdays in the fall.
"We received a lot of requests from passengers and from the Center City District and Avenue of the Arts folks to offer late-night service," Webb said, "because now, we can take riders into the city for restaurants and shows, but we can't bring them home."
* New buses and more of them on Route 47 between Olney and South Philly; Route 17: South Philly to Front and Market streets; Route 70: Fern Rock to Tacony and Torresdale; Route 21: 69th Street to Penn's Landing; Route 42: West Philly to Penn's Landing; Route 23: Chestnut Hill to South Philly.

To read the full article in the Inquirer click here...

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PA Turnpike Lease Review

The Philadelphia Inquirer business section has reviewed the proposed lease of the PA Turnpike and here are their findings:

Rendell's optimism on turnpike has skeptics
His projections on pension yields are seen as inflated.
Gov. Rendell is an optimist. Not a math major.
He says he can sell toll-taking rights on the Pennsylvania Turnpike for a fat up-front payment, pay off its debt, invest the remaining $10 billion and change with the state pension fund, set aside a bit for inflation, and pocket an average 12 percent each year, or $1.1 billion, to fix rundown roads and bridges.
Why stop at 12 percent? Why not take it all to Harrah's in Chester, and go for a jackpot?
"It's not a guess," insists Roy Kienitz, the bow-tied deputy chief of staff Rendell used to defend his math.
According to the governor, the State Employees' Retirement System has posted average returns of 12 percent a year, for the last 20 years. And if it can do that for retired senators, judges and social workers, Rendell figures it can do that for asphalt contractors and steel fabricators hired to fix roads and bridges.
There's a lot riding on that 12 percent guesstimate. For every percentage point missed, the roads are short nearly $100 million. If the yield stays below 10 percent, the state misses its yearly target and has to find other funds or scrimp on repairs.
In real life, SERS pays pensions with help from hundreds of millions in taxes and state worker "contributions" each year. SERS's reported investment returns depend on estimates of the value of its unusually large pool of hedge funds, real estate, venture capital, and other private assets, which it might not be able to sell for years.
Tying future highway spending to those returns is a little less scientific than betting your house will go up in value, from now until your kids are dead, at the same rate it rose from the end of the Reagan presidency until the real estate market keeled over last year. (SERS spokesman Bob Gentzel adds that returns weren't quite 12 percent - "for the record, 11.5."
Looking forward, SERS's own profit target is just 8.5 percent, which would cut a $320 million yearly hole in Rendell's budget. SERS might not meet that goal either, chairman Nick Maiale reminded his ex-colleagues in the General Assembly earlier this year.
That didn't move Kienitz. "Pension fund managers, their goal is to underpromise and overdeliver," he said.
Let's ask some outside experts.
"Even an 8.5 percent return assumption is generous," said Ted Aronson, who manages almost as much money as SERS does through his Center City investment firm, Aronson + Johnson + Ortiz L.P. "It's one thing to be optimistic about the markets; it's another to believe in the tooth fairy."
"The Securities and Exchange Commission challenges assumptions over 8 percent" for corporate funds, said professor Olivia Mitchell, a pension scholar at the Wharton School. "Even 8 percent is fairly aggressive. Some people in this building think returns on assets will be a lot lower in the future than they've been in the past."
Kienitz doesn't buy any of that. "I understand the industry uses a lower number," he said. "Do you trust some guy picking a number out of the air? Or do you trust the data?"
He told me the state's consultant, Morgan Stanley, backed the governor's math. The guy who crunched those numbers didn't want to talk about it. But his firm's 2007 report, helpfully linked to Rendell's Web site, includes a chart estimating investment yields at 7 percent to 9 percent. Rendell's 12 percent estimate came on further reflection, Kienitz said.
Back on Wall Street, Citigroup Inc.'s Felicity Gates, a leader of the partnership that made the winning bid of $12.8 billion in last week's turnpike auction, said a bigger concern is the General Assembly's lack of enthusiasm, which makes this deal "really unusual."
"When we did the Chicago Skyway, the legislative support was there," she said. "With the Indiana Toll Road, the legislation hadn't yet been passed, but it had support. In Pennsylvania, the legislation doesn't have the support it needs yet."
What's her theory? "It's partly the way it works here, the way politics is conducted," she said.
Not that Gates is complaining. This would be, by far, her group's biggest highway. It's worth some risk.
"An open and frank debate is a good thing," Gates concluded. "I'd rather see it happen now than when it's nearly done.
Contact staff writer Joseph N. DiStefano at 215-854-5194 or jdistefano@phillynews.com.

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Updated information on the potential Turnpike lease

As the information continues to become available there are some more key statistics in regards to the potential Turnpike lease.

From the Philadelphia Inquirer:

Under Rendell's plan, the Abertis/Citi consortium would lease the turnpike for 75 years with the right to raise tolls 25 percent next year and 2.5 percent, or the rate of inflation, every year after that.
Rendell called the lease plan "a very good deal for Pennsylvania drivers and taxpayers," and said it would mean about $1.1 billion per year for road, bridge and transit projects, on average, over the next 10 years.
Under terms of the lease, the private operator would be required to maintain and improve the turnpike and to honor existing labor contracts until they expire. At that point, employee unions would need to negotiate new contracts with the Abertis/Citi consortium.
If approved, the turnpike lease would mean the end of embattled efforts to toll I-80 as a way to raise transportation funds. And it would mean the effective end to the 70-year-old Turnpike Commission, the politically powerful agency that operates the toll road.
To generate $1.1 billion, Rendell said the lease money would be invested with the Pennsylvania State Employees' Retirement System. He said the administration expected to earn 12 percent a year, which Rendell said was the average return for SERS over the last 20 years.
The actual payment would vary each year, depending on how much the investment actually generated, since the 12 percent projection is based on the average of the last 20 years and might be higher or lower over the next 75.
The total bid would be reduced by about $2.3 billion necessary to assume existing turnpike debts and other obligations, leaving about $10.5 billion to be invested, according to the administration's calculations. To read the full article click here...

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Winning Bidder is in and it's Abertis for 12.8 Billion

The winning bidder for the Pennsylvania Turnpike is in and it's abertis out of Spain. Their winning bid came in at 12.8 billion dollars. For more information on abertis click here...

Here is a full article from Philly.com

Posted on Mon, May. 19, 2008
Spanish firm offers $12.8 billion to lease turnpike
By Paul Nussbaum
INQUIRER STAFF WRITER
A Spanish toll-road operator won the bidding war to operate the Pennsylvania Turnpike, offering $12.8 billion for a 75-year lease, Gov. Rendell said today.
The proposal by Abertis Infraestructuras, of Barcelona, must be approved by the Pennsylvania legislature, and legislative leaders in Harrisburg have said the plan faces tough sledding with lawmakers.
In making the largest bid ever for the private operation of a U.S. toll road, Abertis partnered with U.S. investment bank Citigroup, and Spanish investment firm Criteria CaixaCorp.
Abertis operates toll roads in Spain, France, Italy, the United Kingdom, Argentina and Puerto Rico. The company also operates airports, telecommunications systems and parking garages.
Under Rendell's plan, Abertis would lease the turnpike for 75 years with the right to raise tolls 25 percent next year and 2.5 percent or the rate of inflation every year after that.
Rendell called the lease plan "a very good deal for Pennsylvania drivers and taxpayers," and he said it would mean about $1.1 billion per year for road, bridge and transit projects in the state.
If approved, the turnpike lease would mean the end of embattled efforts to toll I-80 as a way to raise transportation funds.
The Rendell administration would instead invest the multibillion-dollar lease payment and use the proceeds to pay for highway, bridge and public transit projects. But the total would be reduced by about $3.6 billion dollars necessary to assume existing debts and pension obligations, leaving about $9.17 billion to be invested.
Rendell said the lease money would be invested with the Pennsylvania State Employees' Retirement System, and he said the administration expected to earn 12 percent a year on its money. He said that was the average return for SERS over the past 20 years.
Rendell has said he wants the 359-mile east-west turnpike and the 110-mile Northeast Extension to be in the hands of a private operator by mid-September, but legislators said that is very optimistic.
Contact staff writer Paul Nussbaum at 215-854-4587 or pnussbaum@phillynews.com.

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As the Pennsylvania Turnpike bid process continues and the state is awaiting the winning bidder one of the largest investment firms has dropped out of the process.

Turnpike bid race narrows
Friday, May 16, 2008
By Joe Grata, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
A financial consortium once thought to be the leading candidate to lease the Pennsylvania Turnpike has apparently dropped out of the running.
Spain-based Cintra and Australia-based Macquarie Infrastructure Group, which bought rights to the Chicago Skyway in 2005 and the Indiana Toll Road in 2006 for a total of $5.6 billion, have decided not to increase their bid for the state toll road being offered by Gov. Ed Rendell as a means of generating more funds for roads, bridges and transit.
Yesterday, Cintra-Macquarie informed its prospective investors to feel free to work with the remaining two investment consortiums: Spain-based Aberti, teamed with Babcock & Brown and Citi Infrastructure Investors; and New York-based Goldman Sachs, teamed with Transurban Group, an international toll road manager, and the Ontario Teachers Pension Plan.
To read the full article click here...

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Fuji University

In a follow up to our previous post the Bike Pottstown Bike Vendor Fuji has created Fuji University. You can read all about it here: http://fujibikes.com/2008/fujiuniversity.asp

As gas prices continue to escalate and we all become more aware of our carbon footprint biking is seeing a renaissance. We commend Fuji for this initiative which will allow them to use their expertise in biking and add another generation of cyclists to this great leisure activity. If you think your company or university would be interested in biking please contact GVF Transportation. Our contact information and emails can be found here...

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Bike Pottstown

Hello Readers,

We apologize for the lack of postings recently but we're ready to jump back in. In case you missed the May 8th kickoff, Bike Pottstown is in full swing. Thanks to our faithful committee and our many contributers Bike Pottstown is ready to kick off this summer. We are still in the process of locating the release point for the bikes but we will update you when we know so you can ride your "free" bike.

For more information on Bike Pottstown log onto http://www.bikepottstown.com/ or contact Shayne Trimbell at strimbell@gvftma.com

Bike Pottstown Kick off: In Photo (from left to right): Shayne Trimbell - GVF Transportation, John Reeber - Pottstown Parks Department, David Kraybill - Pottstown Area Health and Wellness Foundation, Tom Carrol - Preservation Pottstown, R. Dean Foster - Montgomery County Community College, John Armato - Pottstown School District, Shelli Keinle - Zap Digital, Michele Barret - WalkBikeBerks, Hans Van Naersen - Greater Philadelphia Bicycle Coalition, Tim Phelps - TriCounty Area Chamber of Commerce

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