Saturday, July 26, 2008

Cost Effectiveness Disconnect

It was mentioned in an email exchange about this article on the Pro Bus NIMBYs in Chevy Chase that just because you have a cheap project that the federal government will fund, doesn't mean that it is more cost effective. It just means that you'll get more federal money. Everyone knows about the FTA's magic computer that determines the CEI. From a January 31st article in the Pioneer Press that was archived and under a paywall.
There's a high-end computer outside of Washington, D.C., that takes all night to calculate a single fraction. Each morning, it e-mails the result of its toils -- a number rounded to the nearest hundredth -- to Mark Fuhrmann and his staff in St. Paul. And in that e-mail lies the fate of the proposed Central Corridor light-rail line connecting St. Paul and Minneapolis.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Just for everyone's information - the "pro-bus" NIMBYs in Chevy Chase are not actually pro-bus. They are pro-bus unless the bus route passes through their own borders.

And their concern for cost-effectiveness is the opposite of what they've been saying for the last ten years.

See here for the whole sorry story:
http://www.innerpurpleline.org/townofChevyChase.htm