Two years ago, the head of the Federal Transit Administration (FTA), Peter Rogoff ,gave
a speech to a room full of transit executives. His remarks were
unusually blunt. Mr. Rogoff admitted that the transit planning process for new
projects was biased in favor of light rail. But he reminded people that rail
systems had significant long-term costs. FTA recently had concluded there were
more than $78 billion in deferred maintenance costs for public transit agencies in the U.S., and three-fourths of
those costs were associated with rail systems.
Mr. Rogoff pointed out that many local transit districts were
seeking large federal grants for
new rail lines, even though their overall levels of service were shrinking. He asked
rhetorically, “If
you can’t afford to operate the system you already have, why does it make sense
for us to partner in your expansion?”
In the face of funding shortages at all levels of government, Mr.
Rogoff reminded the executives that decisions about new transit service were
moral decisions and that political leaders needed to “have
the guts to say ‘no’ when everyone else wants to say ‘yes’.”
Unfortunately, Mr. Rogoff apparently forgot this speech as soon as
he gave it. During the next two years, his agency encouraged Portland’s TriMet to continue planning for the most
expensive transit project in the state’s history, the Portland-Milwaukie light rail
line (PMLR). The Milwaukie
line will cost more than $205 million per mile to construct and will destroy 68
businesses and 20 private homes.
In order to partially
finance the so-called “local share” of the price tag (50% of construction
cost), TriMet will have to sell $60 million of bonds in the next two years, and
the debt service on those bonds will cannibalize bus service that has already
been reduced four times since 2009.
Since TriMet service is
shrinking, the agency is clearly in need of the “tough love” that Mr. Rogoff
preached in 2010. Yet tomorrow, Mr. Rogoff himself will be in town to announce
FTA approval of a Full Funding Grant Agreement (FFGA) that will waste some $745
million in federal money on the project over the next eight years.
There are many reasons why federal funding should have been denied
years ago for the PMLR project. The most important is that TriMet has consistently violated FTA requirements that local transit agencies
successfully operate federally funded capital projects for at least 20 years.
The most egregious example
is the original MAX line that opened in 1986. At the time the Blue Line was
being planned, TriMet promised that trains from Gateway to downtown Portland
would run every five minutes during peak periods. Today, the actual frequency (known
as “headways”) is every 8 minutes, or 60% worse than promised.
TriMet learned a lesson
from this experience, but unfortunately it was the wrong lesson. Instead of
killing the expensive rail program, TriMet simply lowered expectations for
service on future rail lines. For the Yellow Line to North Portland, TriMet
promised 10-minute service intervals for peak periods. Yet even with this lower
bar, the agency could not meet its commitment. Peak-hour service on the Yellow
Line currently operates at 15-minute headways, 50% below what was committed to.
The agency’s newest rail
line, the Green Line to Clackamas Town Center, opened in September 2009. By
then TriMet’s finances were so bad that project managers knew even before it
opened that promised levels of service would not be met. Green Line service has
been at least 33% below FFGA requirements since day one.
TriMet is now promising FTA that when the Milwaukie line opens in
March 2016, it will offer peak-hour service every 10 minutes and off-peak
service every 15 minutes. But since TriMet is unable to offer such service on any of
its rail lines right now, no one should take this forecast seriously.
The saddest part about
Milwaukie light rail is that it will make current transit riders in that
corridor demonstrably worse off than they are today, due to the elimination of
express bus routes. Nine buses stop at the Milwaukie Transit Center, and five
of them travel on McLoughlin Boulevard to Portland city center. However, once
light rail opens, all of these buses will no longer provide service north of
Milwaukie. Transit customers boarding buses from points south will be forced to
transfer at Milwaukie.
Light rail will also take
longer than express bus service. The current scheduled time-of-travel for a
trip from downtown Milwaukie to Portland State University on the #99 McLoughlin
Express bus averages 17.5 minutes. An early morning run makes it in 12 minutes.
The forecasted time of travel for light rail – which offers no express service
– is roughly 19 minutes for the same distance.
None of this is necessary, because there is a very cheap
alternative – a fact well known to Mr. Rogoff. Last month the FTA released a
study, Metro Orange Line BRT Project Evaluation, looking at the cost-effectiveness of two different
versions of bus rapid transit (BRT) in Los Angeles. The Orange Line is high-end
BRT that resembles light rail because it has its own exclusive right-of-way and
never has to travel in mixed-flow traffic. A second variation, known as the
Metro Rapid bus, operates in general purpose arterial lanes, but achieves
relatively high travel speeds simply by spacing stops apart by about 0.8 miles.
The study showed that in most respects, both light rail and exclusive-lane
BRT are not cost-effective.
The Metro Rapid bus system is the real bargain, especially compared with
expensive light rail projects:
Capital Costs of Light Rail and Bus Rapid
Transit Projects Capital cost/mile
Portland-Milw. Light Rail Line
|
LA
Gold Line Light Rail
|
LA
Orange Line BRT
|
LA
Metro Rapid BRT, Ventura Line
|
|
$205 million
|
$62.7 million
|
$26 million
|
$0.2 million
|
Peter Rogoff is about to
hand over $745 million in federal funds for a Portland light rail line that
will cost 1,017 times more than the LA Metro Rapid system. In what ways is it
1,017 times better?
Actually, it’s not even as
good. The Rapid Bus system is cheaper, more flexible, twice as fast, arrives
more often, and is easier to implement.
For more than 25 years,
the Federal Transit Administration has been playing Charlie Brown to TriMet’s
Lucy. No matter how many times TriMet promises to successfully operate another light
rail project, in the end they always yank the ball away from FTA. Yet, here is
the FTA administrator, getting ready to tee up another new project.
We know how this is going
to end. TriMet’s rail empire will grow by a tiny fraction, while more bus service
gets cut. As Mr. Rogoff once said, we need someone with the guts to say “no,”
but it certainly won’t be him.
Insolvency,
One Step at a Time by John Charles | May 16, 2012
The Oregonian on Sunday examined TriMet’s deteriorating finances and called attention to high-cost union contracts, first approved in 1994, as the
starting point of the decline. Due
to the compounding effect of these contracts, TriMet now
spends $1.63 in benefits for every $1.00 spent on wages, and the agency has
more than $1.2 billion in unfunded actuarially accrued liabilities for promised
retirement benefits.
As a result, transit service has been cut by 14%
in the past four years, and more cuts are due
beginning September.
What was revealing in the Oregonian feature
was how no one was willing to accept responsibility. At any point during an
18-year period, dozens of people served on the TriMet Board or in top management positions, and
they could have demanded change. But they didn’t.
Of course, leadership starts at the top, and it’s the governor who
appoints the TriMet Board. In August 1994, then-Governor Barbara Roberts met
with the TriMet board chair, Loren Wyss,
who strongly objected to the draft contract. Instead of supporting him, she
forced him off the board.
The legacy of that decision is a
terminally dysfunctional business model at TriMet. Someone
on the TriMet board needs to have the courage to say that. But who will do so
when it’s so much easier to remain silent?
Another
Metro Fantasy: Portland region will triple
non-auto travel by 2035 by John A Charles Jr. Thursday,
November 12. 2009 http://oregoncatalyst.com/2811-Another-Metro-Fantasy-Portland-region-will-triple-non-auto-travel-by-2035.html
At its November 12 meeting, Metro’s Joint Policy Advisory
Committee on Transportation (JPACT) adopted “performance targets”
calling for a tripling of walking, biking, and transit use by 2035. This came
despite the release of the Annual Portland Resident Survey conducted by the
City Auditor, showing that levels of solo driving for commuters actually
increased by 4.6% this year and that transit use dropped by 9%.
During a 20-minute discussion of
performance targets covering such topics as climate change, clean air, and
affordability, none of the committee members questioned the feasibility of
tripling the mode share for walking, cycling, or transit. The
committee appears to believe that if they collectively wave a magic wand, they
can persuade people to change driving habits. Recent trends, however, suggest
that this will be an expensive exercise in futility.
For instance, according to Metro, the daily levels of
vehicle-miles-travelled (VMT) per person in the region have gone from 18.8 in
1990 to 20.0 in 2007. As the region continues to expand and more employers
leave the central city for suburban locations, there is no reason to think
daily VMT will decline.
Other data sources show similar trends. The Portland Auditor has been collecting
citizen survey data regarding commute travel habits for the past 12 years, and
the surveys show that in 1997 the private automobile was the primary means of
travel for 82% of commuters in the city (71% driving solo, 9% carpooling, and
2% driving to a transit station). In 2009, 78% of commuters relied on driving
(68% solo, 7% carpooling, and 3% driving to transit). This is a tiny drop in
auto use, given that we opened four new light rail lines and a streetcar during
those years, at a cost of over $2 billion.
Moreover, those are citywide averages. When the numbers are
broken down by region, the survey shows that 92% of commuters in East Portland
rely on driving, as do 86% of commuters in SW Portland.
Pure transit use in Portland (with no
auto driving involved) has remained completely flat; it was 10% in 1997 and 10%
in 2009. In TriMet’s strongest market (workers in the downtown
core) transit use is actually declining. According to the annual business
census reports published by the Portland Business Alliance, MAX/bus use dropped
from 45% of commuters to 43% from 2001-2008, while the streetcar share was 1%
or less in all years.
Metro, TriMet, and other local jurisdictions have bought the
notion that expensive rail transit investments, coupled with severe zoning
restrictions around transit stations to ensure high-density development, will
dramatically increase transit use; but actual evidence shows that the strategy
is not working.
For example, auto commuting at the commercial office building at
the Beaverton Round is 90% of all commuting for that building. For the Orenco
Gardens development south of light rail in Hillsboro, auto use is 80% of all
commuting. At the Elmonica Court Apartments across the street from the light
rail stop in Beaverton, 96% of commuters drive. All along the MAX system, from
Gresham to Hillsboro and up to North Portland, one can find similar results by
simply observing how people travel near MAX lines.
While bicycle commuting has gone up from 3% to 7% of all city
commuters, it’s unlikely that this number will grow significantly. It actually
hit 8% last year, and that may have been the high-water mark. Most people will
find bicycle commuting impractical no matter how much money the city spends on
bike lanes.
For instance, after the city took away
two auto lanes of Holgate Boulevard in outer SE Portland last summer in order
to create monster bike lanes, I went out there on three separate occasions to
do counts. The weather was beautiful on all days, and I varied the times/days
so that I chose a weekday mid-morning, a Sunday afternoon, and a Thursday
morning at the peak hour. Of all vehicles observed, more than 98% were
automobiles, and none of the cyclists turned into the new light rail station
(the ostensible reason for creating this 30-block bike lane was to encouraging
bike commuting to the new Green Max line).
Despite the fact that the regional strategies to reduce driving have
failed, the earnest folks at JPACT are convinced that this time, the central
planners will finally get it right! If the $2 billion we spent on rail transit
caused no change in travel habits during the past decade, we’ll double down and
build rail lines to Sherwood, Lake Oswego, Milwaukie, and Vancouver, while
letting highway congestion get worse so as to force a few commuters onto the
slow trains. Of course it will fail again, but a lot of planners will stay
employed. Perhaps that’s the real goal.
Debunking
Portland: The Public Transit Myth by Randal O'Toole
This article appeared
on TCSdaily.com on August 15, 2007. http://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/debunking-portland-public-transit-myth
The mayor of Milwaukee,
Wisconsin, and a cadre of other top officials recently flew to Portland,
Oregon, my hometown, to learn the wonders of the region's rail transit system.
Portland's Mayor Tom Potter no doubt told them light rail was "a
cornerstone of the city's success." Potter or former Portland city
Commissioner Charles Hales probably bragged that the city's streetcar line
"has sparked more than $2 billion in new developments."
Unless they had gone out
of their way on their junket, the visiting dignitaries were unlikely to hear
the other side of the story: Portland's public transit has done nothing to
relieve the region's growing congestion; its high cost has sparked a taxpayer
revolt; the developments along the rail lines were themselves heavily
subsidized; and those subsidies led a crafty cabal of ex-politicians and
developers to milk the system for their own gain.
How do Portland-area
residents feel about local light-rail projects? They voted against raising
taxes to build more light-rail in 1998. In 2002, they voted against a ballot
measure increasing neighborhood densities — as transit-oriented developments
do. In 2004, they supported a property-rights measure that challenged the very
foundations of Oregon's land-use planning system. Planners have ignored all
these votes and are building light rail with tax-increment financing and other
hidden tax increases.
Randal
O'Toole, who has spent most of his life in
Portland, is a senior fellow with the Cato Institute and author of the recent
paper, "Debunking Portland: The City That Doesn't Work." He currently lives in Bandon, Oregon.
Portlanders were
especially upset when local papers revealed in 2004 that the region's planning
had been manipulated by a "light-rail mafia," led by former Portland
Mayor Neil Goldschmidt, that directed rail construction contracts and developer
subsidies to an inside group of contractors and builders. Meanwhile, budgets
for schools, fire, police, and public health have all been cut, as property
taxes that would normally go to those services have been diverted to subsidies
for rail transit and high-density developments.
Portland officials spend
more than half the region's transportation funds on transit, but that doesn't
mean Portlanders ride it. In fact, since Portland began building rail transit
in the 1980s, transit's market share of commuting has actually declined from
9.8 percent to 7.6 percent, mainly because the high cost of rail in a few
corridors forced the transit agency to reduce bus service in some parts of the
region and prevented improvements in others.
Remember last year's
high gas prices that led some transit agencies to record 15 to 20 percent gains
in ridership? Oregon had some of the highest gas prices in the nation, yet
Portland transit ridership only grew by 0.1 percent. So much for Portland being
"the city that loves transit."
Light rail and
streetcars may be cute, but they are S-L-O-W. Portland's fastest light-rail
line averages 22 miles per hour. Portland's streetcar goes about 7 miles per
hour. I am waiting to see a developer advertise, "If you lived here and
rode transit home from work, you'd still be sitting on the train."
The developments
supposedly stimulated by new light-rail and streetcar lines? They were built
only after the region started handing out billions of dollars in subsidies
after the transit lines were built.
When Portland opened its
first light-rail line in 1986, the city immediately zoned the land near
light-rail stations for high-density developments. A decade later, not a single transit-oriented
development had been built in these areas.
To generate such
developments, then-city Commissioner Charles Hales urged the city to offer
property tax waivers, grants, and other subsidies to developers. "It is a
myth to think that the market will take care of development along transit
corridors," said Hales.
To date, Portland's
subsidies have exceeded $1.5 billion, and its suburbs and other agencies in the
region have provided even more. Hales neglects to mention this today because he
now works for a consulting firm selling streetcars to other cities.
Among the subsidies, the
city has sold parks, school playgrounds, and other lands at below-market prices
to developers on the condition that they replace those open spaces with
transit-oriented developments. So much for livability.
Portland has also
learned that the so-called transit-oriented developments work only if they have
plenty of parking. Though often located a few steps from light-rail stations,
most of the people living in these developments still drive for most of their
travel. That simply adds congestion to already crowded streets.
The question for
Portland today is how voters can stop the light-rail mafia before it does any
more damage. The question for officials visiting from Milwaukee and other
cities is how they can avoid making the same mistakes as Portland. The answer
is to look at Portland only as an example of how not to plan.
Comments:
The Portland truth is
that billions of dollars has been squandered on light rail, heavy rail, bike
lanes and public transit with grants from “green driven” federal grants that
are now about to end. Let’s not make the
same mistake. Public transit is not
sustainable. At a time we should be
reducing government payrolls, public transit expands government payrolls. All transit should be private. Look up
Concept 3 Transit to see the same plans made for Atlanta Metro, if we don’t
defeat this tax. Go to
TrafficTruth.net. Vote NO on the
transportation referendum on July 31st.
Norb Leahy, Dunwoody GA Tea Party Leader
No comments:
Post a Comment