Demand more from Capital Metro
The op-ed below by Jim Skaggs, Coalition On Sustainable Transportation, was published in a slightly edited form in the Austin American-Statesman on September 11, 2009.
The Statesman Editorial of last Sunday provides a slight slapping of Capital Metro’s wrist for their abysmal performance relative to the Commuter Rail implementation.
The editorial provides a measure of forgiveness in calling Cap Metro’s Executive Vice President’s, Doug Allen, evasive and limited response: “a credible case.”
The Statesman clearly reveals an ideological but unsupported, pre-determined position by its statement: “The debate about whether the region needs passenger rail is over – it does.”
There are no winners in Cap Metro’s tragic debacle of wasteful spending on passenger rail. For the sake of many victims: taxpayers, those needing transit and having no alternative and the 99.9% of travelers needing better transportation and not using rail, the debate is not over. Cap Metro, the City nor the Statesman have provided credible, analytical arguments supporting rail. All support has been subjective and “feel good.” In fact, passenger rail is the least cost-effective of all transit modes and will provide no societal net benefits to the region.
Perhaps the negative social equity impact is the greatest tragedy. Every daily round-trip commuter from Leander to Austin will be subsidized by taxpayers with more than $20,000 per year. Most of these riders have alternative transportation and this huge subsidy is at the expense of those living in different parts of the community with no alternative as they face increasing fares and reduced service for buses which remain public transit’s backbone.
There is nothing urban passenger rail can provide that a bus cannot provide including carrying just as many people, just as fast, just as safe, with much greater flexibility and for a fraction of the cost. In addition, Commuter Rail will have no measurable impact on congestion and riders will produce more emissions per passenger mile than if they were all single occupants of modern automobiles.
A very small commuter rail, on existing tracks, has taken Cap Metro to the brink of bankruptcy. Imagine if Cap Metro had proceeded with their recommended light rail in 2000. Estimated costs of $1.9 billion would clearly have doubled and construction would have torn up many major streets for years, reduced vehicle lanes and dramatically increased congestion.
Capital Metro presented a distorted, misleading commuter proposal which deceived voters from the beginning. Cap Metro’s proposed train was to cost $90 million in capital, including the train cars, of which $60 million would be local taxes and $30 million would be paid by the US government. No application was made for US funds and local taxpayers are footing all costs which are at least $120 million (with proper allocation), double that promised.
Cap Metro’s operating costs estimates were even more outrageous, promising $2 million per year and now budgeting almost four times this at more than $7 million; not to mention many millions spent due to more than a year delay.
The Statesman has rightly been a dogged protector of citizens, often demanding attention to such issues as the alleged self-dealing of Pedernales Electric Cooperative (PEC) board members. While the Commuter Rail situation may not involve criminal charges, Cap Metro’s poor leadership, decisions and performance have resulted in the wasteful spending of taxpayer dollars in amounts which render the alleged PEC criminal misuse of public funds miniscule.
Much of Cap Metro’s unacceptable performance can be traced to a lack of checks and balances with minimal accountability and a system which allowed the board to be populated with people having no experience in running complex businesses spending several hundred million tax dollars per year.
Cap Metro Executive Vice President, Allen, used most of last Sunday’s Statesman column discussing trivia and obfuscating real issues. He implies the requirement for the 2000 commuter rail vote prevented Cap Metro’s following long established, disciplined engineering processes for evaluating alternatives and designing the commuter, leading to many of its costly missteps. This is an organization that “discovered,” after more than five years, rail cars full of people require longer trip times because acceleration is slower than empty cars and that they can’t run five trains as planned so it becomes a second $5.5 million spare: Please!
When will we demand accountability and responsibility of Cap Metro which has spent more than $2 billion since its founding in 1985 and plans to spend more than $6 billion in its current 25 year plan through 2030? Its ridership today is almost exactly the same as reported 12 years ago in 1997 while population has grown 50%. There has been a ten year declining trand is ridership. Meanwhile, its costs have experienced a ten year growth trend which greatly outpaces inflation. This is not sustainable.