Amen to that as well, Karen — as that was the beginning of the current downward spiral. ”

Wrong. The airline industry was deregulated in 1978 under Carter.

Well, primarily because this is a rule change and not a complete re-do of the initiating legislation that took effect in 1973. I won’t take the bait to discuss whether bid processes have had no standards whatsoever in the last year, or whether the standards may be what we’d expect from most government regulation of the history of our country.

(I’ll say in advance I am glossing over some subsequent legislation and distinctions a bit, but they are not important to the point). The Federal Highway Act of 1973 was itself designed to prevent federal funding to public transportation entities where they would be in direct competition with private charter services in the cases where the public transport was trying to offer the service outside the area of its regularly scheduled service. That’s been going on for 35 years and through the presidencies of both parties. Key regulations relating to the implementation of this were put in place in ‘76 and ‘87. The former requiring the public operators to account for both direct and indirect costs, as well as show revenue above costs in providing service.

The latter changed the game a bit, and prohibitted a recipient from performing any charter bus operations to the extent that there was a private charter operator willing and able to provide such charter service in the area. It also included exceptions that allowed a public transportation agency to provide charter service in the event there were no willing and able private charter operators, if private charter operators did not have capacity, if private charter operators were unable to provide accessible equipment, for non-urbanized areas, or if the private charter operator providing the service would create a hardship for the customer.

In 1988, Congress permitted a greater level of bidding by public transportation authorities in cases where non-profit social service agencies had a clear need.

2005’s Safe, Accountable, Flexible, Efficient Transportation Equity Act: A Legacy for Users (SAFETEA-LU), amended part of the statutory framework relating to charter service by changing a “may” to a “shall” in the remedies section. Among other things, now federal funds must be withheld when there are patterns of violation of the charter provisions, where before that was discretionary, and largely unenforced. A rulemaking effort followed and the changes that are in effect now are the result of this effort (they are significant).

The relevant amended CFR can be found here:

http://www.access.gpo.gov/nara/cfr/waisidx_03/49cfr604_03.html

While there is minimal information required to get registered as a charter provider (though size of fleet and other issues are part of that), there are extensive procedures for being removed from the list for issues such as bad faith, fraud, lapse of insurance or other documentation, filing of complaints. Remedies include withholding of funds, suspension and debarring. Interested parties, which includes the Mariners in this case, can also file complaints.

Gov’t discretion is also still available to allow public transportation to provide charter service in appropriate circumstances.

Look, I’m not defending this scheme – I don’t think the legislation should ever have been passed in the first place back in 1973. I also think that event sponsors should be free to contract however they wish. I am also a huge supporter of public transportation and use it every day. But you are engaging in hyperbole to claim there are no standards in place if Otto manages to get on the charter list. Will they be government enforced, red-tape driven and ineffective ultimately? Probably, but I don’t think we disagree there. Point is that if the M’s think Otto sucks there are ways for them to get him kicked off.

Blame it on Ronald Reagan and his 7 dwarves who came up with deregulation in the 1980s

Amen to that as well, Karen — as that was the beginning of the current downward spiral.

Okay all you free marketers. The public paid for the infrastructure used by the Metro buses including the parking lots. Now we are expected to subsidize parking for private firms to provide shuttles to games? I do not think so. If you want to take fans to games go right ahead. Some companies do that and have special amenities that make the trip worthwhile. But putting a gun to the head of the local mass transit agency and telling them that they are no longer allowed to add buses to games is just political gamesmanship trying to buy votes. Pathetic!

The thing is, this isn’t a “free market.” Under the law of Supply and Demand there are roughly 22 assumptions. Two key ones are perfect competition and perfect mobility (entry and exit from market). There are definite areas where these assumptions occur and it is prudent and neccesary for a free market to emerge. There are other areas where most assumptions occur allowing second-best to be achieved. Then there are areas where the core and base assumptions do not apply- public infrastructure for instance. What they are doing isn’t opening it to the free market nor to second-best because they are violating the core assumptions. Instead they are opening it up to an oligopoly.

Evan: completely agree with you on government and Lincoln. One of my favorite Jefferson’s quote is, “It is the natural course of things for government to increase and freedom decrease.” I fear in the short future, things will get drastically worse then they are now (which is much worse than years ago).

It’s just a new way for vested interests to take more money out of your pocket, since you’ll be forced to go back to driving the gashog through rush hour traffic into Seattle now to get to a game, find the cheapest parking lot that’s about 2 miles away, and take a taxi to get you to the ballpark without getting exhausted/drenched in sweat. Unless you take the day off and find a close in parking space that you’re paying your entire day’s wages for.

Just another reason I’m glad I moved 200+ miles away, saving myself the agony of choosing my poison.

The public paid for the infrastructure used by the Metro buses including the parking lots.

Not to mention the stadiums themselves (which I am GLAD are here, BTW — so I won’t get on that tangent). But I don’t know if it’s so much “trying to buy votes” or just some agency higher up trying to muscle their way around on state and local agencies just because they can…and, as we know, there’s been enough of that going on the last eight years as well.

Yeah, like public transit, which reduces carbon emissions and improves air quality for all!

Amen!