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Thread: 'Light Rail' ... a real world example and analysis

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    Banned Melonie's Avatar
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    Default 'Light Rail' ... a real world example and analysis

    from


    (snip)"City Planning, Light Rail and White People

    I have argued for a long time that the shift of city transit departments from buses to a love affair with light rail has been a disaster. Rail is so much more expensive per passenger mile, and so inflexible, that it generally forces a shrinkage in the total number of riders at the same time that budgets explode (example article at ).

    There are a lot of explanations for this phenomenon. Part of it is incentives – heads of agencies with rail get paid more than bus-only agencies, and unions love the higher-paying rail jobs that never go away (part of the flexibility issues with rail). Part of the explanation is cultural – rail is now hip and edgy and allegedly green and modern. Buses are so last century.

    And part of it is social/racial. White upper middle class yuppies wouldn’t be caught dead on buses. They like trains better, particularly when they are successful in running rail routes through middle class commuting routes. If the cost of this forces cut backs on buses that run where the poor need to go, oh well.

    So, I ask you, what city in America is most famous as a model for urban planning and light rail? Portland. So it is interesting to see what effect this planning and transit strategy has had on the population. I have already written here before that Portland bus service has been gutted in favor of rail, such that total ridership in the city has dropped despite spending a lot more transit dollars. These maps from the Portland Oregonian show another effect — shifting transit dollars to modes favored by rich white people has… caused Portland to be increasingly white. What a surprise."(snip)


    with backup material from

    (snip)The 2007 American Community Survey found that, since the 2000 census, the number of Portland-area residents who say they usually bicycle to work grew from about 6,800 to 15,900. But the number who say they take transit to work declined from 58,600 to 57,900. The number who go to work by car (not counting taxis) grew from 664,300 to 730,500. This means that Portland roads have about 60,000 more cars during rush hour, but the region has put most of its transportation dollars into light rail and streetcars that carry no more people.

    A lot of blame for this can go to the city’s focus on light rail, whose enormous costs have cannibalized bus service and thus reduced total transit service. In particular, those who support transit as a god-send for the working poor should note that this substitution of large, inexpensive bus networks for more yuppie-friendly trains on narrow routes shifts transit away from the poor to white collar users.(snip )

    and

    (snip)"Phoenix Light Rail Fail — Half My Light Rail Bet Settled

    When Phoenix was building its light rail system, I made the following two-part bet:

    1.I could take all the money spent on construction and easily buy a Prius for every single daily rider, with money to spare

    2.I could take the operating deficits for light rail and buy everyone gas to run their Prius 10,000 miles per year and still have money left over.

    This bet has been tested in a number of cities, including LA and Albuquerque, and I have not lost yet. Now the numbers are in for Phoenix initial ridership, and I am winning the first half of my bet in a landslide.

    The other day, Phoenix trumpeted that its daily ridership had reached 37,000 boardings per weekday. Since most of those people have two boardings per day (one each direction) we can think of this as 18,500 people making a round trip each day.

    Well, if we bought each of these folks a brand new Prius III for $23,000 it would cost us just over $425 million. This is WAY less than the $1.4 billion we pay to move them by rail instead. We could have bought every regular rider a Prius and still have a billion dollars left over! And, having a Prius, they would be able to commute and get good gas mileage anywhere they wanted to go in Phoenix, rather than just a maximum of 20 miles on just one line. Sure, I suppose one could argue that light rail is still relatively new and will grow, but even if ridership triples, I still win the fist half of my bet. And as the system expands, my bet just looks better, as every single expansion proposal has been at a cost of $100 million a mile or more, more expensive than the first 20 miles.

    So now, all we have to do is wait to see the operating results to settle the second half of my bet. If common practice is followed from other metro areas, this will be extremely difficult to prove because the authority will do everything it can to hide the huge operating dollar hole light rail is creating.

    But Coyote, what about congestion?

    I am glad you asked. Folks will argue that rail reduces congestion. Normally, I would agree but argue that it reduces congestion at way too high of a price. But for Phoenix light rail, it may even be that rail makes congestion worse.

    Here is why: In building Phoenix light rail, the city along most of the line had to remove two lanes of traffic (one each way) to build the line. So here is the comparison:

    •Light rail carries 37,000 trips per day or about 2,000 per hour (1,000 each way) through its 18-hour operating day, though certainly there are peaks and valleys around this average

    •A typical lane of road has a capacity of 2000 cars per hour, so light rail removed 4,000 cars per hour of road capacity (2,000 each way). Its unclear how many riders this equates to, but the average car in the city has 1.5 passengers, so we will call this a road capacity of 6,000 trips per hour (3,000 each way).

    So, we have replaced roads that can carry 6,000 trips per hour with train tracks carrying 2,000 trips per hour. Sure, the train carries more than 2,000 in some peak periods, but probably not more than the road it replaced was capable of carrying.


    Light Rail Hurts the Working Poor

    I think it is always important to reiterate why light rail is such a threat to the working poor who depend on transit. As I wrote the other day:

    light rail is simply not transit for the working poor. It is transit for yuppies that happens to be used by some working poor. They are built for white collar workers commuting to town who are too high and mighty to be caught dead in a grubby bus. But since light rail is orders of magnitude more expensive than buses, two things happen in every city that ever builds light rail.

    1) Light rail fares skyrocket to cover their immense operating deficits and capital costs, giving the lie to politicians that sold these systems as helping working poor.

    2) Bus service, the form of transit that serves most of the working poor even today in the Bay Area, is cut back to help pay for rail.

    Light rail is the worst enemy of providing transit services to the working poor ever devised in this country."(snip)

  2. #2
    Featured Member minnow's Avatar
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    Default Re: 'Light Rail' ... a real world example and analysis

    I can tell that author of "analysis" probably never lived or worked in DC area, or greater SF bay area. Nor did they ever spend a minute in downtown DC or SF motoring around to make the discovery that finding parking places there is a royal pita. Nor did they ever experience long backups on Beltway, Bay Bridge, etc.

    I suppose one could split hairs by saying that those 2 cities have a subway system, but then, significant portions of both systems run above ground. My experience with Portland LRS is more limited than that with Metro or BART. It helps that Metro goes right to Reagan National Airport, and has connecting bus/airport express van service to BWI and Dulles airports. Plus runs right through downtown Amtrack station. BART has a stop/terminus at San Francisco Airport, plus one at Oaklands sports arena that is close to several hotels too.

    More germane to site community, I've used area "LRS" as mode of choice to visit stripclubs in 3 different cities. Admittedly, my view is anecdotal, but several relatives, coworkers feel exactly as I do when making travel/commuting choices in some cities. The pleasant weather beckons, I'm not digging up statistics/studies.
    Last edited by minnow; 05-07-2011 at 11:36 AM. Reason: sp corr
    I'm right 96% of the time. I don't sweat the other 5% .......................

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    Default Re: 'Light Rail' ... a real world example and analysis

    The San Fran and DC/Maryland metro systems are excellent. We finally did a light rail down here and its pretty much total fail. I do love it though, just wish it ran later into the night.

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