Rail Transit Debates

Debate over the Maryland Purple Line continues. The governor is expected to make a decision in a few months.

Debate over a proposed streetcar in Sacramento begins. The measure will be voted on by local residents in May.

Debate begins over funding for two new light-rail lines in Vancouver, BC. Proponents include a council of suburban mayors, all of whom no doubt hope that light-rail lines will eventually be built to their cities. (The Antiplanner will have more to say about this one in a few days.)
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Somebody is going to make a lot of money if these projects are built, but no one will particularly make any money if they are not built. Yet the opposition to these obsolete ideas remains fierce, which could be an indicator of just how stupid these plans are.

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About The Antiplanner

The Antiplanner is a forester and economist with more than fifty years of experience critiquing government land-use and transportation plans.

7 Responses to Rail Transit Debates

  1. OFP2003 says:

    There has to be a good graphic demonstrating the scale of this thing. Like how much is 2.5Billion dollars. How long of a 4 lane highway could you pave in 1$ bills? How long of a highway could you build with a 6″ thick layer of 1$ bill pavement? The train will cost over $2000 per inch.

  2. ahwr says:

    @OFP2003

    Instead of looking at what sort of highway you could build in a low density area in Texas where you had been planning it for years and reserved the ROW and don’t need many interchanges as the AP often does you could try looking at highway projects in Maryland. The ICC toll road was about 2.5 billion, more than double the initial cost, with toll revenue down significantly from initial projections. For future projects, you could peruse some of the alternatives here. Adding toll lanes to the 14 mile corridor would cost more than 2.5 billion.

    http://capitalbeltway.mdprojects.com/pdfs/Final_WestSideMobilityStudyReport.pdf

  3. metrosucks says:

    The ICC toll road was about 2.5 billion, more than double the initial cost,

    Or you could just build a worthless toy train at two hundred million a mile, to an area already well served by buses, a rail line that couldn’t possibly cover its own operating costs with fares, much less pay its capital costs. And a rail line that will be slower than the buses it will replace. You know, like Portland is doing.

    But hey, that’s OK, because it’s steel rails and there’s just something about steel wheels on steel rails that makes any cost worthwhile, even a billion dollars a mile, if rail shills are honest.

  4. C. P. Zilliacus says:

    ahwr wrote:

    The ICC toll road was about 2.5 billion, more than double the initial cost, with toll revenue down significantly from initial projections.

    Which initial cost are you speaking about? The one from the 1990’s, before then-Gov. Parris Glendening (D) “cancelled” the project (and with it, the effort by his anointed successor, Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, to be elected governor)?

    Please show me one rail transit system anywhere in the United States that can factually make the statement below (source here (with emphasis added)):

    The highway did achieve a financial milestone in its second full fiscal year. For the first time, its toll revenues — $51 million — covered its operating expenses and debt service on the toll-backed bonds, meaning it required no subsidies from other state toll facilities.

    No subsidies from the state’s motor fuel taxes that fund a very large chunk of Maryland’s Transportation Trust Fund either.

  5. C. P. Zilliacus says:

    N.Y. Times: Streetcar Revival Is Wavering in Some Cities

    WASHINGTON — First, suburban Arlington, Va., abandoned long-laid plans last fall to build a streetcar line its leaders hoped would help revitalize a neglected corridor.

    Now, across the Potomac, the District of Columbia is rethinking the whole idea, after spending $160 million to bring the trolleys back to the nation’s capital, after more than half a century.

    Just a few years ago, the streetcar revival was all the rage in cities across the country. Portland, Ore., seemingly set the trend with its 11.5-mile system, which opened in 2001 and was said to spur economic development while carrying 16,000 passengers on weekdays.

    Elsewhere, New Orleans is extending its streetcar lines, while Atlanta, Tucson and Salt Lake City have also moved ahead with similar systems, almost always pegged to the promise of transit-related economic growth.

  6. C. P. Zilliacus says:

    metrosucks wrote:

    Or you could just build a worthless toy train at two hundred million a mile, to an area already well served by buses, a rail line that couldn’t possibly cover its own operating costs with fares, much less pay its capital costs. And a rail line that will be slower than the buses it will replace. You know, like Portland is doing.

    ahwr also forgot to mention that the Md. 200 (ICC) toll road resulted in an infinite increase in transit patronage along the ICC, since there was no transit service there at all before, and now there is, and people are riding the express buses that run along the road (even some individuals that spent many years objecting to the road are using the express bus service on Md. 200).

    But hey, that’s OK, because it’s steel rails and there’s just something about steel wheels on steel rails that makes any cost worthwhile, even a billion dollars a mile, if rail shills are honest.

    Unfortunately, there is more than a nugget of truth above. The doctrine of rail transit infallibility is rather pervasive in more than a few parts of the United States (IMO, the only place where rail comes close to being infallible in the U.S. is in New York City and its surrounding (and sprawling) counties of New York, New Jersey, Connecticut and Pennsylvania).

    Hey, maybe taxpayers will fund a rail line extended to Pike County, Pennsylvania, since five counties in the eastern part of that state are now part of the New York metropolitan area, though there is already (privately-run) bus service between several points in eastern Pennsylvania and New York City.

  7. prk166 says:

    Since supporters like to talk about people using it to commute back and forth for work, you can throw Zip Rail in with these rail transit projects. It’s still alive and trying to push forward. Although at this point a mystery company with no known meaningful capital for the project is claiming they’ll build and run it sans taxpayer $ would seem to be a hail mary pass.

    http://www.postbulletin.com/news/politics/a-private-builder-for-zip-rail/-9963-5c19-9903-fca521658071.html#facebook-comments

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