Transit Lobby Strong Like Ox

I almost spit out my drink when I saw this comment from our favorite O'Toole.

Second, Congress could increase the share of funds dedicated to transit. The transit lobby is powerful and the highway lobby is weak, but the latter probably still has enough power to stop that idea.

Bwahahaha. I wonder if Randall was out teabagging today.

Houston's Light Rail Discrepancy?

Leave it to the anti-rail nuts to find the details. But I do find this interesting. If there was a letter to the FTA that showed doubled cost, what was it for?

On March 4, the Metro Board voted on a contract with the Parsons Group to design, build and operate four new Light Rail lines. The cost for the North Line would be $387 million, and the cost for the Southeast Line would be $441 million.
...
According to letters dated on March 23 from Metro to the Federal Transit Administration, Metro indicated that the current net project cost estimate would be $896 million for the North Line and $911 million for the Southeast Line.

Now it would be interesting to know why lines would cost ~$170 million per mile for surface light rail. Honestly, that is ridiculous. Obviously the nutcases that have always been against light rail are going to have a field day, but I have one guess as to why it will cost so much. The deal that Metro cut with the City of Houston to build the lines includes complete reconstruction of the street from curb to curb. So not only would this be the construction of the rail lines, but construction of the street, sewer systems and sidewalks that border the line.

METRO is also giving something to the city: $300 million of utility upgrades. For example, if a sewer line needs to be larger or needs to be replaced due to age, METRO will install a new one.

In fact the recent North Corridor planning document had this to say:

The typical life of a water transmission main is 40-50 years. For the North Corridor, research indicates that the lines, including the Churchill Street Line and extending all the way to the intersection of Crosstimbers Street/ Fulton Street, have reached the end of their life span.

The life of a sewer line is typically 30 to 40 years, unless the lines are rehabilitated. From the City’s GIMS database, it appears that there are several sewer lines that are older than 40 years. It is not clear if these lines have been rehabilitated. These include distinct segments along most
of the length of the Corridor. The construction dates for some segments are unknown.

Current City regulations require storm water detention for all new development. Hence, any new developments that are proposed will be required to design for storm water detention.
...
The Transit Street itself is characterized with a combination of industrial, residential and commercial uses, which would normally have the capacities needed for redevelopment.

However,the condition of water mains and sewer lines appears to be quite old along this Corridor and replacement of these services should be contemplated as transit is being constructed.

I'm not completely for sure that this is the deal but it's my best guess as to why the lines could possibly cost so much. The need to replace that infrastructure would be there anyways, but why not try and get the FTA to foot some of the bill if possible? That is what comes to the minds of a lot of transit agencies who are trying to build new lines, if we can get more money, why not try.

I personally think that its a really messed up accounting exercise that allows light rail and even BRT projects around the country to get attacked for thier high price tags because of necessary replacements credited to thier accounts. I want more information before I go off the handle on insane light rail costs, but if it's that much for just the light rail, Houston got bad engineering estimates and needs to start over again. That much per mile should not be tolerated for surface light rail. Even if the utilities are included, I'm inclined to say the prices are too high. I have a feeling though, that we're missing something...

The Mission

If you choose to accept it, is to only build a transit system for people who can't afford to have a car. If you deviate from said mission, you will be endangering the... eh why should we listen to guys like this?

Once again, UTA has demonstrated that it doesn't have a clear idea of its mission. Should UTA provide sensible, economical public transportation to the Wasatch Front, or should it just build things? Should it try to serve the population that cannot use automobiles, or should it spend public funds in an impossible quest to lure wealthy commuters to mass transit?

In fact yes, public transit should provide quality transportation for those who can not use automobiles. But we shouldn't say you're poor so you can't have quality service. Perhaps we should start saying, you're rich, so why should we subsidize that suburban freeway. You can pay for it. There are many reasons to provide great transit service instead of just adequate including the idea that better transit for those who need it most is better transit that can be used by all. Complaining about it just makes it look like the forces of better transit are winning. Cheers to that.

Ridership Up But Most Likely Going Down

The boosterism behind the data is a little behind the reality on the ground. As employment drops so will ridership this next year, but APTA says that ridership in 2008 was at a 52 year high. That isn't bad but when you look at the per capita numbers its a bit of a different story.

The total is refreshing though. After some dismal time in the mid 90's when gas was sometimes 75 cents a gallon or less, ridership has been steadily increasing again. I'm sure it helped that a lot more resources could be put into transit which shows that what you invest in will be what people will be able to use, other than the other way around that the opponents would like you to think was true. Mainly, no one uses it because everyone likes to drive. But they never tell you how much we weren't inevesting in transit all those years as much as we are now.

In 1995 7.76 billion people took transit. $17.8 billion was spent on operating costs ($23.40 inflation adjusted to 2006). Fast forward to 2006 where we've spent $32.03 Billion on transit operating and accrued 10.01 billion trips. If we look at the changes in spending, 36.8% operations cost adjusted for inflation and 28.9% ridership increase and 31% increase in passenger miles. The greater we invest, the more we'll see people taking the options that work for them.

File Under, Are You Serious???!!

I just couldn't help myself. I had to share these two insane articles with you all. I keep telling myself I'm not going to post this drivel, but these are pure comedy.

Randall O'Toole - Save Washington Metro by Privatizing It
Reason Online - Rant against the Cinci streetcar, comparing it to a monorail

A good measure of our success over the next 4 years will be how crazy we can make these guys. Looks like we're off to a good start.

Just One More Thing From Charlotte...

David Hartgen is just looking for a backdoor way to bring down Charlotte's transit expansion. Even after getting beat down by 70% in the last election, the other side just won't give up trying to kill rapid transit expansion in Charlotte.

Hartgen said he thinks ridership will drop further because uptown layoffs are only starting, and that the drop in ridership should spur CATS to consider halting its ambitious plans to build more rapid transit. “We should be saving for our operating budget,” Hartgen said.

If anything, we should be building more transit to create jobs and shape the next housing boom. If we wait till the next housing upswing to build these types of lines around the country, we'll miss a huge opportunity to shape development. We can't afford it.

Build In California Alone

So says Ed Glaeser. He states that because of the temperate climate, more people should live in density in California cities to increase environmental savings. Though this doesn't really work if the people moving here don't have water, the climate changes, and we can't grow food in the central valley.

If this is along the same lines as Randal O'Toole and Wendel Cox are pushing, build in the preserved open spaces at existing densities with limited regulation, then no thank you. However, if its building more density in greyfields and on transit corridors with better transit then sure. But people shouldn't mix the two, that would be a disaster.

Oh the Logic

O'Toole writes his rules of the stimulus, wherein I immediately start dying of laughter at his rules and claims...

User fees must cover all operating and most capital costs...Many, if not most, wish-list projects fail this test. House Transportation Committee Chairman James Oberstar, Minnesota Democrat, wants to increase transit's share of federal surface transportation funding from 15 to nearly 30 percent. But transit riders pay only a third of the operating costs and none of the capital costs of transit, while highway users pay 80 to 90 percent of highway costs. This suggests transit will not have anywhere near the stimulative effect of highway spending.

It's official, my mind is officially blown. He's basically saying that since we spend a whole lot of money on driving cars, freeways are the only way to stimulate the economy. I should just give up now because transit is wasteful and doesn't make me spend a lot of my money on cars. In fact, I save so much money from taking transit, it doesn't count when I spend it on something else, like say a nice dinner locally. Let's send our money to the Saudis instead.

Do We Have to Even Read It?

And so it begins again. They got tossed out of Charlotte and now are hunting transit again. Some of their suggestions, more roads, BRT, and telecommuting. Anyone wonder why I continue to be skeptical of BRT? Especially when folks who hate transit advocate for more of it. Here's my favorite paragraphs:

The regional planning and transit bureaucrats who created the latest Triangle transit plan weren't really trying to fashion transportation policy. They were trying to remake the region's economy and land-use patterns according to "Smart Growth" principles that are, in truth, reactionary. They envision urban employment cores, dense residential neighborhoods and rigid commuting patterns based around a 19th century technology, the train, that bear little relationship to reality.

While some individuals desire such a lifestyle, the vast majority of citizens, 82 percent by one recent estimate, prefer to live the American dream in a single-family home and travel when and where they want using their personal vehicles. Any transportation plan hostile to clear public preferences is doomed to fail, and to cost taxpayers a great deal in the attempt.

Haha didn't anyone tell these guys about Karl Benz in 1885 and his four stroke gas engine. You know, 3 years before Frank Sprague and the electric streetcar. I wonder how many times we have to go over this. But that last paragraph is telling. No citations of real studies or polls (like this one) and all preferences of his own. How come its so expensive to live in Walkable cities? I would venture to guess it is because there is so much demand that prices are being driven up by folks who have money that want this type of lifestyle, making it harder for those who don't to leave the the suburbs. Again, why should we subsidize his suburbia?

Crazy Pills All Around!

We have nothing to show for tossing bones to the R's. They got concessions but we know the bill got watered down because of it. Now the auto industry is going to be using our money to be dinosaurs. What did we vote for in November. I forgot.

At least more funding got into the package. And Mr. Dukakis assures us that the future will be good.

Wired.com: The Obama administration has promised more rail and transit funding. Are we going to see things start to happen?

Dukakis: No question about it. This economic mess we're in has actually turned out to be a huge opportunity to invest in transit projects. Despite the concerns out there, I think this is a huge opportunity.

Wired.com: What concerns?

Dukakis: There's worry that the states just aren't ready to move on stuff. They haven't done the planning and the engineering they need to jump into major projects when the funding is there. We have a major construction-management problem in this country. In Massachusetts, the governor wants to build a four-mile light-rail extension using existing right of way [tracks and property that are already in place], and it's going to take six years to complete. How can that be? Chinese and Irish immigrants were laying four miles of track a day on the transcontinental railroad, and that was in the 1860s.

Was there any money for engineering in the bill? I agree that it shouldn't take six years to build the green line. It should have been done yesterday. But unless there is some sort of signal from the administration that engineering should begin and go faster on more of these lines because the money will start flowing, there's no reason for transit agencies to push harder for it. That just means that the cycle continues as to whether it should be done at all. This is why the next transportation bill is so important. Let's get it right.

The Recycling Bin

Is anyone else tired of the same old recycled junk? Can someone remind me if the Interstate Highway System we started building in the 1950's ever turned a profit. I think it was a long term investment that granted returns in other ways. Some good, some not so good. From the Wall Street Journal on the stimulus:

We've looked it over, and even we can't quite believe it. There's $1 billion for Amtrak, the federal railroad that hasn't turned a profit in 40 years...

How many times do you think these guys took the Acela to DC to hang out with thier cronies. I guess they don't believe in the investment. Rupert's opinion page hacks are dumber than a box of rocks. This is a gem though:

Most of the rest of this project spending will go to such things as renewable energy funding ($8 billion) or mass transit ($6 billion) that have a low or negative return on investment. Most urban transit systems are so badly managed that their fares cover less than half of their costs. However, the people who operate these systems belong to public-employee unions that are campaign contributors to . . . guess which party?

Would you like some cheese with that whine? Does no one on the R team understand how all transportation works? It's like they believe air traffic controllers come from magical fairly land and highway funds come out of an oil derrick. Where did they get these opinions from anyways? It certainly wasn't from the Manhattan news staff, most of whom I'm sure drive to work right?? I heard the cracker jack factory had some openings. Perhaps you could fill the boxes with this noise.

When You Ride Alone, You Ride With Larry?

A number of recent blog posts as well as Peter DeFazio in an interview with Rachel Maddow have pointed blame for the reduction in rail funding in the stimulus package at the Obama folks and more directly at former treasury secretary and Obama advisor Larry Summers. It's not surprising that he is in favor of tax cuts given his plea for them even before the economic slowdown in 2007. Recently he's become a convert to infrastructure in words alone, but it doesn't seem like the actions are following through. Instead they've put in tax cuts as funding for infrastructure, particularly rail was junked. But as Tom states at Angry Bear:

The underlying problem is that helicoptering money to "consumers" by way of tax cuts or lump-sum grants a la last year's stimulus payments does little or nothing to help satisfy demands that are latent due to incomplete markets. Give me $100 and I can drive to Chicago for the day, not insignificantly because past public infrastructure spending built the roads from here to there. Give everyone in Madison $100 and it still does sod all for extending the Amtrak Hiawatha service, seeing as the city was cut off from such passenger rail network as still exists in the upper Midwest and reconnecting it requires a substantial investment. Maybe in libertarian fantasyland, there are no such things as collective action problems, but elsewhere overcoming them may be considered to be a useful function of government.

As opponents like to say, 90% of people drive, well then we should spend 90% on roads. But its a cycle of spending that causes this to happen. As we've seen in places like Copenhagen, if you build infrastructure to support other modes such as cycling and transit, you will get more and more riders and shift the policies. This is what we did in the 50's in support of the automobile. It was a collective push to increase funding and regulations for that mode that led to its rise. At the time, many felt it was the way of the future, but looking back we know that was completely wrong.

But the issue with the stimulus that continues is the fact that we aren't doing enough and a lot of people don't seem to understand what is "enough". Calling $3 billion adequate is kind of lame, especially given the $250 billion in new projects that are in que as well as the thought that California's high speed rail line would be $40 itself. There is a want for a national high speed rail network, or at least start of work on the key city to city lines that would increase productivity and connectivity. And the excuse that it won't be started fast enough is based on existing FTA and DOT timelines in which transit is suffocated based on underfunding. Another excuse is that we should wait for the next transportation bill. But if we are able to make investments now and write a bill that can fold some of them in, why not do it?

While many will point to the New Deal as a major part of what got us out of the depression, the cap was World War II in which we turned auto plants into tank and plane manufacturers and people saved instead of continuing thier spending. No extra rubber around for new cars, only for the war effort. In fact, this poster reminds us of the lengths people took to save energy and resources. Imagine if in this time period of hardship people were asked to save a little more and come together to build or invest in more of what is needed such as education and technology.


If I were in charge, perhaps I would have an office of infrastructure reconciliation. This means bringing our rail infrastructure up to a current standard and increasing output dramatically, much like China. We'll have to also wait and see on the idea of an infrastructure bank but this is no time to comprimise or seek middle ground as Mr. Summers stated Obama will do. Tax cuts are an idea of the Republicans, thier solution to EVERYTHING over the last 30 years. After a while, there's not much left to cut. Look where that has gotten us. Seems like this is a time to strike forward with big thoughts and ideas.

"Experts"

Case in Point, David Spurling.

"Sperling is the co-author (with Deborah Gordon) of Two Billion Cars: Driving Toward Sustainability, a book that considers the environmental impact of so many automobiles and suggests ways that politicians, car companies and the general public can curb car-ownership and reduce climate change."

While most of the talk is on technology, he discuss the roles of transit, land use, and bicycling and car-share. "Mass transit won't solve our energy and transportation problems," states Sperling. The average bus passenger contributes as much greenhouse gases as a car driver because the buses aren't full, he explains.

Wonder which O'Toole he got that data from?

Rail Opponent Cliche Fest

Ryan points out the dumb comments the Post starts its article out with:

"Despite its substantially higher cost"

He goes on to comment:

Despite its substantially higher cost, I ordered the delicious steak the other night, instead of the potted meat. Despite its substantially higher cost, I bought a nice bottle of wine instead of a plastic jug of horse spit. Despite its substantially higher cost, I opted to burn a pile of money, rather than shell out for a copy of the worthless Washington Post.

I'll do you one better! How about all these wonderful anti rail cliches from US News and World Report:

Democratic bleeding hearts

social engineering program

nice thing to have. But

at a fraction of the cost, buy swank new buses

half the cost of light rail, build a dedicated "bus rapid transit" system

riders of the proposed Purple Line already take mass transit to work

proponents are actually hurting the cause

Who thinks US News should stick to college rankings?

TAR Gets a Bit Feathered

I'm sure many of you are familiar with Thomas A. Rubin or TAR, famed anti-rail consultant and ten page commenter to blogs and listserves. Today he released a study funded by his corporate libertarian overlords that contradicted his findings for a local Milwaukee business group earlier in the year.

A new study by a libertarian think tank claims the projected economic benefits of a proposed Milwaukee-to-Kenosha commuter rail line have been inflated and questions its ridership estimates.

But a business leader noted that the author of the study, Los Angeles-based transit consultant Tom Rubin, took a far more positive view of the $200 million project in June, when pro-transit business leaders were pushing the Southeastern Wisconsin Regional Transit Authority to hire him as the authority's consultant. And a regional planner said the commuter rail projections were sound.

Who knew he was going to come back on that earlier decision? Well perhaps everyone who's ever encountered one of his writings. He did state that he felt buses were a better option, such as he usually does as long as it doesn't have its own ROW. The quote of the story:

Pete Beitzel, a vice president of the Metropolitan Milwaukee Association of Commerce, suggested Rubin's opinions depended on who was paying him. "The think tank guys got real mad at him when he said it (the KRM line) was a good idea," Beitzel said. "Apparently, they hired him to change his mind."

H/T Political Environment

Two Percenters

Stop it. Just cut it out. Joel Kotkin, the newest of the O'Toole/Coxies is the latest offender.

Spending on upkeep of transit systems in older centralized cities such as New York, Washington and Chicago also seems logical. But with few exceptions -- the heavily traveled corridor between downtown Houston and the Texas Medical Center, for instance -- ridership on most new rail systems outside the traditional cities has remained paltry, accounting for barely 1 or 2 percent of all commuters.

This 2% bullshit needs to stop. Stop comparing a single transit corridor or a poorly funded transit network to all roads in a region. Let's compare a single road project to the whole region next time. The next interchange, i'm going to be all about comparing the number of trips. Heck the big dig only takes 2% of trips. Stop it. Wendell Cox or Robert Poole say all the time we should spend money depending on existing trip percentages. That doesn't do us any good and only enforces the current shares. We should be spending more money on livability infrastructure.

Another interesting thing about Kotkin's screed is that he praises Houston's light rail line, which he and his followers bashed in the past. So what's it going to be Joel? There's a whole lot more wrong with his ideas on the stimulus, but I'll leave that to others.

Shaking in Policy Boots

The opposition is getting worried and you can tell when their rhetoric starts to sound like this:

At the same time, many environmental groups, labor unions, consultants, and construction companies are urging the federal government to redirect federal transportation policy toward 19th century transportation options by shifting federal resources from highways and autos to transit and trains, as well as hiking and biking, in the belief that these latter modes--while slower and more costly--are more fuel efficient and environmentally friendly. With an opportunity to receive greater subsidies, the transit and train lobbies have moved aggressively to influence Congress and the media, and many in Congress are already promising to push for these changes.

In other words, watch out for BIG RAIL and SUPERTRAINS! Turns out, Obama doesn't listen to these dudes. We're looking at transit stimulus rather than Iran War Games at Heritage. The rest of the Heritage article is the usual shpiel about ridership share and all the other BS you come to expect from the sprawlistas.

This brings up another issue that Yglesias talked about today as well. With the auto industry, these guys (Cox and Utt) have been pushing hard in parrallel with the auto industry for standards that deny many people a lifestyle they would like to have and independence from an expensive habit.

The auto industry has provided a decent living to a large number of Americans for many decades. But it’s also been a very pernicious force on our public policy. If car companies expect progressives to deliver them a financial rescue, then it only seems fair to me that progressives will want the companies to stop blocking key elements of the progressive political agenda. That means dropping lawsuits like the one aimed at forcing California to lower its fuel efficiency standards, it means stopping involvement in whatever anti-green climate change front groups these firms are involved with, it means seeing members of congress from Michigan and other rust belt areas offering assurances to colleagues that they won’t stand in the way of serious climate legislation, etc.
...
These firms will be okay. Giving federal subsidies that are then used to lobby for pro-pollution public policy is not okay.

If only we could stop junk planning theory as well.

Expanding or Contracting?

Two articles in two separate Denver papers paint somewhat different pictures of what is going on with the Fastracks program. One discusses the exponential cost increases that have occured on the Northwest rail line. The usual libertarians are given a voice are calling for the line to be cancelled because in their view it was a worthless investment anyway. Losing out on direct transportation from the center of cities is not a proposition the proponents want to consider, since they had hoped to develop centers around the stations, something the opponents don't think is important. It shows thier true colors really. They don't believe that climate change is a problem and they don't really believe in the true conservative idea of saving infrastructure money by building centers instead of furthe sprawl.

Instead, Calongne says, the debate centers less on transportation and more on lost opportunities for development near rail stations. "If there's no train, then a train won't go through downtown Louisville or the south part of Westminster," she said. "That's what this is about." Officials agree that's a big part of the push for rail. "

FasTracks allows all of us to develop our urban centers," said Louisville Mayor Chuck Sisk. "Transit-oriented development keeps our population densities in the core areas," he said. "We made choices not to expand and grow our population outward, and this transit piece is the important part of growing and developing our cities."

But then there is the other article from the Denver Post. It states that the cost projections are all messed up by the global economic slowdown. Sure sales taxes have taken a hit, but so have commodity prices.

Pointing to the volatility of some commodity prices, Heimowitz presented a chart showing the price of steel (using an index cost of 100 for January 2001 as the base) bouncing from 252 last year to a high of 507 in June before tumbling to 384 in September, 257 in October and 144 on Nov. 14. "People were completely apoplectic about the price of steel four months ago," Heimowitz said, "and here we are, it's a whole other world."

If it continues this way, it could be a real boost to the program and lower construction costs, especially since fuel costs are down. And a stimulus boost would probably help even more, getting these projects moving faster. So what will happen? It would be nice to say that things will continue to go down, but we know that is bad for the overall economy. Perhaps some simple balance of the two would be best. But for now, we'll have to wait and see the true effect.

Watch Out for Big Rail

Mr. Setty referenced the article earlier but this quote is hilarious:

And then you’ve got the rail transit lobby. The transit lobby is about 4 or 5 times bigger than the highway lobby. People always think there’s this huge highway lobby, but the highway lobby is very small compared to the transit lobby. And there’s enormous profit to be made. The average urban freeway in America costs about 5 to 10 million dollars per lane mile, and the average light rail line is cost up to 80 million dollars a route mile. So obviously there’s a lot more profit to be made building rail than there is building highway and so naturally the companies like Parsons-Brinkerhoff and so forth – Bechtel –that build transit are going to be lobbying for it.

Of course this is all bs, but if we (I'd be all about being a part of big rail if it existed) had as much power over the road folks as Randal says, I think we'd see a different landscape in congress and in our communities. Perhaps big rail is bigger than we think or perhaps it has a different name, the livable communities movement.

H/T ASD

Numb3r Play

Data alone doesn't always tell the whole story, such as the before and after ridership chart the FTA put together which shows Memphis ridership on its most recent extension (Medical Center) is awful. But why is it awful compared to the projections? Because the Medical Center shut down and moved right after the line opened.

But the numbers always tell you all you need to know right? So says our favorite Libertarian scholar. Mr. Setty does the fun work of comparing apples to apples. He tosses in a talk on self selection fallacies to boot.