The nation’s worst-performing light-rail system celebrated its 20th anniversary a few days ago, and in honor of the occasion the San Jose Mercury News published a review that tries, but fails, to be positive.
Thanks to the high cost of light rail and the foolish decisions of the Valley Transportation Authority’s, the article notes, VTA is forced to cut bus service again this January. VTA is actually considering spending $334 million extending one of its lines in a project that is projected to attract less than 2,200 riders a day.
The average U.S. light-rail car carries 26 people, but the average San Jose light-rail car carries less than 15 people.
Flickr photo by skew-t.
Today’s situation “is a long way from transit heaven,” the article admits, pointing out that — thanks to previous service cuts — bus ridership dropped by more than a third in the early 2000s and hasn’t come close to recovering since.
Still, VTA has its true believers, including the head of the Silicon Valley Leadership Group, who claims that San Jose light rail carries “more people than ride CalTrain,” the San Jose-to-San Francisco commuter trains. Of course, he is wrong: CalTrain carried more than 9.0 million trips in 2006, while VTA light rail carried less than 8.3 million. Since commuter-rail trips are longer, CalTrain carried five times as many passenger miles, yet its operating losses, net of fares, were $41 million compared with light rail’s $48 million.
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CalTrain, on the right, carries more people at a smaller cost to taxpayers than VTA’s light rail. The Altamont Commuter Express, left, doesn’t do as well, but still costs less per passenger mile than light rail.
Flickr photo by Richard Masoner.
The Merc-News points out that Santa Clara County taxpayers pay as much or more for transit, yet their transit system carries fewer riders, than almost any system with light rail in the country. “The heavy tax commitment to transit,” the article notes, “means fewer dollars for road upgrades.” Especially since a half-cent sales tax that voters approved of for roads was hijacked by the transit agency in 2000.
The newspaper faithfully parrots the line that light rail “helped spur development and lure people downtown” — but notes that the hundreds of millions of dollars of redevelopment (TIF) money might have played a role. “No one thinks light rail hasn’t helped,” says the writer, who obviously failed to consult the Antiplanner.
“The light-rail system should be considered a 100-year investment,” says San Jose’s director of transportation planning. That shows how shallow planners are: within another 20 years, that investment will be completely worn out and San Jose will have to decide whether to scrap it or spend another few billion replacing it.
The article quotes the Antiplanner’s friend, Tom Rubin — or misquotes him, anyway, saying that he said the transit agency’s approach has been to offer anyone a ride from any place at the lowest fare possible. Actually, VTA’s general manager was the one who said this.
What Rubin actually said was that Silicon Valley, with its jobs spread out more thinly than almost anywhere else in the country, was unsuited for large-bus transit service. So to go from buses to light rail, which requires even more job concentration to work, was a mistake. Having made that mistake, VTA now wants to build BART, which requires even more job concentration. (You can download Rubin’s 17-megabyte PowerPoint show about VTA from the American Dream Coalition web site, or purchase a DVD of his presentation for $5.)
Light rail was the wrong solution for San Jose in 1987, it is the wrong solution today, and it still will be the wrong solution in 2027. We can only hope that San Jose’s leaders and opinion makers, including the Mercury-News, come to their senses by then and decide to junk the whole thing.
Not quite the right spot for it but I figured this blog is a good place to vent about this. I live in Denver. Not downtown but darn close. I work down on the south end of town by C/E470 and I-25. It’s a 17 mile drive one-way.
This morning I got up late and having not paid attention to the weather discovered it had snowed! And it was just clearing up so there were at least 4+” of white very fluffy (it’s Denver; it’s dry) snow on the ground. I was on the road a bit before 8:30 but with the roads being crap I figured traffic would be nasty even with my “reverse commute” (not that reverse though with more people working in the tech center than downtown). So I pulled off and parked at the Alameda station. While I was just a tad too far away to run to catch it, an F train pulled away. No problem because they come at least every 15 minutes during rush hour, right? Nope! Apparently a few inches of snow caused the schedule to go out the window. They just weren’t late; there was just no schedule. The next train didn’t come til 9:05pm. So we’re literally putting billions into a technology that gets completely messed up by a few inches of snow? What is scarier are the folks that claim that LRT can be built along I70 up to Vail for a cost of $10-15 / mile. Can you imagine how 200-400 inches of snow every winter would mess those trains up? Anyway, in the end even if my car ride had taken me twice as long as normal, an hour, I still would’ve got to work much faster. The worst part is that my work laptop battery was dead. That’s the main reason why I ride, to do some work + make myself get in a nice walk.
And the other funny thing was that on the southwest line, the original LRT line in Denver they weren’t running the trains. Apparently there was a train derailment (LRT? Freight? They built it right in a freight corridor) so they were supplementing service with buses as a “bridge”. Apparently this would be going on a few a days. Do they include these sort of costs
Not to mention the delays all over the Front Range from mindless drivers who drive as if the roads were dry, including the backups on 25 this morning, both ways; don’t they know it snows here a lot?
Employers or agents can’t include the costs of idiot drivers in their costs, either. Took the GF 50 minutes to go the 5 miles to the train station this morning.
DS
The drivers going fast, unless they cause an accident, don’t cause the backups. It’s the reduced capacity on the freeways due to the cars going slower. Happens every day on I25 this time of year @7:15 when the sun has just rose and southbound, which is going ESE, gets blinded by it.
Look at the road improvements on I25 through the tech center. Just think if they have spent 2 as much on the roads as they did. How many more lanes could’ve been added? another 1 or 2 each way? And how many exit ramps could’ve had flyovers so they don’t back up on I25?
In the UK we’ve had the same kind of problems with trains and snow. It happens because the air intakes are low down, and they suck the powdery snow in.
The other kinds of problems we have had are leaves on the line (the wheels mash the leaves into a sticky paste), and sea water (which can short out electrics).
Even so, you would have thought that the snow and sea water could have been anticipated.
Look at the road improvements on I25 through the tech center. Just think if they have spent 2 as much on the roads as they did. How many more lanes could’ve been added? another 1 or 2 each way? And how many exit ramps could’ve had flyovers so they don’t back up on I25?
I like it: take lots more people’s property. Go with that. Tell us how you do.
DS
Dan-
I find it interesting that you are so horrified at buying some people’s property to build needed roads, but don’t seem to be at all concerned about telling owners of thousands of acres of property exactly what they can and can not do with their property while offering them no compensation.
I find it interesting that you are so horrified at buying some people’s property to build needed roads, but don’t seem to be at all concerned about telling owners of thousands of acres of property exactly what they can and can not do with their property while offering them no compensation.
So you are offering to pay the property owners adjacent to the Interstate for the depreciation in their property due to air and noise pollution? Excellent! What about paying higher taxes for the added value that the zoning protections on your property affords (givings)?
If you’re willing to pay the same for givings as takings, I’m willing to listen to the compensation argument. Problem is I never hear one, which is the reason why the Private Property Rightists get their b*tts kicked at the ballot box.
DS
Dan:
Why so angry?
I am paying higher property taxes because of stupid zoning laws. My county recently changed the out of city acreage requirements for new construction from 5 to 20 acres. This caused an increased appraisal of my house of around 50% and my property tax has increased by approximately that as well.
One reason “Private Property Rightists” lose is that many people are envious socialists. Although generally I don’t think such matters are really decided at the ballot box except as an off shoot of picking people that promise to “give” you lots of government “benefits.”
Martin
I’m not angry at all, Martin, but I appreciate the circumstances surrounding the reason for having to try to characterize me in that way.
But maybe you should instead agitate City Hall to lower everyone’s property values. Let us know how your signature-gathering for that purpose goes in your neighborhood. As an alternative, you can de-annex from the city, eschew the services, and have your taxes go down that way (property values too, but it’s taxes that are of utmost importance here). Let us know how your signature-gathering for that purpose goes in your neighborhood.
And people that defeat Private Property Rights movement at the ballot box aren’t envious socialists. This is a fact, despite your wish for it to be true; they are reg’lur folk interested in maintaining their property values, as their property rights would be affected with the passage of these laws.
See, these folk’s major investment is their property and they aren’t going to let some yahoo with a crazy idea ruin their life savings. It’s that simple. If that’s socialism, I don’t know what to tell you, Martin. Maybe there’s a sub-Saharan country somewhere without these onerous rules you can Tiebout sort to.
DS
Dan-
Is increasing property values a worthwhile stand alone goal? You are correct that home owners will try to increase their property values. It is only human nature. The point that you will not accept is that the most effective way to do this is to prevent any one else from building houses for themselves. Accept it or not, Atlanta and Houston are full of nice neighborhoods with a variety of amenities that one doesn’t need to be independently wealthy to move into. Limiting other’s right to develop their property can result in a cash bonanza for existing home owners, at least if they wish to sell out and leave the area. The cost it stamping on the coming generation’s ability to make a decent life for themselves. I have children and this seems like a very poor bargain.
I’m sure you’ll reply to this with a snide response saying that I don’t understand anything and am being shortsighted. However, this will not change the facts apparent to anybody with common sense and a basic knowledge of economics. Maybe people are so selfish they will sacrafice their own children’s future, but it doesn’t make it right. Go ahead, justify selling the coming generation down the river. It will not change the facts.
Builder,
You confuse my pointing out what happens on the ground with advocacy for same.
HTH.
DS
DS —> The noise and air pollution from freeways causing property values to go down? Since when did that become a “fact”? It may deter some residential development but business thrive on it.
And did you imply that the SE corridor took less property? Have you seen it? There is easily 2 lanes worth of land there if not 3. And that doesn’t include the parking ramps. The space was there. What is it about space that makes you think it wasn’t? What does the SE line have for ridership? 33,000 / day during the week? So we’re talking getting what? 7,000? 10,000? cars off the road each day. Those extra lanes could easily absorb them. Heck, they could be HOT lanes like the ones on 394 in MPLS. Or have a dedicated bus lane and HOV lane. Other things could’ve been down with the money that would’ve cost less up front, less for annual operations and done more public good than a train that essential does noting more than carry a bunch of people downtown in the morning and then back home in the afternoon.