LA Rail Transit a Failure

Los Angeles’ rail transit system is now 20 years old, but the Antiplanner’s faithful ally, Tom Rubin, questions whether it should have been built at all. “The push for rail has forced transit ridership down,” says Rubin, who was the chief financial officer of L.A.’s transit agency when the rail lines were planned in the 1980s. “Had they run a lot of buses at low fares, they could have doubled the number of riders.”

Rubin is referring to the fact that in the early 1980s, when LA’s transit policy was to boost bus service by keeping fares low, transit ridership grew dramatically. In 1985, when the agency starting building rail, it raised bus fares and cut service to cover cost overruns. Transit ridership plummeted, and did not recover to its 1985 levels until after 2000.


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Bus ridership bottomed out in 1995, when the NAACP sued the transit agency on behalf of a Bus Riders Union for racial discrimination by cutting bus service to minority neighborhoods while it built expensive rail lines to white neighborhoods. A 1996 court order forced the agency to restore bus service, and as the graph shows, the growth of bus service since that time has been much greater (at least through 2007) than total rail ridership.

“Rail transit advocates contend that it is premature to judge urban rail’s performance because the local systems are not fully developed and have yet to substantially benefit from being part of a broad rail network,” notes the LA Times article. It is interesting that, when a freeway opens and is heavily used, that use is considered a sign of failure because the freeway “induced demand.” But when a rail line opens and hardly anyone rides it, that is considered a sign that cities should build more rail.

Los Angeles has 673 miles of freeways with more than 5,600 freeway lane miles, most of which pretty much paid for themselves out of gas taxes and other highway user fees. Meanwhile it has less than 80 miles of rail that cost $8 billion to build, none of which came from transit riders. The Antiplanner wonders how many miles of rail costing how many billions of dollars will be needed before rail advocates finally concede that rail transit is a failure.

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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.

24 Responses to LA Rail Transit a Failure

  1. the highwayman says:

    Come on O’Toole, Tom Rubin is just another sleazy highway lobbyist crook like you.

    Even the Bus dRivers Union has worked with the Reason(sic) Foundaion to push your roads only bullshit!

  2. JimKarlock says:

    the highwayman Come on O’Toole, Tom Rubin is just another sleazy highway lobbyist crook like you.
    JK: No, you paid blogger, he was the chief financial officer at the time the rail was built. He saw first hand how it devastated overall transit service.

    Tom Rubin explained that whole episode at:
    http://blip.tv/file/2743664

    Try to learn something.

    Thanks
    JK

  3. bennett says:

    “Los Angeles has 673 miles of freeways with more than 5,600 freeway lane miles, most of which pretty much paid for themselves out of gas taxes and other highway user fees. Meanwhile it has less than 80 miles of rail that cost $8 billion to build, none of which came from transit riders. The Antiplanner wonders how many miles of rail costing how many billions of dollars will be needed before rail advocates finally concede that rail transit is a failure.”

    Interesting point. One must wonder how the integrated transportation network operates in LA. Obviously the feeder roads, arterials, and local streets are not as cost effective as the freeways. Also with all that freeway capacity, congestion is still a HUGE problem for the city.

    I guess, I’m asking myself, “where do I draw the line.” I don’t live in the fairy tale world where personal auto transport is unsubsidized, or where increasing highway capacity into oblivion will solve any problem in the long run. I’m also concerned with the high cost of transit, in particularly rail transit. So where does this leave me???

    … conflicted as I drive on the subsidized roads, to the “user-free paid-for freeways,” back to the subsidized streets, where I park and take the subsidized bus to work.

    If we eliminated every passenger rail project, would government really be more cost effective? Will mobility actually increase? Put me in the “not convinced” column.

  4. Scott says:

    bennett, Into exaggeration?
    You typed about expanding freeways into oblivion.
    How much is that? 10x? The LA Area has the lowest freeway-lanes/capita. Some urban areas have double, which is far less than oblivion. Would double lanes/capita help? Of course there is a problem with space, but a 1/3 increase in lanes would greatly help; a far less amount than oblivion.

    Subsidized roads? What is subsidized? Military, parks, fire, libraries, medical, police, schools, etc. What is a subsidy?
    Well, then all government services are subsidized.
    How about gov services (& infrastructure) for all (or large majority), rather than a small minority?

    Are you proposing user fees on all government services?
    How about asking if the funding mechanisms are just?
    Over 90% of adults & all benefit from road usage (other transport, deliveries, etc.), while <4% use public transit.

  5. bennett says:

    “Well, then all government services are subsidized.”

    Yay! Very observant. Now the Antiplanners can stop calling auto travel and sf developments a product of the free market.

    “How about asking if the funding mechanisms are just?”

    That’s exactly what I’m getting to. Many rail projects don’t pass muster IMHO. But do I want to see lots of tax payer dollars going to Medicaid transportation, innovative transit operations, good urban/suburban/rural/intercity bus systems, the upkeep and connections of the minor road system, coordination between state highway building DOT’s and transit agencies, traffic light coordination… Yes please.

    These things will never pay for themselves and I don’t care. In my mind it’s “just.”

  6. bennett says:

    “but a 1/3 increase in lanes would greatly help,”

    For about 3-5 years, and then we would be back at the drawing table looking at another expansion. The data is out there. Transit, nor highway expansion does much for congestion. Sure, it does on paper, but the real world says otherwise. For more see: Austin’s SH 130, Denver’s T-Rex, The Big Dig, Central Expressway in Dallas…

  7. Spokker says:

    There seems to be latent demand for longer trips among the transit dependent. When the Blue Line opened average travel distances exceeded eight miles (ten miles for rush hour commutes) while average travel distances on the bus were about 4-5 miles in the same corridor.

    That transit ridership reached record lows by 1996 is not surprising. Check out the inflation-adjusted price of gasoline. http://inflationdata.com/Inflation/images/charts/Oil/Inflation_adjusted_gasoline_price.jpg

    When gas prices reached their worst in 2008 commuters were glad the rail system was there. Today, gas is down to about $3/gallon, but Red Line subway ridership is maintaining its 2008 levels.

    “Bus ridership bottomed out in 1995, when the NAACP sued the transit agency on behalf of a Bus Riders Union for racial discrimination by cutting bus service to minority neighborhoods while it built expensive rail lines to white neighborhoods.”

    Is the complaint that rail shouldn’t be built to white neighborhoods at all? The Blue Line was the first light rail line constructed and serves South Los Angeles and Long Beach. The Green Line also serves some impoverished areas. In fact, it was built as a compromise to allow the Century freeway to be constructed through poor neighborhoods. Impoverished residents who would never use the freeway wanted a transitway in the middle of the freeway.

    While the Red Line serves Hollywood, it’s not like it’s serving the Hollywood Hills. The Red Line also serves MacArthur park, a large ethnic enclave. The Purple Line serves Koreatown. The Gold Line may serve South Pasadena, but also serves Highland Park, Chinatown and East Los Angeles.

    Currently under construction is the Gold Line Foothill Extension, which serves the ethnically diverse San Gabriel Valley, and the Expo Line, which will serve a different portion of South LA. After all of this, they are finally thinking about building rail for the Westside, which would consist of Expo Phase 2 and the Purple Line extension.

    This idea that rail in Los Angeles is built for whites is insane thinking.

  8. Spokker says:

    For those that want a dissenting viewpoint on the BRU and the Consent Decree, here is a page with some information: http://thetransitcoalition.us/BRUtruth.htm

    It should be noted that these rail projects have strong voter support. Measure R was a half-cent sales tax measure to pay for transportation improvements in Los Angeles County. The allocations are 35% rail, 20% bus and 20% highway. Here’s the full breakdown: http://www.metro.net/measurer/images/expenditure_plan.pdf

    This measure passed with 67% of the vote. You can see which cities voted for it here: http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/bottleneck/2008/11/view-larger-map.html

    Interesting that Los Angeles chose the “rail” method of suicide.

  9. Scott says:

    Producing more food will just be eaten, just as any increase in wanted goods will be consumed. Therefore, more road lanes (potentially fully user-funded) should not be made.
    ???

    However, public transit, costing much more (per passenger-mile) is inefficient & has small demand, should be made more.
    ???

    Is it just to make others pay?

  10. bennett says:

    “Therefore, more road lanes (potentially fully user-funded) should not be made. ???”

    It depends on whether the argument is to help integrate the highway system into a larger coordinated system of transport or if the argument is simply that it will reduce congestion. Again, look at many of the major highway expansion projects of the last 15 years and the on-the-ground effect on commute times. In many cases (here in TX in particular) expansion has had dramatically negative effect on congestion on the arterials that feed the freeway/tollway.

    “Is it just to make others pay?”

    It’s about improvement, choices, opportunity and progression. But yes, others will have to pay in many circumstances, but that is not the reason, it’s simply part of the process.

    Again, I’m not 100% satisfied with transit, financing transit and the politics of transit but I am willing to pay for government services I don’t use. It gets back to my original conundrum… where to draw the line. Or, how to adjust the process/system so that options are more feasible.

    Is it just about eliminating what you don’t like? Do you see any value in anything that doesn’t have a direct positive impact on your life?

  11. Scott says:

    Stuff that ‘I’ don’t like?
    It’s 95%+ of people that don’t use public transit regularly.
    It’s 85%+ of households that own a car.

    It’s about improvement, choices, opportunity and progression.
    That’s what more lanes provide. What seems to be forgotten is that population increases as well as choices of where to go. Also missing is the cost-benefit & cost per passenger-mile, which is more efficient for roads.

    BTW, HUD doesn’t help, such as for HOPE, when it houses some who need public transit, at lower densities, away from routes. It also spreads crime around.

  12. bbream says:

    Scott,

    Please provide some citations/statistics about HOPE spreading crime around. To my understanding, HOPE has helped reduce crime by breaking up dense pockets of poverty, but the last research I saw about this was from the early 2000s.

  13. Scott says:

    bbream,
    That was a tertiary point; not sure why you focus on that. It’s common sense that when cohorts having higher than average prevalence of being HS dropouts, drug users, unwanted children, lazy, crime-prone, etc are dispersed, their bad habits will follow.

    Here’s one article about crime around Memphis.

    The secondary point was that these groups of people are put in places with less available public transit.

    It does make sense that there will be less crime in places where these groups left, and that their crime will be reduced in a better environment. Other benefits too in new place.

  14. bbream says:

    Scott,

    I asked for citations because I thought your point was interesting and I wanted to learn more about it. It wasn’t supposed to be a criticism of your point–forgive me if I came across as critical. And thank you for posting the article.

  15. Walt Brewer says:

    A few more numbers, with contributions from Texas Transportation Institute, to show why LA’s highway deficient transportation has skidded off the road and is stuck in the mud.

    For 26 years and $ billions, a 44% increase in mass transit use looks pretty anemic. But wait! Population has increased only 29%, so mass transit is gaining?

    Not really. Motor vehicle travel has increased 67%, so mass transit’s share has decreased. And it is less than 3% of total travel.

    Even so mass transit has added a big 2.8 million passenger-miles daily.
    But autos have added about 150 million daily in the same period; 54 times as much.
    In fact that gain alone is about 18 times the total daily now carried by mass transit.

    So the problem is sprawl that creates travel, and we should be increasing development density?
    LA is already the most dense metro region in USA. In fact it grew a little more dense, (4%), during this period.

    Where is the evidence more and more mass transit will extract LA from its transportation rut?

    Personal transportation dominance considering automobiles’ feasible energy and emissions near future savings gains suggest priority to finding more highway capacity.

    Longer term, fully automated vehicles, electrically driven, can save land use and even more energy and emissions reductions. On demand, direct to real destination personal public transportation for all, drivers and non drivers alike.

    An additional hurdle for buses instead of light rail. According to national database data in “Gridlock”, CO2 emissions from buses are about four times those from light rail. Hopefully more CNG and hybrid buses can help close the gap.

  16. Andrew says:

    “most of which pretty much paid for themselves out of gas taxes”

    That is highly unlikely. Most freeways are heavily subsidized by vehicles-miles driven on local roads, which are paid for out of property taxes and general funds.

    For the gas tax to pay for the cost of a freeway, it would need to be equivalent, in cents revenue per mile, to the typical toll of a toll road, which is obviously self-financing.

  17. MJ says:

    That is highly unlikely. Most freeways are heavily subsidized by vehicles-miles driven on local roads, which are paid for out of property taxes and general funds.

    Not sure what you mean by “subsidized” in this case. The financing mechanisms that are used for local roads are generally not used on limited-access highways. To argue that property tax financing of local roads is a “subsidy”, you would have to argue that it is a cross-subsidy, from those who use the roads more to those who use it less. Property tax financing just substitutes a fixed charge for a variable one.

    For the gas tax to pay for the cost of a freeway, it would need to be equivalent, in cents revenue per mile, to the typical toll of a toll road, which is obviously self-financing.

    The gas tax is set in cents per revenue-mile to the average, network-wide cost of providing a highway network. It is not pure marginal cost pricing, but then again neither are most toll roads. This tradeoff allows governments to achieve efficiencies in terms of lower collection costs (i.e. less resources wasted collecting revenues).

  18. Scott says:

    There is a general tie-in, being user based on gas taxes for highways. That varies by mpg, % usage of highways, market construction road costs, etc.

    It seems like the argument is being inferred that if drivers cannot pay directly per highway-miles driven, then it should be abandoned & public transit funding should be increased & come from anywhere.

    Something is not quite morally paid for by the user, so something else which is even more unjust in funding should be made even worse?

  19. Andrew says:

    MJ:

    “Not sure what you mean by “subsidized” in this case.”

    If I drive 90% of my vehicle miles on local streets and toll roads (that’s 18,000 mi. and 900 gal./yr. for me), then I am paying roughly $450 per year @ $0.50 tax per gallon to subsidize the freeway users, since all of my gas tax money is being spent on Interstates and Freeways.

    Its very simple. If I am not deriving any direct benefits from most of my gas tax payments, then they are clearly going to benefit some other system user as a subsidy to their actual cost to the system.

    Scott: “Something is not quite morally paid for by the user, so something else which is even more unjust in funding should be made even worse?”

    No, all commuters and drivers who use freeways for a majority of their annual vehicle miles are being heavily subsidized by non/minimal freeway users. Most freeway users are receiving a direct subsidy on the order of 50% or more of their annual actual cost.

    Here’s a simple calculation.

    200,000 vehicle-mi./day on a freeway, and the users average 10 mi. in each direction, so 20 mi./day on the freeway. Cars and light trucks average 20 mpg, so the average user burns 1 gal. of fuel and generates roughly 50 cents/day in revenue. Annualizing revenue @ 300 weekday equivalent days/yr. means our 10 mile freeway generates $30,000,000 in annual revenue.

    Can you build 10 miles of 6 lane freeway including an average of one major structure, 2 major interchanges, and 3-8 minor interchanges for that cost, pay for the necessary resurfacing every 20 years or so, pay for the necessary total reconstruction every 40 years or so, and pay for annual costs for maintenance and police, initial land acquisition, lost property tax revenue on that land, interest and finance costs, and opportunity costs for $30 million in perpetuity?

    I think the answer is clearly no.

    The point is that freeways are subsidized as heavily or even more heavily than mass transit by non-users of the system. If freeways are therefore held to the same standard as mass transit, the anti-planner should be completely against them as a wasteful and non-self-supporting boondogle.

  20. Scott says:

    Stats (plenty of links) show how public transit is much more “subsidized” by non-user related revenue, then Interstates. You are just guessing otherwise.

    I thought gas tax revenue goes to state DOTs for roads, rather than just for Interstates. Also, there are many non-Interstate highways. Regardless, the specificity,, of which roads, the gas tax goes for, is mostly irrelevant.

    Suppose driving habits on Interstates are broken into deciles & that the range is a low of only 15% of VMT on Interstates, up to 85% on Interstates. Well, then you’ll have an opposite mismatch on property taxes to road usage. So what?

    Let’s say the avg driver VMT is 40% on Interstates (not quite sure). So it’s expected for the “other” gas tax to be used for Interstates, if that’s the case. In addition to more VMT, Interstates also cost even more than 40% of the total road budget.

    There is still a point missed. If one is to try to make road-miles paid more directly paid for by the driver, then public transit tickets should more than double.

    There is also an added cost of collecting the VMT usage.

  21. prk166 says:

    @Andrew, revenues from cars go far beyond the gas tax. For example, in Minnesota

    http://www.dot.state.mn.us/information/funding2005/highwayfinances.html

    Motor Fuel Tax
    At current consumption levels, each one-cent increase in the gas tax would yield about $32 million per year to the Highway User Tax Distribution Fund and generate $19 million in revenues to the Trunk Highway Fund. The current tax of 20 cents per gallon yielded $629 million in FY 2006 after refunds, collection costs, and transfers to Department of Natural Resources. The tax was last increased in 1988. In 1994, the Legislature enacted a phase-out of the ethanol tax credit over four years.

    Eighty-two percent of motor fuel tax revenues are generated from gasoline sales. The remainder comes mostly from diesel and special fuel sales.

    State law requires transfers of non-highway use (e.g., boats and snowmobiles) gas tax revenues to accounts managed by the Department of Natural Resources. About 3% of gasoline tax revenues, or approximately $16 million, are termed “unrefunded” and transferred from the Highway User Tax Distribution Fund to the Department of Natural Resources accounts each year. The Governor has recommended increasing the percentage attributable to all terrain vehicles beginning in FY 2008, which would slightly increase the amount transferred annually to the Department of Natural Resources.

    Based on information supplied by the American Petroleum Institute, twenty-three states have gasoline tax rates higher than Minnesota and three states have gas tax rates the same as Minnesota. Some states have local option gas taxes and/or levy a sales tax on gasoline sales. Taking statewide sales taxes into account would raise the number of states with higher gas tax rates than Minnesota to twenty-nine.

    Motor Vehicle Registration Taxes
    In FY 2006, motor vehicle registration taxes, after refunds, collections, and other costs, yielded $484 million. Passenger class and pickup truck vehicles generated approximately 80% of total motor vehicle registration tax revenues.

    Motor Vehicle Sales Tax
    When passenger vehicle registration taxes, e.g., tab fees, were reduced in the 2000 legislative session, the Legislature provided replacement revenue for the Highway User Tax Distribution Fund (HUTDF). This consisted of a General Fund transfer ($162 million) for FY 2001, and specified percentages of revenue from the motor vehicle sales tax (MVST) in subsequent years.

    In FY 2002, the HUTDF received 30.86%, or $189 million of MVST revenues. In FY 2003, the HUTDF received 32%, or approximately $194 million of MVST revenues. The 2003 legislature changed the percentages of revenue from the MVST to the HUTDF to 30% for FYs 2004-07. The HUTDF received $178 million in FY 2004, $166 million in FY 2005, and $161 million in FY 2006 from these transfers. New distributions were provided for the County State Aid Highway (0.65%) and Municipal State Aid Street (0.17%) Funds.

    The 2005 legislature approved a constitutional amendment that would dedicate all MVST revenues to transportation, with a phase-in over 5 years. This amendment was passed by the voters in the November 2006 election. Therefore, the HUTDF will receive up to 38.25% in FY 2008, up to an additional 6% in each of FYs 2009-11, and up to 60% beginning in FY 2012.

    More so, most of this money does not go toward interstates :

    http://www.dot.state.mn.us/information/funding2005/highwayfinances.html

    Highway User Tax Distributions
    The Minnesota Constitution provides that 95% of Highway User Tax Distribution Fund revenues are distributed as follows: Trunk Highways – 62%; County State Aid Highways – 29%; and Municipal State Aid Streets – 9%. The remaining 5%, known as the five percent set-aside, is distributed in accordance with a formula established by the Legislature, but the formula may only be changed once every six years. The 1998 Legislature most recently changed this formula. Since July 1, 1999, all of the five percent set-aside revenues – approximately $65 million per year – have been transferred to the County State Aid Highway Fund, where they have been further allocated to the Township Roads Account (30.5 %), Township Bridges Account (16 %), and Flexible Highway Account (53.5%). The most recent allocation of the set-aside revenues prior to July 1, 1999 distributed them to the Trunk Highway Fund (28%), the County State Aid Highway Fund (64%), and the Municipal State Aid Street Fund (8%). This formula could be changed by the 2007 legislature, as nine years have passed since it was last changed.

  22. jdd says:

    Someone mentioned the Expo line above as some sort of good thing. The Expo line is the perfect example of how stupid some rail projects are. The street it runs along, Rodeo Dr, enables one to get from Culver City or the Marina to USC (where the line ends) in about 20 minutes in the morning. Maybe 30 on a bad day, at rush hour.

    So the City is spending billions to take half of those lanes away to build a train that goes from USC to Culver City. It will take about the same time. But then you’ll be without a car in two places where you need one.

    The hope is that somehow residents of Santa Monica will allow an extension to be build across the westside. So that, in theory, they can commute to downtown, by going 45 degrees out of the way, and the to USC, which is a couple miles south of where anyone might work.

    In other words, billions spent to build a line very few people will ride (it won’t be able to cover its operating costs) that is destroying a very good surface street option (that goes through minority neighborhoods so limo lib-whites won’t drive through it).

    On top of it, the funding for the first phase that has been used is grant money; no money has been appropriated to fund the balance as of yet.

    It is just crazy how far this City will go to make west-side white people feel good. That’s really what this is about. And if a few bureaucrats and union labor gets to cash in on it all the better.

  23. Spokker says:

    I think you’re confusing Rodeo with Exposition Blvd. Either way, the Expo Line is being constructed in an existing right of way. No lanes were taken in the manner you describe. Comparing historical satellite imagery with current maps will confirm this.

  24. the highwayman says:

    JK: No, you paid blogger, he was the chief financial officer at the time the rail was built. He saw first hand how it devastated overall transit service.

    THWM: I’m not paid by any one to comment here, also Rubin was the guy cooking the books.

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