The Puget Sound Transit board of directors considers themselves to be between a rock and a hard place. The projected cost of the eight-mile Northgate-Lynnwood light-rail line has risen from a low of $1.2 billion to $3.2 billion. The agency is counting on getting more than a billion of that from the Federal Transit Administration, but the Trump administration has been stingy about funding new projects.
So should the board commence construction now even if it means foregoing federal support? Or should it wait until federal support is assured and take the risk that costs will rise even more?
How about a third option: Don’t build it at all. It would have been a stupid idea if it cost just $200 million. It was a really stupid idea at $1.2 billion. It is an extremely stupid idea at $3.2 billion. It’s stupid because buses can do everything light rail can do, but do it more safely and at a much lower cost.
The Northgate-Lynnwood plan calls for buying 34 light-rail vehicles that by themselves will cost well over $100 million. These could be replaced by about 100 standard buses that would cost less than $50 million. Since the proposed light-rail line uses the Interstate 5 alignment, the state could instead construct high-occupancy/toll lanes on I-5 that the buses could use, thus avoiding congestion and moving faster than light rail. The cost of those lanes would be partly or entirely covered by the tolls charged to low-occupancy vehicles, but even if no tolls were collected, they would cost far less to build than the $400 million per mile planned for the light rail.
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As proposed, the light-rail line would be entirely grade separated from pedestrians and other motor vehicles. Seattle’s policy of building light-rail lines this way combines the high-cost disadvantage of heavy rail with the low-capacity disadvantage of light rail, which makes it especially stupid.
While some future administration might look more favorably on providing federal funding for this project, Sound Transit’s expectations of federal funding are still unrealistic. ST3, which was approved by voters in 2016, calls for spending more than $50 billion on transit capital improvements, mostly for 62 miles of light-rail lines. The agency is counting on just 11 percent of that federal grants — but that’s still more than $5.5 billion. This is on top of several billion in federal funding already committed or spent for ST1 and ST2.
No other urban area has received anything close to $5 billion in federal funding for light-rail construction. Only one urban area, Washington DC, has received more than $5 billion for heavy-rail construction. So why should Seattle expect to get so much more than any other urban area? The answer is that it shouldn’t, and Sound Transit’s expectation of doing so is just one more overly optimistic assumption.
The Antiplanner wrote, “The cost of those (high-occupancy/toll) lanes would be partly or entirely covered by the tolls charged to low-occupancy vehicles.”
Has the idea that drivers should pay not only for the roads they use but also for the buses other people use, become so widely entrenched that even the Antiplanner thinks it’s acceptable?
That’s clearly a subsidy and contrary to everything the Antiplanner stands for!
The added cost of high occupancy lanes should be borne by the people who benefit from them, not by the people who are prohibited from using them.
HP; That’s clearly a subsidy and contrary to everything the Antiplanner stands for!
THWM; Teahadi’s also no problem with being oxygen thieves for that matter :$
”
So should the board commence construction now even if it means foregoing federal support? Or should it wait until federal support is assured and take the risk that costs will rise even more?
” ~ antiplanner
This isnt quite right. If they move forward without the money in place they’ve already raised the cost. There’s a huge price to that risk that needs to be acknowledged especially by public officials.
@highwayman There’s clearly a subsidy, teahadis………Don’t get all after school special on us
Must you repeat the same dribble over and over again. Or is that one of the sideeffects of autism spectrum disorder.
continued:
Even in an era of subsidies, it’s intelligent to expend your capital on that which serves the greater amount work per dollar spent. Since highways carry more people than rail, it stands to assume putting a dollar in it’s direction serves a greater good. I know full well we cant eliminate subsidies in our lifetime, but we can certainly reduce it.
Insert your rebuttal: You teahadi’s don’t have any moral compass
At this point, even the transit people know it won’t get built. But keep this alive for another few years just to milk a few hundred million more from studies, etc.
The Antiplanner wrote:
How about a third option: Don’t build it at all. It would have been a stupid idea if it cost just $200 million. It was a really stupid idea at $1.2 billion. It is an extremely stupid idea at $3.2 billion. It’s stupid because buses can do everything light rail can do, but do it more safely and at a much lower cost.
That tops out at $400 million a mile! Are the rails and catenary proposed to be made of gold? Or at least silver?
Any idea what the estimated patronage for this project is supposed to be? How about the estimated number of new and maybe choice patrons?
After a little search with Google, I found that the estimated number of new transit trips if this is built (in 2035) is about 23,000 (according to this). That’s from taking the systemwide number of linked transit trips if this is built, 606,000 and subtracting the
number of trips if this is not built, about 583,000. That works out to a capital cost of more than $17,000 per new rider.
No other urban area has received anything close to $5 billion in federal funding for light-rail construction. Only one urban area, Washington DC, has received more than $5 billion for heavy-rail construction. So why should Seattle expect to get so much more than any other urban area? The answer is that it shouldn’t, and Sound Transit’s expectation of doing so is just one more overly optimistic assumption.
Overly optimistic assumptions about transit patronage and overly optimistic assumptions about the cost of constructing rail transit projects in the U.S. are issues that seem to get ignored. Of course, if Seattle gets no federal dollars for this project, then it’s only Seattle’s issue, and not a national issue.
Since you mentioned Washington, the cost estimate to build the original Metrorail system for Washington, D.C. and nearby areas of Maryland and Virginia was supposed to be $2.55 billion, as announced in 1969 when ground was broken. The real cost was north of $10 billion.
It was later revealed that the “estimated” cost to build the Metro system (around 100 miles, commonly called the Adopted Regional System) was a work of fiction (don’t take my word for it, read Zach Schrag’s excellent Great Society Subway).
Sidewalks are for pedestrians, not for automobiles, yet you teahadi’s aren’t complaining about them not being profitable :$
LazyReader; repeat the same dribble over and over again. Or is that one of the sideeffects of autism spectrum disorder.
THWM; Well, you’re more evil than autistic.
LazyReader; Insert your rebuttal: You teahadi’s don’t have any moral compass
THWM; Socialism for roads and capitalism for railroads.
In other words, break someone’s legs, then complain that they can’t walk :$
According to Highwayperson, Usain Bolt only wins races because he cheats. It’s not because he’s fundamentally better and faster.