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| It's pathetic that in the city with the best transit system in the nation...that WalMart has to settle with running its own shuttle service to get people from their homes to WalMart and back - because TriMet can't. Even better - these buses are free to ride. |
Trimess
Sunday, September 9, 2012
When TriMet fails...there's always WalMart
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7 comments:
What? Where do you get this bus from?
Not to defend the incompetent and unscrupulous upper management at Trimet, but if Walmart workers weren't being subsidized by local, state, and federal resources more than any other company in the U.S.A., maybe Trimet would have more money for operating. In other words, if the biggest company in the country, with 4 of it's founder's heirs among the 10 richest people in the world, paid more livable wages and benefits to it's workers, they wouldn't lead the country in employed people getting food stamps, Medicaid, subsidized housing, etc. (not to mention all their junk comes from China, completely contrary to the founder's "made in the USA" principle). Free buses or not, Walmart SUCKS (PERIOD)!
Agree with above-I don't shop there because of their personnel policies.
OK, I can agree that WalMart is a scummy company. But let's analyse it a little further:
In the TriMet service district there are how many WalMarts? FOUR, plus three "Neighborhood Markets" that just opened up in the last couple of months.
How many Fred Meyers are there? Targets (similarly a non-union workforce with primarily part-time, no-benefit employees)?
Since WalMart opened, how many jobs were lost in the Portland metropolitan area because of WalMart? None. Can you blame the closure of Tualatin's Kmart on WalMart? No. Can you blame the closure of the 122nd/Glisan Target on WalMart? No (Target replaced the store with a new one.) Has any WalMart suppliers in Portland had to shut down and move to China? No.
WalMart might be scum, but it's a very long stretch if not flat out wrong to suggest TriMet is hurting because of WalMart.
If anything, having cheap crap sold at WalMart is a good thing (as far as TriMet is concerned). Think of all the jobs that are at the Port of Portland that unload those containers of crap onto trucks (most of those jobs are union and very well paying), that have to be driven all the way to Hermiston (to WalMart's Distribution Center) and Albany (to Target's Distribution Center) and they usually aren't company drivers, are union and well paid, and then driven from the DCs back to stores mostly in the Portland area (these are a mix of company and contract drivers).
Many of those truck companies have their hubs here in Portland so they are paying TriMet payroll tax. As are those longshoremen who unload the containers. Paying TriMet payroll tax.
Those WalMart (and Target, and Fred Meyer) stores probably pay much higher property taxes than the land used for other purposes, which helps pay off TriMet's credit card debt (a.k.a. MAX expansions) a little faster. They generally are not located in URAs or other locations where property taxes are deferred, limited or eliminated.
And - since the average worker gets paid less, they are more likely to be dependent upon transit - thus higher ridership numbers. In theory, anyways.
So, from (and strictly from) TriMet's perspective, WalMart should be good for TriMet, and TriMet should be enhancing service to them, and other similar stores (Target, Fred Meyer, Kmart). But the fact that WalMart is clearly not benefitting and has to run their own buses, shows that TriMet is more interested in serving...well...I'm not sure who. Intel and Nike, both also very large TriMet tax payers, don't seem to be getting the benefit they probably deserve from TriMet either. But PSU and OHSU get plenty of TriMet service - and as sovereign governmental bodies are largely exempt from most TriMet taxes.
Since WalMart opened, how many jobs were lost in the Portland metropolitan area because of WalMart? None.
PROVE IT!
it's a very long stretch if not flat out wrong to suggest TriMet is hurting because of WalMart.
Walmart (that's the style now) is part of the push that drives down wages and therefore payroll taxes, which of course TriMet relies on. Not just in the stores, but also by lowering relative sales in other stores or leading them to lower prices (the spending pie only goes up to 100%; and remember that Freddy's still has offices in SE Portland) and at any suppliers that exist or have existed in the district.
One other thing: Walmart isn't necessarily running the shuttles because TriMet isn't providing good service. It's more likely a loss leader, with the goal of persuading shoppers to bring their money to Walmart instead of another store. It also functions as a mobile advertisement.
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