COST agrees completely with Steve’s evaluation that urban rail’s ineffectiveness and exorbitant costs results in a severe lack of cost-effectiveness which does not serve the greater-good of the community. It can only serve those few who financially benefit. This site has numerous articles which further discuss and expanded on many of his points.
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FOUR RAIL MYTHS

By Steve Durchin

There are ‘visions’ and then there are ‘myths’

‘Vision’ – The manner in which one sees or conceives of something. Some leaders develop a vision and their followers may seek its fruition.

‘Myth’ - A fiction or half-truth, especially one that forms part of an ideology.
The half-truth of a vision can be determined by testing and historical revelations.

Some City of Austin (COA) leaders and elected officials believe in the vision of developing a mass transit rail system. They seek fruition by presenting a preliminary bond offering to Austin voters. The projected initial costs will be described in the hundreds of millions of dollars, yet to build and operate their completed version of rail might be projected at between one and two billion dollars.

In fact, by simple recognition of the historical background of rail and of the cultural behaviors of people, it is surely obvious there at least four myths regarding this vision of an Austin rail system.

One - Austin rail may eventually help reduce vehicle congestion in the Metropolitan area.

Two - A rail system can add significant economic development at major station stops.

Three – The Austin area population will turn, in some significant numbers, to rail as an alternative to personal vehicle use.

Four - Build the tracks on the ground and maintain train schedules by controlling crossing signals.

Lastly, but just as important, is the cost versus value consideration.

The Four half-truth Myths

One - Austin rail may eventually help reduce vehicle congestion in the Metropolitan area.

• We have had our test; the rail line running from Leander to downtown Austin, roughly covering an area serving at least a fifth of the greater Austin Statistical Area population. This population has reasonable access to use rail, considering both the parallel and intersecting Capitol Metro bus lines. Such rail use can provide for commuter, social, and recreational purposes. Yet it appears from the records provided by Capital Metro that train ridership is an insignificant percentage of the Austin area’s commuter traffic. Approximately 400 to 500 people a day regularly used rail in 2010. This volume rose to approximately 600 to 700 people per day in 2011. A reduction in fare fees and introduction of mid-day trains were 2011 motivating factors. Special events, like South by Southwest, and weekend runs, generated a peak use in March 2011. Those events generated a March 2011 monthly average of approximately 1000 passengers per day. These ‘test results’ verify that Austin commuter use of rail is, in truth, insignificant. The test conclusion is that vehicle congestion will not be significantly reduced by building a larger train system.

• Cap Metro reports ‘boardings per day’. Virtually all users are making round trips, so the number of actual rail passengers is about half the boardings per day rate.

Two - A rail system can add significant economic development at major station stops.

The Austin American-Statesmen reported this year on economic development at the existing rail stations. Results are, to say the least, disappointing to those projecting a significant commercial investment would occur. One could even question the wisdom of paying for an exorbitantly expensive rail system, as a strategy to spur economic growth, when other more direct means are available.

Three – The Austin area population will turn, in some significant numbers, to rail as an alternative to personal vehicle use.

There’s an existing bus system to serve as connectors for commuting by rail to work. That choice simply takes too much time versus what can be accomplished by car. As described above, only very special non-work related events will generate increased use of the existing rail system. Yes, taking a train downtown to go to Halloween on Sixth Street or to South by Southwest or to the Fourth of July Fireworks celebration will increase ridership. Yes, parents and grandparents may take their children and grandchildren to special events like taking the train to see a U.T. football game, go to the Long Symphony, or just showing off Austin to visiting friends and relatives. However, for everyday activities a personal vehicle provides for a more time efficient and more convenient cargo carrying capacity ride, than any train or bus ride could be.

A much more significant fact is the traditional and cultural nature of Austin residents. It is not just that vehicles are a norm part of life; it is rather that mass transit has never been historically significant here. Contrast this with the history of the large Northeastern cities, where mass transit has been a part of everyday life since the early years in the Nineteenth century. Children in New York City are taught at an early age to get their shopping bag, walk to the bus stop, and hop up and down the stairs to the elevated or underground tracks. Walking for miles, taking a bus, and taking a train is a back east traditional method of getting around. This childhood training continues as the norm mode of travel into adulthood.

Growing up in New York City suburbs, mama taught me to walk to the bus stops, catch the trains, and walk the blocks in between. Get the shopping bag and schlep groceries along the way. It’s a way of life in the densely populated Northeastern cities.

“The City of Austin is considering a plan to pay some municipal workers to take busses to work. Managers know they have to sweeten the pot to get people out of their cars as a trade-off to the inconveniences of using public transportation.”

There is no historic or traditional use of mass transit in Austin. Austin’s citizens are eager to walk and bike the park trails but are culturally insulated from walking, busing, and riding trains to get to work. Energetic Austin residents highly value the flexibility and time efficiency of using their private vehicles.

Four - Build the tracks on the ground and maintain train schedules by controlling crossing signals.

This is perhaps the cruelest myth of all. History of rail use in the northeast verifies without doubt that trains and vehicles should not both use the streets. Accidents will happen, no matter what controls are put in place. Not even trollies survived mutual street use in the nineteenth century. A professional rail planner from back east would likely suffer jaw-dropping disbelief to hear that a major Austin rail system would be thusly built, and vehicle traffic would be stopped to provide for uninterrupted rail crossings at inner city intersections. Austin has spent millions of dollars and will continue to do so attempting to synchronize traffic signals for road vehicles. Trains, to maintain their schedules, will have the functionality to change these signals as they approach intersections, to the detriment of synchronizing vehicle traffic flow. Only those with vested financial incentives hold onto this particular myth, as it greatly lowers rail construction costs to build on the ground. The costs of increasing vehicle congestion, the destruction of planned signal light timing, the accidents that will occur, and the waste of idling vehicle engines does not figure into their calculations. It is a self-serving half-truth vision to ignore these negatives. The clear and obvious truth, time proven in many major cities, over a hundred years of experiences, is that trains and cars cannot share the roads. Tracks must be built elevated or belowground. An Austin mass transit train system, if it must be built, should have tracks build above and below the streets.

If it must be built, build it above, or below, but not on the ground.

Therefore the true cost of building a great rail system for the great city of Austin, should accurately reflect such costs. If that adds billions more, it adds billions more, to do it right for Austin.

Lastly, but just as important, is the cost versus value consideration.

It is hard to understand the thinking of Austin’s leaders and elected officials to even consider building a major rail system under the current financial constraints. Residents are keenly aware of COA budget restraints, such as reducing library hours, closing public pools, and even to the elimination of the Trail of Lights. The COA has purchased new parklands over the years but not found the funds to improve them. Certainly the existing parks, in use by large numbers of residents, could be improved if funds were available. Yet even now, the burden of increased fees grows, such as those proposed by the City’s electric utility, and largely used to pay for expanding the infrastructure to accommodate growth. In fact, as in the current case of Apple Computer, huge tax breaks are eagerly offered to select new business ventures. The burden of paying for growth remains for the existing residents.

Austin residents may be asked to approve a multi hundred million dollar bond issue to begin limited rail service. Future bond requirements, in the factually unknown billions of dollar range, will be required to build and operate a completed system.

Residents instead could get a much better return on investment for other truly vitally needed services and facilities. Residents could choose to pay for an expanded and enlarged road system, an improved bus system (why should Cap Metro buses be allowed to stop in traffic lanes to load and unload?), develop parks, enlarge parking spaces at parks and other public enterprises, build new and operate for more days the public swimming pools, and do the same for branch libraries, and build more fire and EMS stations. It’s sad that Austin’s Fourth of July fireworks symphonic celebration and December Trail of Lights were canceled. All these improvements could be realized if vast investment funds were not allocated to pay for a rail system that would benefit so few citizens. It is not a wise decision to spend enormous tax dollars on a rail system that would be ineffective, underutilized, and operate in the red. Billion-plus tax dollars could go a long way if not invested in fixed rails serving a meager passenger demand. Never before, in Austin’s history, would so many pay so much, to service so few.

Never before would so many pay so much to service so few

Only those who would financially benefit from construction and operation of a rail system can ignore these myths and instead see only their preferred ‘vision’. I can see through these myths, can’t you?

It’s time now to “pay as we grow.”

Austin’s future growth is a certainty. Visions for how that should occur have been planned, studied and documented for many years. What has been lacking is a clear and resolute policy for who and how that growth will be paid for. To this time, those huge looming costs have been deferred, in different ways, to the existing population. Growth is now too expensive to keep heaping costs onto those shoulders. It’s time for a change. It’s time to plan and enact mechanisms so that the new populations will pay for that growth. It’s time now to pay as we grow.

It’s time now to pay as we grow

Note: COST added the bold highlights.

The only way the TWG can be expected to make sound, informed judgments regarding this vital, largest in history, urban rail project is to provide the TWG with comprehensive and unbiased information from competent, professional sources who do not have the array of conflicts which prevail in the current process. This will cost a minuscule amount compared to the magnitude of this project and can substantially reduce the risks of wastefully spending up to billions of taxpayer dollars.

The articles below are regarding Hawaii but the story is similar to what is developing in Austin. If Austin stays on its current track with urban rail, the story could well develop in a similar way as described in this paragraph from the first article below, written by a citizen: “The Hawaii public is increasingly angry about the soaring cost of the heavy elevated rail which could cost up to $400 Million per mile and likely bankrupt the city. The increasing public awareness of the outright lies and deceptions based upon original 2008 routes and costs is also driving the unprecedented bi-partisan, liberal/conservation Democrat/Republican support for Governor Cayetano’s run for Mayor of Honolulu.”

The second article was recently published in the Hawaii Reporter
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The following was written by a knowledgable citizen, April 2012.

The Hawaii Legislature Today KILLED Major Pro-Rail Bill 2927 As Heavy Rail Opposition Increasingly Grows

FTA Internal Rail Emails Warned Of Coming Honolulu Rail Fiasco, Lawsuits…(see below)

Aloha,

The Hawaii State Legislature ended it’s 2012 Session and killed pro-rail Bill 2927…Public opinion polls in Hawaii are increasingly against the soaring multi-billion dollar heavy elevated rail costs and debt
liabilities…

The controversial bill that would promote development around rail transit stations has been effectively killed for this session. It was also a rebuff to the agenda of Sen. Inouye, who has been behind the scenes pushing every political and government button to move his beloved personal rail monument
forward.

Senate President Shan Tsutsui moved to recommit Senate Bill 2927 to conference committee, and with today being the last day of the session, the bill is dead. The House also moved to kill the bill as well.
Bill 2927 would have also hired more positions that would be funded by theHonolulu Authority for Rapid Transportation. HART is increasingly unpopular for the enormously high salaries and redundant positions it has for an organization that already gets major City funding as other critical Honolulu City services, staff positions and infrastructure funds are increasingly cut back, including the popular City bus system.

Rail is still 7-10 years from even being operational so the Honolulu public is increasingly concerned as to why HART is so over larded with salaries and positions. HART does little more than hold meetings and advocate for more public money devoted to rail, while also passing out key-chains, coloring books and other special gifts and prizes.

Public opinion polls, blogs, phone calls and the popularity of Gov. Cayetano’s campaign for Honolulu Mayor as well as the general growing anger against soaring Honolulu rail costs and future liabilities significantly influenced legislators to kill the bill in both houses.

Opposition to Bill 2927 was opposed by a wide spectrum of liberal and conservative organizations opposed to the ballooning construction and maintenance costs of Honolulu Rail which could run as high as $8 Billion dollars, or $400 Million dollars PER MILE, significantly increasing many different taxes and fees on already overburdened Oahu residents. This includes an already required City wide $5 Billion EPA project which Sen. Inouye had previously stated would “bankrupt the city.”

The Hawaii public is increasingly angry about the soaring cost of the heavy elevated rail which could cost up to $400 Million per mile and likely bankrupt the city. The increasing public awareness of the outright lies and deceptions based upon original 2008 routes and costs is also driving the unprecedented bi-partisan, liberal/conservation Democrat/Republican support for Governor Cayetano’s run for Mayor of Honolulu.

The public also doesn’t believe Senator Inouye is justified in pushing local officials to start rail before a Full Funding Agreement for $1.5 Billion has been secured and verified in writing. Inouye was hoping that by starting rail construction, even without FTA funding approval and before the 2012 mayoral election and pending major rail lawsuit, that he could make it “impossible to stop.” Inouye has also vowed that “only WW-III” can stop him and rail from being constructed. He and Mayor Carlisle have characterized rail opponents as “the enemy to be defeated.”

A Civil Beat - The February 2012 CB poll of likely Oahu voters found 34 percent in favor and 55 percent opposed to Rail. That hasn’t shifted in the latest poll just out, with Oahu voters in the CB April poll at 36 percent in favor and 55 percent opposed.
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The Honolulu Star Advertiser — Daily Q Poll

Do you agree with the city’s decision to begin rail construction before securing full federal funding approval?

Yes. - 33% (464 votes)
No. - 65% (930 votes)
Undecided. - 2% (30 votes)
Total Votes: 1,424

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Honolulu Star Advertiser Feb 12, 2012

“The new Honolulu Star-Advertiser/Hawaii News Now poll shows that 53 percent of Honolulu residents do not think the city should continue the project. In one year there has been an 8-percentage point shift. Last year, a similar poll had 49 percent supporting and 45 percent saying stop. That is a big swing in one year.”

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The following emails were obtained through Freedom of Information (FOIA) requests:

Subject: FTA Internal Rail Emails Warn Of Coming Honolulu Rail Fiasco, Lawsuits

AR00138475 Ossi, Joseph To: Barr, James ; Matley, Ted Sent: 4/21/2009 10:28:29 AM

“As you know, the EPA has recently submitted a letter questioning why alternatives to an elevated rail line, such as light rail at street level and bus rapid transit, weren’t evaluated in the project’s environmental impact study. Would EPA’s questioning of the EIS process possibly impact the timeline of the project?

Unless we have good justification in the public NEPA record for eliminating the EPA alternative from consideration, we would be extremely vulnerable in a NEPA suit, and there are numerous potential litigants. If we do not have good justification in the public NEPA record for eliminating the EPA alternative from consideration, then we should supplement the NEPA record. That will take time, but not as much time as litigation.” [Note that the "bus rapid transit" in the EPA letter was "bus rapid transit on a busway."]

AR00150118 From: Ryan, James Sent: Thursday, October 12, 2006 8:42 AM
To: Sukys, Raymond Cc: Libberton, Sean ; Fisher, Ronald

“We seem to be proceeding in the hallowed tradition of Honolulu rapid transit studies: never enough time to do it right, but lots of time to do it over.”

AR00150071 Ossi, Joseph Sent: Tuesday, November 14, 2006 2:10 PM To:
Ryan, James ; Sukys, Raymond Cc: Turchie, Donna ; Marler,
Renee

“This isn’t an FTA issue. Let the city deal with it. They have produced 3 failed projects and are well on their way to a fourth, so why is FTA wasting time on the City’s problems?”

Response From: Sukys, Raymond To: Ossi, Joseph ; Ryan, James
CC: Turchie, Donna ; Marler, Renee Sent: 11/14/2006 1:03:25
PM

“This is different. This time they have a huge cash flow which will build something. It seems likely that we will get involved in litigation again especially since we have an erroneous NOI out there. I do not think the FTA should be associated with their lousy practices of public manipulation and we should call them on it.”

151187 From: Sukys, Raymond (TRO-09) To: Ossi, Joseph (TPE) Sent: 1/4/2006
7:52:16 AM Subject: FW: FYI - Complaint on Honolulu’s public process

“Toru, again, has aggravated a lot of people. He was recently named in a suit over a procurement issue and during scoping indicated that one of the alternatives (hot lanes) stated in the NOI would be dropped from evaluation since FTA would not fund it, despite our notice that we would evaluate it.”
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This article was published in the Hawaii Reporter, April 16, 2012

Big Business Leaders Align to Save City’s Planned $5.3 Billion Honolulu Rail Project As Its Popularity Declines

BY MALIA ZIMMERMAN

With growing public cynicism and skepticism about the city’s planned $5.3 billion elevated steel on steel rail project, a number of stakeholders are stepping up their public relations efforts to ensure the 20-mile project is actually completed.

About 30 powerful big business leaders formed a group, Move Oahu Forward, in February, with the backing of Hawaii’s Senior Senator Daniel Inouye, and announced their organization members today. They hope to convince the public the rail will improve Oahu.

While they have money, power and connections on their side, rail critics say they have truth on theirs. They note the project has lost support because it has changed so drastically since the public voted to approve the controversial project by a narrow margin in 2008, and because of deception by those in charge.

As Honolulu City Council Budget Chair Ann Kobayashi points out, voters believed in 2008 that the rail would cost $3.7 billion and be several miles longer, extending to the Salt Lake and the University of Hawaii’s Manoa Campus. Now the rail has ballooned in cost by about $1.6 billion and will skip Salt Lake and stop at the Ala Moana Center, far short of the University.

Former Gov. Ben Cayetano, a rail critic running for Honolulu mayor in part to stop the project, said before the 2008 rail vote, the city administration under then Honolulu Mayor Mufi Hannemann spent $5 million on advertising the rail, and hired 10 public relations firms to gain public support – all on the taxpayer dime.

As more information is released about the project via Cayetano’s mayoral campaign, and discovery in a federal lawsuit challenging the validity of the city’s environmental impact statement selecting rail as the best alternative, public support has further diminished.

Recent polls show just over 30 percent of the public now favors the project. And city council members, who with few exceptions, blindly supported the project, are now asking more probing questions about finances, funding, management and construction impact.

The stakes are high. Billions of dollars will go to contractors and their vendors – and in some cases, back to the politicians who support the deal. And Hawaii’s big business leaders, many who benefit financially from the project, don’t want it stopped.

Connie Lau, who also heads Oahu’s monopoly energy company, Hawaiian Electric Industries, and is co-chair of the group Move Oahu Forward, said: “We have a rare opportunity to vastly improve our transportation system on Oahu and secure a better quality of life for many in our community. The recent accident that shut down a big part of the H-1 freeway magnified the need for a comprehensive, integrated transportation solution that should include rail transit, in addition to our buses and highways.”

Richard Dahl, Move Oahu Forward co-chair and head of Campbell Estate, one of the state’s largest landowners, said: “This is a critical time for the rail transit project. We lost the opportunity before and we cannot afford to lose it again. We have confidence in the Federal Transit Authority’s (FTA) review process and believe that Honolulu has a very viable project with a sound financial plan. We are pleased to hear that the project has already collected more than $800 million in General Excise and Use Tax (GET) revenue, which is ahead of projections and in addition the cost of the project is below the estimated cost. ”

Cayetano, who in addition to being a candidate for mayor is a plaintiff in the federal lawsuit challenging the rail project, said these companies “want at least $5.27 billion of our tax dollars spent on an obsolete rail system that wouldn’t reduce traffic congestion and would slash a 20-mile concrete scar from Kapolei to Ala Moana.”

“If these wealthy executives think rail is such a good deal, all 30 of their companies should chip in $180 million each and buy the thing,” Cayetano said.

Kobayashi said she was surprised the businesses are spending so much money to promote the rail project, when it is already underway. “I could not understand why the business group is getting money together to spend money to convince people. I mean is there a vote? I just could not understand the reasoning. I would rather see that money go to something like the Cancer Society or the Domestic Violence Action Line or more affordable housing. There are a lot of groups that could use the money,” she said.

University of Hawaii Law Professor Randall Roth, who has been a whistleblower for public and private corruption during his well regarded career, said: “Billions of dollars will draw a crowd whether you spend it on a railroad or throw it from the top of a tall building. And then there are CEOs with business reasons not to say no when Sen. Inouye asks a favor.”

Roth, who is another of seven plaintiffs in the federal lawsuit, said: “Those on the list who claim to favor rail on the merits will hopefully agree to participate in a public debate in which participants are allowed to question each other. The public would surely prefer that to another wave of slick, pro-rail propaganda.”

This is not the first group pro-rail advocates have formed. Go Rail Go and the Pacific Resource Partnership have also run campaigns to promote the project.

University of Hawaii Engineering Professor Panos Prevedouros, one of Hawaii’s best-known rail critics, said “There are hundreds of large companies and thousands of small businesses on Oahu. But now the usual pro-rail suspects* got together and gave another name to the old and tired Go Rail Go which morphed into a construction unions operative.”

In terms of those in the Move Oahu Forward group, he said Hawaiian Electric Company, headed by Move Oahu Forward co Chair Connie Lau, alone has given Oahu the nightmare of 77% oil dependency for power generation and power rates 300% higher than mainland, and climbing.

“Instead of cutting down, it wants to sign up the 40 MW electric rail customer. How greedy and irresponsible!” Prevedouros said. “Move Oahu Forward? “Move Oahu Toward Us” … for our sustained profiteering, is more apt.”

One of Hawaii’s largest landowners, Campbell Estate, also is supporting the project, and the rail’s pilings are being housed there.

Prevedouros said the estate should be “credited” for giving Oahu mainland suburban sprawl (where transit has no chance to succeed,) instead of diversified agriculture.

“If they are so proud of their second city why do they need a $5 billion dollar tether to the first city for it?” Prevedouros asked.

The group does include a few surprises, Prevedouros said, such as Hawaiian Airlines and Outrigger Hotels.

“Business dealings and obligations to bankers and other creditors are partly at play here. Don’t forget that Aloun Farms has agreed to be obliterated by B.R.Horton’s Hoopili development in Ewa.”

He noted former Mayor Mufi Hannemann, who pushed through the project in 2008, manages the Hawaii Hotel Association.

In addition, Sen. Inouye, the project’s biggest cheerleader, can facilitate for foreign landing slots for Hawaiian Air, or intervene to protect HA stronghold markets, Prevedouros said.

“All kinds of interactions are at play. The rail is the tip of the collusion and interdependency iceberg. Overall, however, it is becoming clearer who the political puppet master is in the Honolulu rail affair.”

As Honolulu Mayor Peter Carlisle said last week at a rally for the rail project with construction workers and U.S. Senator Daniel Inouye by his side, this is a key time for the rail project’s future.

While technically the project is on track, and construction has already begun in recent weeks, a number of factors could derail it include the lawsuit, the mayor’s election, council action and $1.55 billion in federal funding now pending.

City Council members are trying to determine whether they will approve an additional $1.9 billion in bond authorizations for the project, when the rail was sold to the public on the promise that no money would be borrowed. The council approved the proposal in the Budget committee last week via Bill 33 over the objections of the council chair, but could be killed in a future vote.

In addition, the city administration and Honolulu Authority for Rapid Transportation (HART) - wants another $100 million authorized for the project - for a total of $450 million from the city taxpayers.

HART also wants to reserve the right to take $244 million in funding from the city’s Handivan and TheBus maintenance funds. That has further outraged the public, and the council, because bus riders now coping with cuts to The Bus and Handivan service, and the delayed maintenance may further impact services, Kobayashi said.

Transportation

- Transit: Since 1982, government mass-transit subsidies have totaled $750 billion (in today’s dollars), yet the share of travelers using transit has fallen by nearly one-third, according to the Heritage Foundation. Federal data indicate that in 2010 in most major cities more people walked to work or telecommuted than used public transit. Further, the Brookings Institution reports, “the cost of building rail systems is notorious for exceeding expectations, while ridership levels tend to be much lower than anticipated.” In fact, the only major U.S. rail system where the benefits outweigh the government subsidies is San Francisco’s BART, and no others are close. Source: Wall Street Journal, “Why Your Highway Has Potholes”
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Why Your Highway Has Potholes
Americans don’t want to live in Ray LaHood’s car-free utopia.

Wall Stree Journal, REVIEW & OUTLOOK, April 15, 2012, 5:59 p.m. ET

Nothing shows off the worst of Congress like a highway bill. And this year’s scramble for cash is worse than ever because the 18.4 cent a gallon gasoline tax will raise $70 billion less than the $263 billion Congress wants to spend over the next five years. Let the mayhem ensue.

The Senate has passed a two-year $109 billion bill sponsored by Barbara Boxer of California that bails out the highway trust fund with general revenues, including some $12 billion for such nonessentials as the National Endowment for the Oceans and the Land and Water Conservation Fund. The bill requires little or no reform. The prevailing Senate view is the more concrete that gets poured, the more jobs back home. So more “shovel-ready” non-stimulus.

House Republicans oppose the Senate version amid a $1.3 trillion deficit and have their own bill to give states more flexibility—though still not enough—on how to spend transportation dollars. Congress had to pass a temporary 90-day extension of highway funding through June 30 because the two sides can’t agree.

What’s missing is any new thinking. Clear evidence of inefficient transportation spending comes from a new Treasury study estimating that traffic gridlock costs motorists more than $100 billion a year in delays and wasted gas. In cities like Los Angeles, commuters waste the equivalent of two extra weeks every year in traffic jams. This congestion could be alleviated by building more highway lanes where they are most needed and using market-based pricing—such as tolls—for using roads during peak travel times.

That makes too much sense for Washington. In a typical year only about 65 cents of every gas tax dollar is spent on roads and highways. The rest is intercepted by the public transit lobby and Congressional earmarkers. Then there are the union wages that pad the cost of all federal projects. The New York Times reported in 2010 that 8,074 Metropolitan Transportation Authority employees made $100,000 or more in 2009 even as the system loses money.

Transit is the biggest drain. Only in New York, San Francisco and Washington, D.C. does public transit account for more than 5% of commuter trips. Even with a recent 2.3% gain in bus and rail use due to high gas prices, public transit still accounts for a mere 2% of all inner-city trips and closer to 1% outside of New York.

Since 1982 government mass-transit subsidies have totaled $750 billion (in today’s dollars), yet the share of travelers using transit has fallen by nearly one-third, according to Heritage Foundation transportation expert Wendell Cox. Federal data indicate that in 2010 in most major cities more people walked to work or telecommuted than used public transit.

Brookings Institution economist Cliff Winston finds that “the cost of building rail systems is notorious for exceeding expectations, while ridership levels tend to be much lower than anticipated.” He calculates that the only major U.S. rail system in which the benefits outweigh the government subsidies is San Francisco BART, and no others are close to break-even.

One reason roads are shortchanged is that liberals believe too many Americans drive cars. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood has been pushing a strange “livability” agenda, which he defines as “being able to take your kids to school, go to work, see a doctor, drop by the grocery or post office, go out to dinner and a movie, and play with your kids in a park, all without having to get in your car.” This is the mind of the central planner at work, imagining that Americans all want to live in his little utopia.

The current scheme also creates giant inequities. Politically powerful cities get a big chunk of the money, while many Western and Southern states get less back than they pay in. But why should people in Akron, Ohio or Casper, Wyoming have to pay gas taxes to finance the New York subway or light rail in Denver? One reason there is so much overspending on inefficient urban transit is that federal matching dollars require residents in other states to foot up to half the bill.

The best solution would be to return all the gas tax money to the states, roughly in proportion to the money each pays in. This would allow states and localities to determine which roads and transit projects they really need—and are willing to pay for. California could decide for itself if it wants more roads, whether it can afford high-speed rail, and whether it wants to use congestion-pricing on crowded roads. The House Transportation Committee has found that getting a permit for a new road costs twice as much, and takes three times as long, when federal money is included than when financed with private or local dollars.

Less federal control would also allow states to lure billions of dollars of private financing for new roads, which experts like Mr. Winston believe is the next big thing in transportation financing but is now generally prohibited. One of the worst features of Ms. Boxer’s Senate bill is that she would exacerbate the funding shortage by adding new penalties if states leverage private dollars to build new toll roads and bridges.

The Senate’s highway-fund bailout will only perpetuate the spending misallocation that has contributed to traffic nightmares. It will also run up the deficit. If Congress really wants to enhance the livability of cities and suburbs, it will pass a highway bill that builds more roads.

The declining value of federal highway gas taxes which have remained unchanged for almost 2 decades, the substantial increase in engine fuel efficiency and the continuing diversion of highway funds to transit and other uses have resulted in the inability of almost all regions to increase road capacity to meet growing populations and to maintain roadways to acceptable levels.

Regions are considering different approaches to address critical and growing transportation needs. COST’s take-away is that this is one of the most critical issues in the nation and that citizens and leaders should remain objective and open to consider all creative and responsible ideas which will effectively address transportation needs. Consideration’s should not be arbitrarily limited by the past and how a road was originally paid for, but should consider current and future needs criticality and priority along with current funding reality.

A good example of a current, critical roadway need in Austin is more capacity on Mopac. With historical gas tax funding sources, it will take many years and maybe much more than a decade to address this need. The plan being considered is for the Central Texas Regional Mobility Authority (CTRMA) to implement a new “managed” lane each way with borrowed funds. These new lanes could be implemented in a short time and would accommodate and significantly improve transit and carpooling. With its additional capacity, it would allow single vehicle drivers to pay a variable toll (users fee) which would be adjusted to keep the traffic in the lane moving at a minimum of say: 50 miles per hour. This lane would also enhance emergency vehicles. The current “free or tax paid” lanes would be relieved to provided greater mobility. And, neighborhood citizens would finally get the sound walls they have been promised for many years. The toll fees would provide the funds to maintain this stretch of Mopac.

This approach on Mopac seems to be a timely, “win-win” mobility improvement, meeting many needs. The lanes are being implemented on ground which was originally paid for with tax dollars: But, what good is the ground if the region has no money to implement added capacity? COST believes this is an example of the kinds of creative ideas necessary to effectively address critical mobility needs which have been ignored or given low priority for many years. Mobility is directly related to the quality-of-life of almost every citizen in the region. This seems to be the important issue and not an inflexible concept of double taxation.

This tolling situation was discussed in a section of ‘The Georgia Public Foundation’ “Friday Facts” dated 4-2–2012 as follows.

- Mobility options: Given the lack of voter or political will to raise taxes for infrastructure, we’re left with few choices if we want to escape congestion, according to Leonard Gilroy and Baruch Feigenbaum of the Reason Foundation. “That’s why the use of toll finance and [public-private partnerships, or PPPs] is expanding dramatically across the nation. Tolls are fairer than taxes, as those who benefit from the tolled facility pay for it as they use it. And tolling can put major projects into service years or decades sooner than waiting to accumulate enough scraps of tax dollars to fund them.”

In another Austin region example, the first two segments of the 183A toll road were opened in 2007. This too is not a 100% “clean” example in that some of the funding was by TxDot and some of the right of way was contributed by county governments, each from tax funds. The vast majority of the funding was raised by the Central Texas Regional Mobility Authority (CTRMA) through the sale of investment bonds to the general public. The CTRMA, through contractors, built the toll road as well as “free” frontage roads for travelers in the area to use. My guess is that the free frontage roads costs at least as much as the “tax” funds provided by TxDot and the counties, but, it is not clear the bookkeeping got to this level. Nor, does it really matter. This 183A Toll Road improved the quality of life for hundreds of thousands of travelers and their families living in the region and those traveling through. Both those choosing to use 183 A and pay tolls (users’ fees) and those choosing to travel on the “tax paid,” or free, 183 and 183 A service roads experience substantially reduced congestion and save a total of hundreds of thousands of hours per week in travel time with reduced fuel expense. In addition, public transit buses use 183 A, improving transit users’ travel time and quality of life. Emergency vehicle response time is improved in many case.
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Plans moving ahead for I-95 tolls Thursday - 4/19/2012, 5:29am ET

Hank Silverberg, wtop.com

WASHINGTON - There could be some idea by the end of May where new toll facilities will be placed on Interstate 95 in Virginia, as well as an estimate on how much they might cost.

I-95 is one of the most congested highways in the country, and 45 percent of Virginia’s population lives near it. The Virginia Department of Transportation is moving ahead with plans to put at least two toll booths on the highway south of already-planned High Occupancy Toll (HOT) Lanes.

VDOT’s Michael Estes says the most likely plan calls for placing a toll facility south of Fredericksburg and another south of Richmond. Estes says the current top option would be to construct towers across the roadway at the toll facilities to handle E-ZPass so vehicles using the pass would not have to stop. Cash-taking toll booths also would be built.

Estes says officials also are studying whether drivers will take some other route when the tolls go up.

“We’re looking at diversion as a big part of our analysis — how much traffic would be diverted onto local streets because of tolls,” he says.

Seventy-two percent of I-95 in Virginia needs to be repaved. The toll money is supposed to go only to maintenance of the existing highway, which has been neglected because of a lack of money over the last decade.

Still, Estes says officials are looking to see if some of that money can also be used to add capacity to the highway, as in new traffic lanes.

“We’re working through trying to define exactly what ‘capacity’ may or may not mean,” he says.

The federal government has to sign on to the construction of toll facilities on an interstate highway. VDOT expects to have an agreement with the federal government on the tolls by next winter.

Follow Hank Silverberg and WTOP on Twitter.

(Copyright 2012 by WTOP. All Rights Reserved.)

Why are these articles about “smart growth” included in a site devoted to promoting sustainable, cost-effective people mobility solutions for the Austin region? One of the major premises of smart growth is that high density, mixed-use living will reduce driving and improve congestion. Therefore, COST evaluates these claims of smart growth promoters regarding transportation. The reality, throughout the world, is: the greater the population density, the greater the congestion. “Smart Growth” may provide a small reduction in driving per capita but the density of cars and drivers overwhelms this reduction, creating increased congestion.

The articles below focus on Maryland but there have been many similar studies regarding other cities such as Portland, Oregon where a long history of coercive government regulations to “force” smart growth has led to severe negative consequences including substantial reductions in affordability, public school enrollment, and growth.
See:
Portland is Not a Transit Role Model for Austin
Portland Going Nowhere: Austin must heed this transit failure story.
Portland Light Rail: A Colossal Financial and Transit Failure
Portland: Mecca of transit’s role model fading as debt piles up
Portland’s Vision of “Smart Growth” Utopia seems to be fading
The Portland Epistles: More Delusion

Another article regarding smart growth and San Francisco can be found here:
Transit Oriented Development: If Not San Francisco, Where? - The Great Transit Oriented Development Swindle

As described in these articles, so called “smart growth” is a clever name which bears no relationship to reality. For the vast majority of citizens, this “smart growth” living style is neither affordable or desired. Taxpayers highly subsidize “smart growth” which siphons a major, disproportionate share of tax funds resulting in increasing taxes and reduced basic, high priority city services. This results is degrading quality of life and social equity for most citizens. Smart Growth’s major claim to reduce congestion has proven to be false. Most often the opposite occurs and congestion increases. As shown in cities throughout the world, the higher the population density, the greater the congestion.

Reporter Ben Wear of the Austin American-Statesman also wrote an article regarding the failure of Transit Oriented Development in Austin and other cities.

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SMART GROWTH AND THE NEW NEWSPEAK

by Ed Braddy 04/04/2012, newgeography.com

It’s a given in our representative system that policies adopted into law should have popular support. However, there is a distinction to be made between adopting a policy consistent with what a majority of people want, and pushing a policy while making dubious claims that it harnesses “the will of the people.”

The former is a valid exercise in democracy; the latter is a logical fallacy. Smart Growth advocates are among the most effective practitioners of Argumentum ad Populum, urging everyone to get on the bandwagon of higher densities, compact mixed-uses, and transit orientation because all the “cool cities” are doing it.

Smart Growth advocates also claim this is what people prefer, even if it is not how they currently live. The two core features of Smart Growth land use — high densities and multi-family dwellings — are simply not preferred by most Americans in most places, despite the trendy push for Livability, New Urbanism, Resilient Cities, Smart Codes, Traditional Neighborhood Design, Transit Oriented Developments or any other euphemistic, clever name currently in fashion.

Survey Says!

In the internal data of the 2011 Community Preference Survey commissioned by the National Association of Realtors, no specific question was asked about density, but 52 percent of respondents said, if given a choice, they would prefer to live in traditional suburbs, small towns or the rural countryside. Another 28 percent chose a suburban setting that allowed for some mixed uses (Question 5). Taken together, this shows an overwhelming preference for low densities. Only 8 percent of the respondents favored a central city environment.

As for vibrant urbanism, only 7 percent were “very interested” in living in a place “at the center of it all.” Most people wanted to live “away from it all” (Question 17). An astonishing 87 percent said “privacy from neighbors” was important to them in deciding where to live. One can reasonably infer that a majority of this majority would favor low density places with separated uses rather than crowded, noisy mixed use locations that blur the line between public and private.

When presented with a range of housing choices, 80 percent preferred the “single-family detached house” (Question 6). Only eight percent chose an apartment or condominium. Furthermore, 61 percent preferred a place where “houses are built far apart on larger lots and you have to drive to get to schools, stores, and restaurants” over 37 percent who wanted a place where “houses are built close together on small lots and it is easy to walk to schools, stores and restaurants” (Question 8).

So — absent the loaded terms and buzzwords that are central to Smart Growth — a large majority of randomly selected people from across the country showed a strong preference for the land use pattern derisively referred to as “sprawl.”

Yet the press release from the National Association of Realtors proclaimed that “Americans prefer smart growth communities.” This is because on Question 13, respondents were given a description of two communities:

Community A, a subdivision of only single family homes with nothing around them. Not even sidewalks!

Community B: lots of amenities all “within a few blocks” of home. Of course, the description neglected to mention the population density and degree of residential stacking required to put all those dwellings in such close proximity to walkable retail. This was a significant omission, since the first housing option offered in Community B was “single family, detached,” on “various sized lots.”

Community B received 56 percent support.

So, with just one response to an unrealistic scenario, out of twenty answers that included many aversions to Smart Growth, the myth that people prefer Smart Growth was spread. The National League of Cities released a Municipal Action Guide to thousands of elected and appointed officials declaring the preference for Smart Growth, and the online network Planetizen, among others, uncritically helped spread the news.

Missing from the triumphalism was this important caveat in the 98-page analysis of the results by the consultants who conducted the survey:

“Ideally, most Americans would like to live in walkable communities where shops, restaurants, and local businesses are within an easy stroll from their homes and their jobs are a short commute away; as long as those communities can also provide privacy from neighbors and detached, single-family homes. If this ideal is not possible, most prioritize shorter commutes and single-family homes above other considerations.”

In addition to spinning the results of preference surveys, Smart Growthers also ignore them. Maryland is a case study in how to disregard what people want while claiming the opposite. In drafting a statewide growth management plan that anticipated “increased demand for housing, an aging population, and diverse communities,” Maryland officials ignored a robust 55+ Housing Preference Survey from Montgomery County that specifically addressed this concern.

The survey showed that most seniors planned to remain in their present homes upon retirement. Only 30 percent planned to move, and, of that group, only a small percentage would consider an apartment or condominium. This should have mattered to Maryland officials trying to gauge housing preferences for their senior population. Instead, the architects of PlanMaryland looked elsewhere to find studies that reinforced their assumptions.

The Great Conflation

There is an abundance of examples like these, and the key to understanding how they influence decision-makers lies in the conflation of specific amenities with the overarching concept of Smart Growth. For example, Todd Litman’s Where We Want to Be, published by the Victoria Transport Policy Institute, claims that “preference for smart growth is increasing due to demographic, economic and market trends such as aging population, rising future fuel prices, increasing traffic congestion, and increasing health and environmental concerns.”

Does this mean most seniors – such as those in Maryland – want to live in high density, mixed use, transit-oriented apartments even when they say they don’t? Hardly. Litman concedes that “most Americans prefer single-family homes,” but finds “a growing portion want neighborhood amenities associated with Smart Growth including accessibility, walkability, nearby services, and improved public transport.”

Those amenities are things like sidewalks, which evidently are now a Smart Growth invention, and shops that are close to (but not mixed into) residential areas. Litman’s clever construction – e.g., sidewalks equal walkability equal Smart Growth policy – is convincing to officials who mistakenly conclude that their constituents must want Smart Growth when, in fact, they do not.
This has been Part One of a Two-Part Series on Smart Growth by Ed Braddy.

Photo by W. Cox: Rail station in Evry, a suburb of Paris

Ed Braddy is the executive director of the American Dream Coalition, a non-profit organization promoting freedom, mobility and affordable homeownership. Mr. Braddy often speaks on growth management related issues and their impact on local communities. He can be reached at: ed@americandreamcoalition.org
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SMART GROWTH: THE MARYLAND EXAMPLE

by Ed Braddy 04/05/2012, newgeography.com

This is Part Two of a two-part series.

Evidence that people just don’t like Smart Growth is revealed in findings from organizations set up to promote Smart Growth. In 2009, the Washington Post reported, “Scholars at the National Center for Smart Growth Research and Education found that over a decade, smart growth has not made a dent in Maryland’s war on sprawl.”

Citing the “most comprehensive review to date” from the same Center, the Baltimore Sun in 2011 argued that Maryland had made “little progress with Smart Growth” despite adopting laws and policies hailed across the country as models for growth management.

One of the innovative policies was the establishment of Priority Funding Areas (PFAs) where development was to be directed and incentivized with money for cash-strapped jurisdictions. Yet the representative bodies closest to the people continued to permit development outside the PFAs.

Assessing the failure of incentives to concentrate development, the Center concluded: “As the Maryland experience suggests, without statutory requirements, tools that matter to the state are not always those that matter to local governments.”

The anti-democratic outlook among Smart Growthers was evident in a comment by Gerrit Knapp, the director of the National Center for Smart Growth Research and Education, who said, “What makes incentives so politically attractive is that governments and individuals can choose to ignore them if they wish. Unfortunately, in Maryland over the last decade, that’s exactly what many have been doing.”

This “unfortunate” behavior by free people is consistent with the conclusion of Robert Bruegmann, author of Sprawl: A Compact History, who found that low density development was “the preferred settlement pattern everywhere in the world where there is a certain measure of affluence and where citizens have some choice in how they live.”

Deconstructing Density

Under the new PlanMaryland, Priority Funding Areas essentially become urban growth boundaries. People still can choose to live outside PFAs, but new housing can be built at no greater than one unit per 20 acres, making such dwellings unaffordable to all but the extremely rich. Ninety percent of new development must be inside the PFAs at a minimum density of 3.5 units per acre.

The impact of increased densities is hard to gauge when presented in this manner, but 3.5 units per acre converts to 2,240 units per square mile. Maryland averages 2.62 people per dwelling unit, so the minimum population density for almost all new development will be on a scale of 5,846 people per square mile, a density higher than Portland or San Francisco, and just shy of Copenhagen, Denmark.

Furthermore, reviewing previous drafts of PlanMaryland leads one to believe that this minimum density will be the exception to the rule of even higher densities. The earliest draft available for public comment, April 2011, was unapologetic about the need for significantly higher densities, saying this “threshold for new development – a relatively low density of 3.5 units per acre – is not accommodating growth in PFAs as needed to minimize continued impacts on our rural and resource lands and industries.”

A later draft, September 2011, established ranges for “medium density” (3.5 to 10 units per acre) and “high density” (10+ units per acre) and repeatedly showed a preference for the high density classification, which converts to a scale of at least 16,704 people per square mile.

For example, on page 18 is the complaint that incentive-based planning “hindered high-density urban development,” and page 35 says there would be dramatic per capita savings “if 25 percent of the low-density development projected to be built from 2000 to 2025 was shifted to high-density development.”

But a strange thing happened on the road to the final draft: high density was euphemized. The sixteen-page Executive Summary does not once mention density. “Low density” makes numerous appearances in the final draft in the context of wasteful land use patterns, and “high density” appears just once.

Instead, PlanMaryland relies on the phrase “compact development”. A comparison table, laughably labeled “Low Density versus Compact Development,” steers clear of medium or high density labels even though, when converted to population per square mile, the “compact” living arrangement would be more than seven times Maryland’s current density.

To discern the density thresholds that Maryland planners have in mind, consider, PlanMaryland claims that “Compact development leads people to drive 20 to 40 percent less, at minimal or reduced cost, while reaping fiscal and health benefits.”

This appears to be lifted from the influential 2007 Growing Cooler report, sponsored by the National Center for Smart Growth Research and Education, Smart Growth America, and other advocacy organizations. The authors call on “all housing growth” to be built at an average density of 13 units per acre (21,798 people per square mile), in order to increase the overall metropolitan density to 9 units per acre (15,091 people per square mile) by the year 2025. There’s not a lot of room for detached single family homes in this scenario.

PlanMaryland’s Best Practices section highlights White Flint in North Bethesda for redeveloping “an auto-dominated suburban strip into an environment where people walk to work, shops and transit.” This project puts 1,400 apartments on 32 acres, for a density of 44 units per acre.

Hyattsville’s Arts District is recognized because “this mixed-use community features row homes, condominiums, live-work units, shops and a new community center,” but there is no room for detached, single family homes among the 500 dwellings crowded onto 25 acres, or 20 units per acre. Also featured is Carroll Creek Park that has 300 residential units, all multi-family, mixed among commercial and office space along a linear 1.3-mile strip.

As a “Traditional Neighborhood Development,” Kentlands is closer to the norm, and features some single family housing among its mix of shops, apartments, and condos, but the 1,655 residential units on 352 acres is still 35 percent higher than the “minimum” densities mentioned in PlanMaryland, and thirteen times the state’s current density level.

These places are architecturally striking and aesthetically attractive, but they are unaffordable to most of the state’s population. Furthermore, the dearth of detached single family housing, the predominance of multi-family dwellings mixed with (not nearby) other uses, and dramatically higher densities are not at all what an overwhelming majority of people want in Maryland or anywhere else.

The emergence of Smart Growth in Maryland is indicative of the movement in general: For successful implementation, it would be necessary to replace incentives with mandates, and continue to rely on euphemistic language to avoid a candid discussion of density.

In October, I spoke — along with Wendell Cox and a few others — at a technical forum on PlanMaryland, addressing many areas of concern including density. Signed into law by Governor Martin O’Malley in December 2011, PlanMaryland weakens the authority of local governments, eviscerates property rights, and expresses hope for declining interest in the single family home.

Defenders will argue that most people support Smart Growth; after all, O’Malley and others like him were popularly elected. Yet these politicians never campaign on the specifics of Smart Growth, such as how many people per square mile they believe is necessary, or what kinds of restrictions they will impose on single family housing in the suburbs, or the impacts on affordability.

The September draft of PlanMaryland said, “PlanMaryland, we believe, is what the public says it wants and deserves in government.” Tellingly, this statement is missing from the final report. That’s because what planners want and what people prefer are starkly different.

Ed Braddy is the executive director of the American Dream Coalition, a non-profit organization promoting freedom, mobility and affordable homeownership. Mr. Braddy often speaks on growth management related issues and their impact on local communities or at ed@americandreamcoalition.org

Austin’s current transportation priorities and focus on urban rail will further deteriorate mobility; resulting in continuing tax increases and reductions in basic, high priority city services. This approach is not responsible or financially sustainable.

The urban rail project would be the largest in Austin’s history and would result in the greatest long-term negative impacts on the city including increasing congestion in the central core.

The Austin urban area has experienced its only recent sustained period of overall congestion reduction during the past 6 years, according to ‘congestion index’ data by the Texas Transportation Institute. This improved congestion coincides with a period of more aggressive roadway expansion, including toll roads, and improving of roadway and intersection bottlenecks in the region. During this period, and over the past 12 years, Public Transit ridership has trended slightly down, providing no positive impact to congestion. The Red Line Commuter has actually increased congestion as it delays roadway traffic. In addition, the Austin area has experienced a reducing trend in driving per capita as retail, medical, entertainment, recreation, dining and other needs have dispersed to be closer to living areas.

Austin should address transportation improvements for all citizens with cost-effective approaches including those mentioned in this article and others. Effective transportation solutions must be based on today’s and future needs, not 150 year old outdated technology, fixed rail, trains. Solutions have to support citizens’ choices, must be cost-effective and must recognize that greater mobility is directly related to flexible, convenient and affordable access to life’s offerings which provide the basis for greater quality of life
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Improving Transportation for All and Not Just the Few

A look into U.S. metropolitan cities’ disproportionate transportation spending

Adrian Moore, Reason Foundation
March 14, 2012

Fairness is a hot topic these days. Anger over crony “capitalist” schemes using government policies that benefit only the few at the cost of the many is cutting across party lines. Despite this frustration, unfair policies abound, often with feeble justification.

Transportation policies are great examples of policymakers’ unfair use of taxpayers’ money. Take a look at the table below which gives data for a few metro areas in the United States. For starters, notice the percentage of transportation spending devoted to public transit relative to the percentage of expected use of that public transit. How can anyone think it fair or even wise to spend on average 25-70 percent of transportation spending on a public system that will, at best, carry only 5-8.5 percent of all metro area travel? This also means planning to spend only 30-75 percent of the money on the transportation system carrying close to 90 percent of travel - the roads.

Click to enlarge
COST Notes:
1. The Austin region’s 25 year transportation plans have continued to show an increasing percentage of transportation spending on non-roadway projects. The current plan reflects almost 50% of total transportation expenditures being allocated to non-roadway projects to serve less than 1% of the passenger miles traveled. The Austin region’s current 2035 Transportation Plan is also similar to the cities in the table, above, in that the Austin plan indicates increased congestion in 2035, after spending more than $28 billion and not properly prioritizing the spending.
2. The data in this table are from regional plans and the “% of travel by public transit” is not consistent with census data. Regional plans may use different boundaries, etc. However, the message is valid. Most regional plans show a small increase in public transit percentage after spending many billions of dollars. These ridership increases rarely occur and the cost-effectiveness of transit further degrades.
3. In comparison to these plan’s “% of Travel by Public Transit,” The Austin region has less than 1% of its daily passenger miles traveled on public transit and less than 3% of its work trips are by public transit.
(end of COST notes)

That kind of lopsided spending is outrageously unfair. Why should less than 10 percent of the people in a metro area claim 50, 60, or even 70 percent of transportation resources? And lest you think this disproportionate spending is about providing transportation for the poor, keep in mind that most of the transit money these cities plan to spend will go to rail transit, mainly used by the middle class, while local governments continue to slash bus service which is mainly used by the poor.

This division of resources is unsustainable. The roads carry the majority of commuters, including the buses used by the poor. But the roads are being systematically underfunded in these metro areas, allowed to deteriorate, and are not being expanded to keep up with growth in travel.

And you can see the results in the last two columns in the chart above. In every metro area, congestion will get worse with current plans. Could there be a connection between spending most of the money on a minority of travelers and worsening congestion? Yes, there is.

These metro area governments, along with those in the nation’s other major metro areas, each plan to spend tens of billions of dollars on transportation over the next 20 years as they predict congestion will become worse.

If the school system came to us and said “we plan to spend tens of billions of dollars over the next 20 years, and school test scores will still go down,” would we accept that?

If the police force came to us and said “we plan to spend tens of billions of dollars over the next 20 years, and crime will still go up,” would we accept that?

So why do we accept governments planning for failure with tens of billions of dollars of transportation spending from our taxes?

It is time taxpayers start demanding cities and states quit planning for failure and that local governments stop spending a large chunk of transportation funding on a minority of commuters. It is time to start building transportation networks in our major metro areas that improve mobility for everyone and provide better roads and create better transit with less congestion.

What would that entail? Well, it is complex. For insights on how to accomplish this, check out Reason Foundation’s Galvin Mobility Project for research on solving congestion, with specific mobility plans for Atlanta and Lee County, Fla. Some key elements to these plans include:

- Add HOT (High Occupancy Toll) lanes to the freeway network. Sometimes called managed lanes or express lanes, these lanes allow buses and carpools to go free, and charge others a toll to use them. They are priced high enough so that they remain free-flowing even during rush hour.

- Add express buses or Bus Rapid Transit that can use the HOT lanes as a way to provide faster transit services.

- Improve the major boulevards to provide better mobility between neighboring parts of town. For starters this means signal light synchronization. And removing signals from some selected arterials in each direction by building queue duckers or flyovers (under or overpasses for the middle lanes) for through traffic. Those may be tolled.

- Identify additional freeway segments or connections in the freeway network and build them as toll tunnels. Analysis for several such projects shows that toll revenues can pay much of the costs and provide huge benefits in return for the balance provided from transportation funds.

Reason Foundation’s analysis of Atlanta and Lee County, Fla., along with several other major metro areas, shows that these approaches would actually reduce congestion while spending roughly the same percentage of transportation funds. Less congestion and more choices for travelers — what’s not to like? And why isn’t this the plan for these cities already?

Adrian Moore, Ph.D., is vice president of policy at Reason Foundation.

These articles tell a story of the Washington D.C. Metro Transit agency and the level of decay which the agency has reached by spending, primarily taxpayers’ dollars, with no real accountability, leading to self-gratification and indulgence, which has all but erased any consideration of the mission of public transit to effectively serve its riders and to cost-effectively spend taxpayer funds which highly subsidize every rider. All public transit is significantly subsidized.

As D.C. Metro is finding, their path is not sustainable. Taxpayers and transit riders are the major losers as the D.C. system continues to degrade in performance and reliability while fares increase and bus service is reduced to fund the high cost of rail. The D. C. Metro train system opened in the 1970s and is at the normal end of its expected performance period. Its maintenance issues are increasing rapidly and it experienced a major train accident in 2009, killing and injuring several passengers. In addition, a number of employees have been killed in accidents.

COST is not aware of any other transit agency which has reached this appalling level of performance. However, many of the traits, which have seemed to play a role in Metro’s decline, exist in most transit agencies, including Austin’s Capital Metro. There is often little accountability as transit agencies’ boards of directors are often populated with inexperienced people and people which are influenced by political and self-serving conflicts.

Several large transit agency top executives have been replaced in recent years as problems have developed. Even though numerous transit agencies have spent billions of dollars to implement rail transit, it has not performed as promised and has not proven to be cost-effective. With anemic ridership, rapidly increasing operating costs and increasing debt burdens, many transit agencies are struggling. As in the situation at D.C. Metro, a number of the early urban rail systems will be reaching their operating age limit during the next few years and none of them have a source of funds, many billions of dollars, to replace aging systems. The outlook for these agencies is bleak.

Many of the indicators and trends leading to bleak transit outlooks exist in Austin. Cap Metro is “technically” bankrupt by huge, overrun, spending on its Red Line Commuter. Cap Metro’s ridership has been down over the past 12 years and its costs have increased much faster than inflation. The Red Line has proven to be a disaster for cost-effectiveness as taxpayers subsidize each, daily, two-way rider more than $20,000 per year. While Cap Metro continues to spend money to promote the Red Line and the city of Austin is paying Cap Metro $5.7 million in tax funds to operate Friday and Saturday evening service over 34 months, there is little hope this line can ever achieve acceptable, cost-effective performance.

It would be much more responsible, considering taxpayers’ needs and the needs of the total transit ridership, if Cap Metro stopped the Red Line and stopped the Red Ink. There are so many more important and constructive ways to spend these limited transportation dollars to improve citizens’ mobility. The Red Line actually increases congestion in the region.

The city of Austin is now pursuing the “impossible dream” of another urban rail transit system. It will cost more than ten times Cap Metro’s wasteful spending on the Red Line and it will not relieve congestion. It will likely increase congestion and safety hazards in downtown Austin. It is remarkable that we are surrounded with urban rail failures in many cities, yet, Austin continues to spend millions of tax dollars to study and plan for urban rail. After more than 2 years of urban rail study and cost estimate increases of more than 5 times early estimates, the city has not answered many major questions such as: “How will it be paid for, both implementation and annual operations? The only possible answer is with major, long-term tax increases for all to subsidize a few. There have been zero discussions of cost-effectiveness and very preliminary, early ridership estimates are not credible. Austin should stop this ill-advised spending, regroup and direct transportation funds to projects which will relieve congestion for the most citizens.

For many unanswered questions, see: Austin’s Urban Rail has Many Unanswered Questions,

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Metro derailed by culture of complacence, incompetence, lack of diversity

‘Inept get promoted, … capable get buried’

By Luke Rosiak, The Washington Times, Monday, March 26, 2012

First of three parts
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Even with big salaries, Metro can’t fill its jobs

Silver Line to pose major test for hiring

By Luke Rosiak The Washington Times, Tuesday, March 27, 2012

Second of three parts
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Metro transit police: Not quite the region’s finest

In unique jurisdiction, outcomes of enforcement sometimes fall short

By Luke Rosiak, The Washington Times, Sunday, April 1, 2012

Third of three parts

The major change to facts is that transit commute ridership has grown a little in actual numbers and increased a tiny estimated percentage of 0.2% from 2000 to 2010 according to the census in 2000 and the census community survey estimates in 2010. The percentage has essentially flattened for the first decade since the 1960 census when work trip data was first collected. US commuting by transit is still below the 5% mentioned in this article.

This first very small public transit increase was clearly due to significantly higher gas prices and the poor economic conditions. Past similar situations have caused temporary transit increases but never enough to create even slight decade over decade increases. Some analyses indicate that puplic transit ridership has actually decreased from 2000 to 2010. It is probably not worth the discussion. One thing is clear, the minor increase in public transit was only a very small part of the slight decrease in driving. Most of the driving decrease was in automobile trips not taken. Drivers took fewer long trips and did more planning to combine or chain trips in urban driving.
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By Cliff Slater, Honolulu Advertiser, March 10, 2003

At an American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) panel discussion held last week, Tom Jackson, ASCE’s National President, detailed America’s and Hawaii’s crumbling infrastructure problems and discussed needed funding for sewers, highways, water systems and mass transit.

When it was my turn, I suggested that the increased spending he had recommended for mass transit could be better spent in the other areas. Here’s why.

In the early 1970’s, the U.S. began subsidizing mass transit of various kinds, including subways, light rail, ferries and bus systems. According to the American Public Transportation Association, those taxpayer-provided subsidies increased to $160 billion in combined building and operating subsidies just for the last ten years alone. [i]

The result of this spending?

According to the U.S. Census, the number of commuters using public transportation has declined steadily at every census since 1960—not just the percentage but the number of commuters.

In 1960, 7.8 million commuters used transit but that dropped to 6.1 million by the year 2000 despite a doubling of the work force. Thus, transit usage as a percentage of commuters is half of what it used to be—today it is less than 5%. [ii]

How can we have invested billions in subways like San Francisco’s BART and Washington’s METRO, light rail lines in Portland, San Diego, and Denver among many others, and in new bus systems all over the U.S. and finish up with fewer people commuting by public transportation? Good question.

It appears that the switch from commuting by mass transit to commuting by automobile that began in the 1920’s has continued unabated despite these massive taxpayer subsidies for public transportation. This is an “investment” that has not paid off. At best, you can only claim that the subsidies slowed the decline of public transportation.

Honolulu’s experience has been little different. The City took over a profitable bus system in 1972 and required subsidies from that moment on. Today, Honolulu taxpayers subsidize TheBus by over $100 million annually in capital and operating costs. It has become 10% of the city budget—yet ridership declines. Fewer commuters, both in number and percentage, use TheBus to commute today than did in 1980. [iii] And that is despite a 31% increase in the number of buses in use.

What was, and is, the point of spending all this money—both locally and nationally?
The American Public Transportation Association claims that one of the benefits of public transportation is “less traffic congestion.” And taxpayer support has primarily been from the perception that “investments” in mass transit would relieve traffic congestion. However, there is no connection between transit and traffic congestion, strange as that may sound.

Traffic congestion has deteriorated both in those cities that have spent vast sums of money on transit and those that have spent little. Of the 20 U.S. cities that have the worst traffic congestion, we find that 18 of them also have experienced the worst increases in congestion. [iv] And, further, these 18 cities are those where the vast bulk of the transit subsidies have been incurred.

We might wish to encourage public transportation for other reasons but it should not be to relieve traffic congestion.

If we are to deal with traffic congestion sensibly, we have to approach the subject in a businesslike way devoid of wishful thinking, “visions,” knee-jerk responses, and other impediments to clear and rational thought.

How are we going to do that?

Cliff Slater is a regular columnist whose footnoted columns are at www.lava.net/cslater
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Footnotes:
[i] Operating spending: www.apta.com/stats/fundop/opfund.htm
Capital spending: http://www.apta.com/stats/fundcap/capfund.htm
See also www.publicpurpose.com/ut-ussby.htm

[ii] Census journey-to-work data 1960-1990 for the U.S: http://www.census.gov/population/socdemo/journey/mode6790.txt For 2000: http://factfinder.census.gov/servlet/DTTable?ds_name=D&geo_id=D&mt_name=DEC_2000_SF3_U_P030&_lang=en

See also: Journey-To-Work Trends in the United States and its Major Metropolitan Areas 1960-1990. Federal Highway Administration. Publication No. FHWA-PL-94-012. November 1993. For change in workers: tables 5-6 and 5-6A. For changes in public transportation use: table 5-9A.

[iii] Honolulu commuting:

http://www.hawaii.gov/dbedt/census2k/profile-honolulu/honolulu-cdp.pdf Table DP-3 on page 3 for 2000.

http://www.hawaii.gov/dbedt/db96/index.html Section 12 Labor Force, Table 12.03 for 1990.

http://censtats.census.gov/usa/usa.shtml Select “Hawaii,” then select “Honolulu, HI,” then select table “Labor force, employment and journey-to-work (Census).” Then search for two lines:
Total workers reporting means of transportation to work 1990 = 437,518
Workers using public transportation to work (includes ferryboat) 1990 = 40,643

The latest data from TheBus also shows continuing declines in ridership:
“Patronage of TheBus totaled 68,430,491 in FY 2002, compared with 70,384,025 in FY 2001. TheBus operated a total of 1,354,440 bus hours in FY 2002, compared with 1,339,604 in FY 2001.” http://www.co.honolulu.hi.us/csd/budget/fullannualreport.pdf page 228, DTS-9

[iv] During the period 1982-2000, since the Texas Transportation Institute began measuring traffic congestion data in U.S. urban areas for their Urban Mobility Studies.

1. “Even while employment was falling, working at home (mainly telecommuting) increased almost 10 percent between 2006 and 2010 (latest data available) and telecommuting added six times as many commuters as transit.” (COST Note: Telecommuting is the fastest growing US ‘commute mode’ and has exceeded the use of public transit throughout the US if New York City is excluded. Austin telecommuting is growing rapidly and ranks high among US cities with a 37% higher telecommuting percentage than the national average. Telecommuting also takes a greater number and percentage of commuters off the roads than transit does.)

2. “transit is not an alternative to the car for the vast majority of urban trips.”

3. “It does no good to suggest this can be materially improved by increasing transit service. The most lucrative transit markets are already served, and new ones would be more expensive.” (COST note: In almost every instance, rail transit becomes less cost-effetive the more it is expanded.)

4. “The 2010 census indicated that the American households continue to decentralize, increasingly choosing to live in single-family detached houses in the suburbs. The same trend has been occurring in employment locations, as Brookings Institution research indicates. Between 1998 and 2006, less than one percent of new employment was located within three miles of urban cores. Nearly 70 percent of the new jobs decentralized to outer suburban rings.”

It would not be responsible for Austin to spend and risk huge proportions of its limited tax dollars on future mobility approaches based on unfounded perceptions or assumptions which are substantially different than the facts, trends and actual experiences discussed here.

In addition, history indicates those elements below which are temporary, such as poor economic conditions, will reverse and people will adjust their lifestyles to mobility options which better meet their needs, are more convenient and provide the greatest freedom, mobility, opportunity, and quality-of-life. This choice is not ‘public transit’ for the vast majority of citizens.

A bottom line “good news” message here seems to be that some of the trends will continue to decrease actual or percentage of roadway trips and, perhaps, lessen the need for as much infrastructure investment per capita in the future. However, we first need to achieve significant catch-up.

Since public transit commuting is 5th in the percentage of commuters behind drove alone, carpooled, worked-at-home and other; it is surprising that a hugely disproportionate share of transportation dollars are spent on transit to highly subsidize so few. It would be far more effective in improving mobility to spend a much greater proportion of transportation funds to enhance the 4 most used modes of commuting which citizens have already voted for with their actions and their pocketbooks. We must always keep commuting in perspective: while commuting periods are generally the most congested times, commuting is generally less than 20% of total driving. In Austin and other cities, the dispersion of retail, medical, restaurant, entertainment, recreation and other needs to the suburbs has reduced total driving per capita, even though some commutes may be a little longer.
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by Wendell Cox, 12/31/2011, in newgeography

The latest figures from the United States Department of Transportation indicate that driving volumes remain depressed. In the 12 months ended in September 2011, driving was 1.1 percent below the same period five years ago. Since 2006, the year that employment peaked, driving has remained fairly steady, rising in two years (the peak was 2007) and falling in three years. At the same time, the population has grown by approximately four percent. As a result, the driving per household has fallen by approximately five percent.

There are likely a number of reasons for the driving decline, some of which are described below.

Democratization of Mobility: The leveling off of driving is something analysts have expected for some time. More than ten years ago, Alan Pisarski noted that drivers licenses and automobility had saturated the market among the While-non-Hispanic population. For decades, driving had been increasing at a substantially faster rate than the population, as driving rates for women and minorities converged upon the rate of White-non-Hispanic males.

Clearly, the continued, extraordinary increase in driving of recent decades could not be expected to continue, since nearly all were already driving. Pisarski called this the “democratization of mobility” in a 1999 paper. At that time only African-Americans and Hispanics were still behind the curve. The recent economic difficulties have slowed the progress toward equal automobility for minorities. In 2009, American Community Survey data indicates that the share of Hispanic households without access to a car remained 40 percent above White-non-Hispanic Whites. The rate of African-American no-car households was 20 percent above that of White-non-Hispanics. The driving decline reflects in large part the failure of the economy to produce equal mobility opportunities for minority households.

Higher Gasoline Prices and the Middle Class Squeeze: One of the most important factors has to be the unprecedented increase in gasoline prices. Over the past decade, gasoline prices have doubled (adjusted for inflation) and have remained persistently high. It has worsened in the last five years, with prices having risen more rapidly than in any period relative to the previous decade in the 80 years for which there are records. This has taken a huge toll on households. At average driving rates, budgets have increased by nearly $1,800 annually to pay for the higher gasoline prices. In a time (2000-2010) that median household incomes declined $3,700 (inflation adjusted), it is not surprising that people are driving less.

Unemployment: Not Driving to Work: Today’s higher unemployment means that fewer people are driving to work. Employment peaked in 2006. Assuming average work trip travel distances, the smaller number of people working now would reduce travel per household by more than one percent (one-fifth of the household reduction).

Shopping Less Frequently due to Higher Gasoline Prices: According to the Nationwide Household and Transportation Survey (2009), the average household makes 468 shopping trips annually. If shopping trips were reduced by one quarter in response to higher gasoline prices, the reduction in travel per household would be enough, along with the work trip reductions, to account for all of the decline over the past five years.

Information Technology: Not Driving and Telecommuting Instead: Again, advances in information technology appear to have also added to the decline. Even while employment was falling, working at home (mainly telecommuting) increased almost 10 percent between 2006 and 2010 (latest data available) and telecommuting added six times as many commuters as transit. Working at home eliminates the work trip and is thus the most sustainable mode of access to employment. In just four years, working at home removed as much automobile travel to work as occurs every day in the Salt Lake City metropolitan area.

More Information Technology: Not Driving and Texting Instead? Adie Tomer at the Brookings Institution notes a decline in the share of people 19 years and under who have drivers licenses as potentially contributing to the trend. She cites University of Michigan research by Michael Sivak and Brandon Schoettle, who documented the decline. Sivak told The Michigan Daily that “a major reason for the trend is the shift toward electronic communication among America’s youth, reducing the need for ‘actual contact among young people.’”

Still More Information Technology: Not Driving and Shopping On-Line Instead? And, as with electronic communication and telecommuting, there is also an information technology angle to shopping. The substantial increase in on-line shopping could be reducing shopping trips.

Not Making Intercity Trips? All of the loss in driving has been in rural areas, rather than urban areas. Since the employment peak in 2006, urban driving has increased 0.4 percent (though driving per household has decreased). By comparison, rural driving has declined 6.0 percent (Note). This much larger rural driving decline could be an indication that people have reduced discretionary travel, such as longer trips that extend beyond the fringes of urban areas (Figure). As with transit, however, it would be a mistake to characterize Amtrak as having attracted much of the reduced rural travel (or for that matter from airlines, see: If Wishes were Iron Horses: Amtrak Gaining Airline Riders?). Over the period, Amtrak’s gain (passenger mile) has been approximately one percent of the rural loss.

Click to inlarge

Not Driving and not Transferring to Transit: Transit ridership trends have been generally positive over the past decade. Since 2006, transit ridership has risen 3.4 percent. This compares to the 1.1 percent decline in automobile use. However, it would be incorrect to assume attraction to transit as contributing materially to the decline in driving. Because transit has such a small market, even this healthy increase has budged its urban market share (now approximately 1.7 percent) up by barely 0.5 percentage points.

Besides scale, there is another reason transit has not been the beneficiary of the driving reduction. Automobile competitive transit service is simply not accessible for most trips. For example, it is estimated that less than four percent of metropolitan jobs can be reached in 30 minutes by transit for the average metropolitan area resident. This compares to the more than 65 percent of automobile commuters who do reach their jobs in 30 minutes or less. In short, transit is not an alternative to the car for the vast majority of urban trips.

It does no good to suggest this can be materially improved by increasing transit service. The most lucrative transit markets are already served, and new ones would be more expensive. This is illustrated by the exorbitant cost of adding ridership. Over the most recent decade, transit ridership increased 21 percent, which required an expenditure increase of 59 percent, nearly three times as much.

Decentralization of Jobs and Residences: The 2010 census indicated that the American households continue to decentralize, increasingly choosing to live in single-family detached houses in the suburbs. The same trend has been occurring in employment locations, as Brookings Institution research indicates. Between 1998 and 2006, less than one percent of new employment was located within three miles of urban cores. Nearly 70 percent of the new jobs decentralized to outer suburban rings.

The continuing dispersion of jobs and residences could dampen the increase rate of driving in the years to come, as households have greater opportunities to live in the suburban surroundings they prefer, while also commuting to the more proximate jobs that have moved to the suburbs.

The Decline in Context: Among the potential causes, certainly the most important is the economic situation, with steeply declining household incomes and the worst economic situation since the 1930s. The longer term driving trends will be more apparent when (and if) prosperity restores healthy growth in employment. Moreover, with only a small part of travel being attracted to transit, a more significant shift could involve substitution of access by information technology (on-line). Even with the decline, however, there has been nothing like a “sea change” in how the nation travels.

Note: The data on driving is estimated from Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) reports. FHWA produces monthly preliminary estimates, which are subsequently adjusted in annual reports.

Wendell Cox is a Visiting Professor, Conservatoire National des Arts et Metiers, Paris and the author of “War on the Dream: How Anti-Sprawl Policy Threatens the Quality of Life”

Portland is considered and perceived by many to be the “Mecca” or model for rail transit in cities primarily developed after the automobile. It is difficult and often misleading to compare any two cities because there are many factors and conditions are different for every city. However some indicators and clues from real experience are important to consider and understand as Austin pursues its future options for mobility and transportation. It is useful to study Portland because it has achieved the greatest rail ridership of the new light rail cities.

A quick comparison of census data on Portland and Austin area transit ridership shows both cities have a very small percentage, but, Portland has a higher percentage of work transit commuters. The Portland Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA) has about 6.1% of its work trips on transit or about 3.3% more total work commuters using transit. This is more than double the Austin MSA percentage. Austin has a total of about 0.6% more commuters using carpooling than Portland does. Austin has twice as many people working at home as using public transit for the work trip and Portland has about the same number of transit commuters as those who work at home. Portland has about 2.8% and Austin about 1.8% of commuters walking to work. If you have spent time in Portland, you understand that Portland’s year-round weather is far more conducive to walking and riding public transit than central Texas’ weather, primarily, extremely hot and humid summers. Austin has about the national average percentage (76%) of drive alone commuters and Portland is lower at 71.6.

According to the Texas Transportation Institute (TTI), Austin and Portland comparisons reveal:

-Austin has less congested travel as a percentage of peak Vehicle Miles Traveled (VMT).

-The two cities have about the same congestion as a percentage of lane miles.

-Austin has almost 75% of Portland’s total person hour delay which is about the same as Peak Travelers and commuters showing almost no difference.

-The two cities have about the same Delay per Peak Auto Commuter.

-Austin’s travel time index (TTI) is 1.28 reflecting slightly more congestion than Portland’s 1.25, but Austin’s has been improving faster over the past 5 years since Austin had its peak TTI.

-Portland has more than 3 times the transit trips and passenger miles, or 2 times per capita, while Austin has more freeway and arterial vehicle miles per capita.

The bottom line is: Portland and Austin areas are slightly different in conditions and travel modes, including the use of public transit, reflecting the choice of citizens under these different conditions. The mode differences are minimal and are at the margin of the main mode of transportation which is the private vehicle/automobile. With minor differences in transportation modes, Portland and Austin have almost identical commuting times and close to the national average, according to the census. In both Portland and Austin, the vast majority of passenger miles traveled are on the roadways in private vehicles. It is not likely possible, but, assuming it could be done, Portland has shown the costs to substantially change these human choices would be exorbitantly expensive for taxpayers and would not provide societal benefits which serve the greater-good of the overall community. Portland has shown what it takes to become the highest train ridership transit agency in the US. It is not cost effective and it is detrimental to the overall community. There are far better alternatives and responsible expenditure of taxpayer funds.

Portland’s transit fares are already double Austin’s fares which have been increased three times in the past three years. Portland’s transit fares are expected to increase again next year to help fill a minimum $17 million budget gap. As in Austin, fare increases have been accompanied by bus service reductions and both actions decrease ridership. This is a continuous cycle: Transit costs are rising faster than inflation and potential riders are driven away by the increased fares.

Portland’s operating revenues from fares, advertising and service contracts recover almost 30% of its operating costs/debt payments. This does not include the streetcar which is funded separately and recovers only about 10% of its operating costs from fares. As in all train transit systems, Portland’s light rail operating costs omitting bus shuttle and feeder costs. On this bases, recovery is actually higher than its bus system but more than $4 billion, and growing, has been spent for rail capital and none of this is recovered with fares. Austin has one of the lower operating recovery rates in the nation, recovering less than 10% of its total operating costs/debt payments. Austin’s fare recovery rate for its Red Line commuter rail operating costs/debt payment is even worse at less than 5%. This does not include recovery of its high capital costs. Considering capital costs, each weekday, two-way rider is subsidized more than $20,0000 per year ($40 per ride or $80 per day) by taxpayers and bus riders. Most of these 800-900 daily Red Line rail riders have automobile choices, whereas, most of the 40,000 daily bus riders, carrying a substantial portion of the burden of rail costs, do not have choices. This, cycle, degrades social equity as it has and is in many rail cities.

Even though Portland has spend billions of dollars on expanding their Light Rail system, the buses still carry in excess of 45% more bus riders. In Portland, as in Austin and other rail cities, bus riders shoulder much of the burden of high rail costs by paying higher fares, experiencing reduced service and being denied appropriate bus route expansions.

The major point is that Portland’s more than $4 billion dollars (and growing) spent on light rail to encourage and increase transit ridership use has been a wasteful investment. It has not succeeded and has not been cost-effective. It has had numerous negative consequences. It is ironic that Portland’s focus on rail transit as the foundation of a better city vision began long ago by elected officials who were strongly motivated by self-interest and personal political and economic gains.

Portland’s downtown circulator, rail streetcar can be appropriately compared to the service and function of much of the City of Austin’s proposed urban rail. As stated in the article below: “Unlike other forms of transit, the streetcar isn’t designed for commuters going to and from work. Instead, it caters to shoppers, diners and tourists who aren’t in a rush.” Another major source of the streetcar’s minimal ridership is its function as a slow shuttle between the central downtown bus and light rail stations/stops and downtown activity centers such as Portland State University, the Pearl District and the South Waterfront Development, just south of city center. Portland’s streetcar ridership was flat for several years prior to dropping substantially in 2011. The streetcar is facing a $16 million budget shortfall as discussed below.

Portland’s current streetcar line cost more than $100 million for 4 miles. The City of Austin is planning a 17 mile urban rail (downtown streetcar) which the city currently estimates to cost about $1.3 billion. Realistically Austin should expect to pay closer to $2 billion for urban rail. This urban rail will provide minuscule support to Austin’s transit and work commute needs, requiring exorbitantly high taxpayer subsidies for every rider. This $2 billion could be used to provide many important transportation needs which would far better serve the general Austin community. Urban rail will instead: increase congestion and create major downtown safety hazards, both of which will discourage people from coming downtown.

Portland is constructing a 3.35 mile, double track extension with an estimated cost of $148 million or $44 million per mile. While this total cost is 50% more than the current line, It is likely this expensive expansion will enjoy even less ridership.

From a more “global perspective,” Portland’s draconian land use and development regulations, its focus on high cost rail transit and other decisions have created unaffordable home prices throughout the city. In the 1980s, Portland’s housing affordability as measured by the ratio of median home price to median household income was similar to Austin’s and other Texas cities’ at around 3.0, which is the dividing line between affordable and various degrees of unaffordable. Since the 1980’s, Portland’s public policies increased this ration to 5.0 just prior to the economic crash, while its median household income remained below Austin’s. Texas’ major cities, other than Austin, have maintained ratios near 3.0. California cities had even higher pre-crash ratios up to 7,8 or 9. Thus, the economic collapse and the stampede to Texas. Austin’s affordability ratio, however, has moved up for the past several years and now stands higher than all major Texas cities at 3.5: the median house price is $195,000 or 11% above 5 years ago while the median household income has dropped 1.6%. One just needs to look at Portland and other cities to view this as a trend to be concerned with regarding Austin’s future. Austin is closing-in rapidly on Portland’s current median home price of $223,000 which is 22% below its level of $285,000 just 5 years ago. Dallas, Houston and San Antonio median home prices remain 28-35% below Portland and 18-25% below Austin.

Over the many years of Portland’s decreasing affordability, families moved from Portland and their public school enrollment declined from more than 80,000 to about 47,000 while many schools were closed, year after year. Austin now has more than 80,000 public school students. What impact will rising costs have on families here? We are already beginning to see it as some central schools are not filled. Numerous major companies moved from Portland because of the “unfriendly’ business environment. Portland’s unemployment percentage has been tracking close to the national average and higher than Austin.

During the 25 years from 1983 to 2008, Portland spend billions of dollars and opened the most expansive new light rail system in the nation, achieving the ninth ranking of 2.3% in the share of urban passenger miles traveled on transit. Portland started at 2.4% in 1983. This loss of transit share increased the roadway private vehicle share to 97.7%. Was it really worth it and did they responsibly spend tax funds and achieve “bang for the buck.” Where do they go from here with a train transit infrastructure which requires huge and growing annual operations funding and they are facing capital replacement cost of billions not many years away with zero in reserve funds.

Below are several articles, posted on this site, on various aspects of Portland’s rail venture:

Portland Going Nowhere: Austin must heed this transit failure story

Portland Light Rail: A Colossal Financial and Transit Failure

Portland Transit Tax Fraud

Portland: Mecca of transit’s role model fading as debt piles up

Voters Reject Transit Mecca, Portland, Bond Measure

Portland’s Vision of “Smart Growth” Utopia seems to be fading

Portland and St. Louis Light Rail Crime is Serious

Portland Light Rail Crime

The Portland Epistles: More Delusion
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Portland, Ore., Struggles to Remain a Leader in Public Transit

Reduced revenue and federal funding, combined with unsustainable employee costs, are making it difficult for the Oregon city to stay on top.

by Ryan Holeywell, Governing Magazine, March 2012

When Peter Rogoff, the head of the Federal Transit Administration, visited Portland, Ore., earlier this year, local leaders and transit officials were abuzz. The city’s identity has long been tied to its reputation as a transit leader, and hosting the highest transit official in the land helped bolster those credentials.

Rogoff, in town as part of a conference on streetcars that drew local leaders from across the country, took time to praise the region while visiting the nearly completed Southwest Moody Avenue renovation. The $51 million project, which includes new traffic lanes, a bike and pedestrian path, and links to light rail and streetcar lines, is key to the region’s efforts to expand its transit system. But it means more than that to the city. It’s also touted as a way to encourage millions in redevelopment of the nearby waterfront.

The city and regional transit agency, Rogoff said in a press release, “have hit a home run with this project and demonstrate the enormous economic benefits transit can deliver to a community.” Rogoff’s presence at the site was a fitting capstone, since U.S. Department of Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood had been on hand for its groundbreaking a year earlier.

But the timing of the Rogoff visit could have been better: About 36 hours earlier, the suburban community of Lake Oswego, some seven miles south of downtown Portland, withdrew its support for a proposed new transit line that would have vastly expanded the Portland streetcar system. The withdrawal was due in part to questions about costs, which were initially pegged at $458 million. The decision was front page news in the local newspaper — and a bad omen for Portland. Despite Rogoff’s celebratory remarks, the decision makes the future of the new line unclear.

The Tri-County Metropolitan Transportation District of Oregon (TriMet), the regional transit agency that runs buses, commuter rail and light rail, faces a budget shortfall of up to $17 million next fiscal year. The Portland Bureau of Transportation, which manages the streetcar, faces a $16 million gap. Local officials are still crafting those budgets, but it’s virtually certain that leaders of a region long known for a commitment to multimodal transportation will have to increase fares and reduce service to balance budgets in 2013. Especially significant will be the likely end of the Free Rail Zone, an innovative program that provides no-cost rides in the center of the city and has come to symbolize the region’s commitment to easily accessible transit service. What’s less clear is how significant Portland’s transit challenges are in the long term. Most government leaders here say they are temporary setbacks that won’t change the region’s future priorities. But some critics say that’s exactly what needs to happen.

Transit systems nationwide are facing budget shortfalls similar to those of Portland — and in some cases vastly larger. Yet Portland occupies a unique space in the eyes of transit observers. Despite a population of less than 600,000, it’s considered one of the most influential voices — if not the model — for American transit. “Has there even been a case in American history of a city as relatively small as Portland having the same sort of pervasive impact on the policy and the built environment of America?” wrote urban affairs analyst Aaron Renn in The Oregonian in 2010. “It is truly remarkable, shocking even, and something I dare to suggest will likely never happen again.”

Neil McFarlane, general manager of TriMet, puts it more succinctly. “We outbox our weight class.”

From the window in his office, McFarlane can survey the agency’s fleet of buses and, more important, get a sense of how many of them are stuck at their central parking lot and how many are busy ferrying residents across the greater Portland region. Sporting a purple V-neck sweater and round spectacles, McFarlane has both the demeanor and look of a tenured college professor as he discusses the agency’s monumental budget struggles calmly while acknowledging their significance. “There are high expectations and lots of demand for our service, frankly, above and beyond what our financial capability is in the long term,” McFarlane says.

When he was named head of the agency two years ago in the midst of the economic downturn, he faced big challenges — namely a massive budget hole. Today, things aren’t much different. That’s due to several factors. One is the payroll tax, a unique feature that funds half the agency’s operations with a tax paid by local businesses based on employees’ gross wages. With employment down as a result of the recession, that revenue is about $3 million shy of where agency officials expected it to be. Another challenge is an estimated $4 million the agency expects to lose from a belt-tightening federal government. But most challenging, says McFarlane, are the unsustainable health benefits TriMet employees and retirees are receiving.

Right now, a TriMet employee with 10 years on the job can retire at age 55 and get full lifetime medical benefits with no deductible, no employee contribution and a co-pay of just $5, he says. TriMet’s own financial analysis illustrates just how costly such a generous package has become. In 2000, the cost of active and retiree health benefits accounted for about 12 percent of the agency’s payroll tax revenue. By 2014, it will gobble up more than a third of that revenue, and by 2020, it will account for more than half of it. “They promised themselves into a catastrophe, and riders are going to pay for it unless there’s a healthy fight,” says Michael Andersen, publisher of Portland Afoot, a monthly newsmagazine that covers transit in the region.

The recession has helped pull back the veneer on the agency’s business model, McFarlane says, and it’s clear that it’s broken. A state board recently rejected some cost savings tied to worker benefits that the agency hoped to achieve this year. That puts the budget another $5 million to $10 million in the hole, depending on how the battle between the agency and union plays out this spring. And this year isn’t an aberration for TriMet. Since the Great Recession began, the agency has absorbed approximately $60 million in revenue reductions and has been cutting service, increasing fares and shedding positions. Now, McFarlane says, “there’s no low-hanging fruit left.”

To solve the problem next year, TriMet has proposed fare increases — by nearly 20 percent in some cases — as well as eliminating the Free Rail Zone program, cutting bus service and reducing the frequency of light rail trains. When you take any of those steps, McFarlane acknowledges, “You’re messing with people’s lives.” (Earlier this year, riders could use TriMet’s website to vote on which remedies the agency should pursue using what The Oregonian calls “the most depressing interactive survey you’ve ever taken.”) If the agency makes service too spotty or fares too expensive, riders may switch to other means of transportation. And if those passengers are driven away for too long, it will be a challenge to get them back — even once revenue rebounds.

At the same time it works its way through seemingly intractable budget problems, TriMet is pursuing a massive expansion: A seven-mile, $1.5 billion light rail line to the suburb Milwaukie is scheduled to come online in 2015. That’s caused some observers to scratch their heads, wondering how the agency can have enough money for new projects but not enough to keep up existing operations. “They’re closing their eyes and jumping,” says Andersen. “They’re running on faith. And hopefully their faith is justified — it always has been in the past. I hope they’re right. I fear they’re wrong.”

Others have a less nuanced outlook. “Why do people think TriMet is a model for the rest of the country?” John Charles, president and CEO of the Cascade Policy Institute, asks from his office in a small business park just outside the Portland city limits. “Because they don’t know this,” he answers, referring to the agency’s structural budget problems. TriMet’s generous commitments to its workers have put it on a path that can’t be reversed, he argues, and he believes the agency isn’t being fully candid about just how bad the situation has become. McFarlane fully acknowledges that one-time concessions from the union won’t do his agency much good in the long term and emphasizes that big changes are necessary.

There are those who claim the region has focused so much on transit — specifically rail, which has high capital costs — that its officials are blind to the risks they’re taking. Charles and many other skeptics believe the current push is driven largely by local leaders’ desire to continue receiving national accolades for their commitment to rail. Indeed, when U.S. News & World Report ranked Portland the No. 1 city in America for transit last year, TriMet tooted its horn by plastering ads highlighting the ranking on its vehicles. (The agency had to pull them when the publication revised its rankings due to problems with its methodology.)

Charles says the rail-first approach is fundamentally wrong. The region could serve more people who really need transit for less money if it instead focused on buses. In a case of politics making strange bedfellows, that’s the same point that one local liberal group, OPAL Environmental Justice Oregon, continues to make. Jonathan Ostar, executive director of OPAL, has taken up the cause of low-income residents and argues that the region’s focus on rail is causing service cuts and fare hikes that create an undue burden on those who rely on transit the most: bus riders who don’t live on rail lines. “We’re in a region that invests in public transit but doesn’t necessarily invest in the modes of transit that speak to the needs of the most transit-dependent,” Ostar says. “If we’re building out the system with rail, why are we cutting the system with the bus? That sends a very clear message about who the system is for and who we want the system to be for.”

In 2010, voters in Multnomah, Clackamas and Washington counties rejected a bond that would have generated $125 million in revenue that TriMet could have used to replace older buses (and indirectly would have freed up millions in general fund revenue). The tab would have been $20 a year for a homeowner with a house worth $250,000. For Ostar, that’s a sign that bus service is an afterthought in otherwise progressive Portland. Transit-dependent riders represent only about 16 percent of TriMet customers. A recent city auditor’s survey found that transit is the primary form of transportation for only about 7 percent of residents.

McFarlane, for his part, says it’s an issue of costs. The agency is investing heavily in rail since its higher capacity means lower operation costs per-rider compared to buses. And TriMet’s contribution to the capital costs of the Milwaukie extension is $47.4 million — less than 5 percent of the total. Bonded out over a 25-year period, its annual impact isn’t nearly as costly as it would appear at first glance. But it’s still significant. Starting in 2016, debt service and operations on the new line will add $7 million in costs to an agency that has yet to balance its 2013 budget. But McFarlane says TriMet can’t afford to stay idle. With a million new residents projected for the region by 2035, neglecting expansion would be irresponsible, he argues.

Portland is a city that actually has two rail-based transit systems that are integrated — the light rail and a streetcar. In some ways, the challenges facing the streetcar may be the more significant, says Chris Smith, who serves on the streetcar system’s board. A new $150 million extension is scheduled to open later this year and will nearly double the level of service. TriMet and the city have each kicked in about $1.3 million for the new operations costs, but another $1 million per year is still needed — over and above the approximate $1 million that will be generated if free rides on the streetcar are eliminated. Another project known as “closing the loop” — connecting the new streetcar line to the new light rail line — only has about half of its funding nailed down, though officials have a few years to figure out that one. “We’re looking under every seat cushion and rock to find spare change,” Smith says. New revenue sources may be necessary. One idea that’s been pitched is a local gas tax. Another is something called a street utility fee, which would be something like a property tax. But getting citizens to accept either could be difficult.

The streetcar plays an atypical role in the transit system in that it explicitly is not intended to move large numbers of people long distances in a short period of time. With long waits and stops that are sometimes just a couple of blocks apart, it does not have commuters in mind. Instead, it caters to university students, tourists, shoppers, diners and bar-hoppers — namely people who aren’t in a rush — who want a simple way to move around town once they’re already there. Critics of the approach say it’s a project that fills a need that doesn’t really exist. But supporters say its primary purpose isn’t as a people mover; it’s to encourage development, which it has.

The Portland Bureau of Transportation, which runs the streetcar, is still looking to fill its $16 million hole. The agency is funded largely by the city’s portion of the state gas tax revenue, which itself is becoming less reliable, given the growing efficiency of vehicles, says Tom Miller, the city’s transportation director. Portland has also committed itself to non-revenue-generating projects like a major bridge rehabilitation. “Structural funding deficiencies plague our budget,” Miller says. But that same agency’s budget covers much of the new operational costs associated with the streetcar extension. The situation is so tight that, as a way to help solve the crunch, Miller has pitched the idea of calling a halt to road repaving for five years.

Yet streetcar supporters say the slow mode of transportation plays a vital role. Portland Mayor Sam Adams argues that it would be foolish to give up on it, given the federal money available (half the streetcar extension was funded by the feds), the billions in redevelopment it’s prompted (which even critics acknowledge) and the support it’s given to the modern streetcar industry (United Streetcar, based in suburban Portland, is taking orders from transit agencies across the country). “The critics here have to confront the reality — the positive reality — that transit has had,” Adams says.

Ethan Seltzer, a professor at Portland State University, is an unabashed supporter of transit. A former land-use supervisor for the metro government, he’s intimately familiar with where Portland has come from, and how far it is has progressed. Much of that success he attributes to a transit system that has fundamentally changed people’s lifestyles and neighborhoods.

From his office just steps from a streetcar stop, he emphasizes that both the light rail and transit systems are important components of an urban lifestyle to which Portlanders are committed. He questions why, while transit agencies nationwide are struggling, Portland has come under the microscope. “We’re not here to save the world,” he says. “We’re here to save one part of the world. We do these things because we think they make Portland a better place.”

For better or for worse, those expectations were cultivated by the region’s leaders, who have embraced and even promoted their role as a national example. Transit agencies and observers monitored the system’s successes during its halcyon times, and they’re likely to give it an even closer eye now that it’s struggling. Will Transit City USA have to pull back on its commitments? Seltzer doesn’t think so. “Good things take time,” he argues. “The fact of the matter is, what cities become is the legacy of generations, not the legacy of a budget.”

Ryan Holeywell is a staff writer at GOVERNING.