Transit Fails Those Who Need it Most
by Jim Skaggs including condensed information from Transit Follies #5: Higher Fares and Less Service in Utah by Randal O’Toole and posted in Planning Disasters, Transportation
How many times have we heard this story? A city transit agency is successful with its bus transit and maybe even growing ridership. Then the transit agency shifts its primary objective from effectively serving those “dependent” on transit to meet their daily needs to a primary objective of attracting “choice” riders; those who have a car alternative. The objective is to get them out of their car. The agency concludes, without foundation, that people will not leave their cars to ride a bus but will ride a train. The agency embarks on an exorbitantly expensive passenger rail system. This system is often not focused on or routed to serve the transit dependent but the choice rider.
The train almost always costs much more than the agency commits and the ridership is usually much less. But, more importantly, the total transit ridership frequently declines because the expensive train siphons a huge portion of the transit funds and starves the bus system which still carries the vast majority of the “transit dependent.” In almost every city with rail, the buses still carry many more passengers than rail. The result: bus fares are increased and bus service is reduced. The transit dependent, which are mostly low income citizens, suffer the “unintended” consequences, making a mockery of stated intentions of “social equity.”
Versions of this story have or are happening in Los Angeles, Houston, Washington D.C., Dallas, Salt Lake City and others. Austin’s Capital Metro seems to be heading down this same track. Capital Metro has not even delivered the level of bus service it promised at its founding in 1985. Yet, it has embarked on and is planning to crisscross the area with fixed rail transit systems already estimated to cost hundreds of millions of dollars and billions of dollars if their ultimate fantasy goals are achieved. Substantial transit fare increases are already on the agenda and will begin soon. Next, look for bus service cut-backs as other cities have experienced.
It is very interesting that Capital Metro asked the voters to approve a $2 billion light rail in 2000 but today is proposing a $233 million trolley (streetcar) and has announced they cannot pay for it without funding significant contributions from some or all of such agencies as the City of Austin, Travis County, the State of Texas and the University of Texas. This indicates Capital Metro is quite inadequate in financial planning or maybe that it has had a hidden agenda all along to eventually ask for bonding authority so it can borrow huge sums to pursue its vision of crisscrossing the area with passenger rail. Of course, the light rail would have cost closer to $4 billion just as the promised commuter costs of some $120 million thru 2030 is now estimated to be more than $500 million. The early estimate of $233 million for the downtown trolley is before detailed engineering and also questionable. Pursuing these costly, ineffective rail transit programs will continue to degrade basic bus service and increase fares and taxpayer subsidies. It would not be reaponsible public policy for any agency to assist Capital Metro in the highly speculative financing of rail systems.
The Utah Transit Authority (UTA) which operates transit in the Salt Lake City area made the most recent announcement of a 33 percent (phased over two years) increase in transit fares and a cut in many of it bus routes. This has led to a storm of protest from transit-dependent people who say the revised bus routes will greatly reduce their mobility. UTA’s restructuring favors the transit-choice riders.
The increase in fares coincides with the agency going into heavy debt to build more rail lines. The agency had no debt prior to 1999 when it was a bus-only agency but installed light rail and was paying $11 million in annual interest by 2005. The 2006 budget indicates the debt service increased to $24.5 million to pay for new commuter-rail lines.
Similar to Austin Capital Metro performance, the UTA carries only 1.1 percent of motorized travel and just 3.9 percent of Salt Lake area commuters to work.
By building rail, UTA replaced a major portion of a relatively efficient bus system with a costly and inflexible train system. By restructuring the buses, UTA is sacrificing the needs of transit-depending riders in order to attempt to capture a few more medium and high income transit-choice riders.
All indications to date are that Capital Metro is proceeding down this same track of degrading service for transit-dependent in order to attract a few “choice” riders which will make no measurable difference in roadway congestion but will be a huge additional burden for taxpayers to subsidize riders who can afford to pay. Cap Metro needs to get back to basics and focus on providing effective bus transit for those who have no alternative. Cap Metro should not be in the speculative land use and development business or in the business of using taxpayer dollars to subsidize higher income riders. This offers no benefit to 99+% of the citizens.