The Antiplanner

San Jose’s Continuing Transit Disaster

26th January 2007

San Jose’s Continuing Transit Disaster

posted in Planning Disasters, Transportation |

Consider the following:

  • The Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority (VTA) has lost 35 percent of its transit riders in the past few years (see spreadsheet), mainly because financial problems forced it to severely cut back transit service.

  • The Bay Area Metropolitan Transportation Commission estimates that the cost of getting one person out of their car for one trip on a BART line to San Jose will be $100 (see MTC’s evaluation report of its Transportation Blueprint for the 21st Century, mentioned here but not available on line).
  • San Jose-area voters soundly defeated a tax measure last June that would have provided funding VTA says is needed to build BART to San Jose.

Given these facts that should discourage almost anyone, what is VTA’s attitude about building BART to San Jose? Just do it! Not only that, VTA expects to spend at least $500,000 on just station art and “enhanced architecture.”

VTA wants to $185 million over the next two years on “studies” for the BART project. The whole project is expected to cost $4.7 billion for a sixteen-mile extension, or nearly $300 million per mile. Since the extension is via the current Fremont line, it will not offer direct San Francisco-to-San Jose service. Instead, people going that distance will have to go through the dreaded “Oakland wye,” which add a lot of time to any BART trip passing through Oakland.

Does that sound like a waste of money to you? The San Jose Downtown Association doesn’t agree. They want a “Grand Central Station”-type structure rather than just the “hole in the ground” that typifies most subway stations. “Think big,” says the Association’s director. “Don’t cheap out.”

Of course, it is easy to think big when you are thinking of other people’s money.

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There are currently 11 responses to “San Jose’s Continuing Transit Disaster”

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  1. 1 On January 26th, 2007, Urb. Pl. Overlord said:

    The key question, Mr. Antiplanner, is not how much BART costs to extend to San Jose, but how much it costs for the alternatives. I am going to assume that you agree that there is a need for additional transportatin capacity between San Jose and other portions of the Bay Area. The alternatives to a BART line are 1) a new freeway or freeways, 2) expansion of existing freeways, 3) analternative form of mass transit. Of course you belittle new exclusive busways in another post, so I can assume that you are not in favor of that option. And, of course, if considering expanded roadways you would have to properly price the externalities, such as increased air pollution and destructive impacts on property values for the neighborhoods the new freeways would traverse.

    posted on January 26th, 2007 at 11:31 am

  2. 2 On January 26th, 2007, johngalt said:

    I don’t mind bus rapid transit, it is the “exclusive” part that bothers me. The big problem with the exclusive lanes is that they go unused 90% of the time (between buses). HOT lanes seem like a good solution as well as congestion pricing for the remainder of the freeway. Why not allow cars to use the road between buses (for a fee that varies depending on traffic)?

    Also, the space for new freeway lanes that can carry a lot more people than the rail line ever could can be in the same space as the train so they have the same impact on neighborhoods, right? I am not sure that rail pollutes the air much less than newer cars would either.

    posted on January 26th, 2007 at 1:10 pm

  3. 3 On January 26th, 2007, The Antiplanner said:

    Overlord,

    The Bay Area Metropolitan Transportation Commission’s evaluation report of its Transportation Blueprint for the 21st Century projected the cost and estimated the congestion delay with and without scores of different bus, highway, rail, and other transportation projects. Based on this, we can calculate the dollar cost of each project per hour of reduced congestion delay.

    Highway projects came in anywhere from about $2 to more than $100. Buses were typically about $2 to $10. Ferries were a little more. Rail was typically $20 to $100.

    My advice is that projects be ranked using this criteria and the projects with the lowest cost per hour be funded. Instead, MTC funds projects based on political criteria such as “every county has to get its share of the pork” and “rail is easier to sell to people than highways.”

    My copy of the evaluation report is buried away and I can’t remember what it says about the benefit-cost of expanding freeways parallel to the proposed Fremont-San Jose BART line. However, I suspect they would be much more cost effective than BART.

    posted on January 26th, 2007 at 2:09 pm

  4. 4 On January 26th, 2007, JimKarlock said:

    Urb. Pl. Overlord said: And, of course, if considering expanded roadways you would have to properly price the externalities, such as increased air pollution
    JK: Externalities of toy trains (cost too much, do too little) in California:
    * Uranium air pollution
    * Thorium air pollution
    * Mercury air pollution
    * Steals money from the bus system
    * Reduces bus service for the poor to provide toy trains for yuppies
    * kills more people than cars (per passenger-mile)
    In the meanwhile, total automotive air pollution has been decreasing for years as driving increases.

    Stop cattle car transit and urban concentration!

    Antiplanner: we need the following here in Perfectly Planned Portland:
    List of the previous waves of planning and their blunders.
    Provable cost of subsidies to the automobile
    Same for mass transit.

    Thanks
    JK

    posted on January 26th, 2007 at 2:32 pm

  5. 5 On January 26th, 2007, Dan said:

    Puerile marginalization rhetoric aside, one wonders where JK gets the numbers to make up his wildly inaccurate statements, most glaring being deaths per passenger miles:

    US:
    Source: Injury Facts, National Safety Council, 2005-2006 [found here].

    Rate per 100M passenger miles:

    TYPE OF VEHICLE DEATH RATE

    Auto .77
    Van/SUV/PU .76
    Commuter rail .03
    Transit buses .03

    As these are so easily checked via The Google in 15 seconds, one has to marvel at the utter lack of the grasp of the numbers.

    The fetish is so consuming, it blinds to facts.

    DS

    posted on January 26th, 2007 at 4:55 pm

  6. 6 On January 26th, 2007, The Antiplanner said:

    Overlord:

    Externalities — See Mark DeLucchi’s research (summarized here), which shows that the externalities from autos are far smaller than the subsidies to transit. And he based pollution costs on Los Angeles pollution in 1990. Cars are a lot cleaner today and most places have a lot less pollution (and thus lower externalities because pollution is less toxic in smaller doses) than Los Angeles.

    Dan:

    Fatalities per passenger mile: You did not look deep enough into the data. Auto falalities are less in urban areas than in rural areas and less on freeways than on local streets (and the competitor to a rail line is a freeway, not a neighborhood street). Meanwhile, light rail fatalities are greater than commuter rail.

    From Highway Statistics, we can see that fatalities on urban interstates are less than 4 per billion passenger miles (see tables FI20, which shows 2,658 fatalities in 2005 and VM20, which shows 469 billion vehicle miles or 750 billion passenger miles, for an average of 3.5 fatalities per billion passenger miles).

    Meanwhile, from table 2-32 of National Transportation Statistics, along with the APTA factbook (which gives passenger miles by year), we can calculate that in 2003 (the last year for which data are available) light rail caused 8.8 fatalities per billion passenger miles. The average for light rail over the past fourteen years was more than 10.

    I will leave calculation of fatalities for other rail modes to the readers.

    posted on January 26th, 2007 at 5:17 pm

  7. 7 On January 28th, 2007, David Dennis said:

    Why is the desire of the public considered so irrelevent in these discussions?

    Surely the fact that the public wants to drive instead of ride public transport should be the deciding factor.

    If for the same cost as a rail line, you can build highways that would serve 10x more passengers, isn’t that always the proper thing to do?

    I would think that lower congestion in highways would result in less pollution and lower drive times.

    I know some theorists say that any highway would magically fill with cars and increase congestion, but the fact that those additional cars are moving is a good thing, right?

    Why do we build railways that attract hardly any passengers for ghastly amounts of money? I think we should encourage the mode of transport people want to use, and satisfy our citizens and commuters.

    If we could take the kind of money sent into the pit of subways and use it for alternative fuel research and ways to make cars pollute less, I think we’d wind up with a far better situation overall than creating trains nobody wants.

    D

    posted on January 28th, 2007 at 4:19 pm

  8. 8 On January 29th, 2007, JimKarlock said:

    David Dennis said: Why do we build railways that attract hardly any passengers for ghastly amounts of money?
    JK: Simple:
    If you want to see who really wants light rail look at the spending:
    In 1996, the voters rejected the building of a north-south light rail system.

    Here is a list of big contributors ($5000 and over) who were in favor of building light rail. Their contributions totaled $980,000 . All pro-rail contributions totaled over $1,156,340.

    The light rail opponents spent about $110,000 and won.

    NAME OF CONTRIBUTOR AMOUNT
    ——————————————————————————————————-
    Portland General Electric $52,500
    Pacific Power $52,500
    International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers $50,640
    Fred Meyer $50.000
    International Union of Operating Engineers $44,710
    U.S. Bancorp $35,000
    First Interstate Bank $30,000
    Siemens Duewag Corporation $30,000
    Oregon Public Employees Union $27,400
    Legacy Health $25,000
    Portland Trail Blazers $22,750
    Local Union Legal Foundation $20,000
    Parsons, Brinckerhoff, Quade & Douglas $20,000
    Bridge Structural, & Ornamental Iron Workers $17,400
    Sheet Metal Workers $16,350
    Bank of America $15,000
    Intel Corporation $15,000
    Bricklayers & Allied Craftsmen $14,000
    LTK Engineering Services $13,400
    BRW Inc. $12,500
    Middleton & Compauy $12,000
    Greenbriar Company $10,000
    Tom Walsh $10,000
    Zummer Grinnel Frasca Partnership $10,000
    Goldman Sachs & G.) $10,000
    Nike, Inc $10,000
    Kiewit Pacific $10,000
    Morse Brothers $10,000
    Union Pacific Railroad $10,000
    Hanley Industrial properties $10,000
    Bombardiere Corporation $10,000
    City Center Parking $10,000
    Obie Outdoor Advertising $10,000
    OTAK Architects $10,000
    Standard Insurance $10,000
    U.S. West Communications $10,000
    United Infrastructure $10,000
    Amalgamated Tran it Union $8,100
    Cement Masons $7,650
    Hoffman Corporation $7,500
    CH2M Hill $6,000
    O’Brien Kreizberg $5,600
    James Furman & Co- $5,000
    Dames & Moore $5,000
    Providence Health Systems $5,000
    Slayden Construction $5,000
    Kaiser Permanente $5,000
    David Evans & Associates $5,000
    Class PAC $5,000
    CFI Pro Services $5,000
    Davis, Wright, Tremaine $5,000
    NW Natural Gas Co- $5,000
    Zidell, Inc- $5,000
    Stoel, Rives, Boley, Jones, & Gray $5,000
    Yeon Properties $5,000
    Pacific Gas Transmission $5,000
    AT & T Wireless $5,000
    Block 216 Partners $5,000
    Keylorp Management $5,000
    ———————————————————————————————————-
    TOTAL, CONTRIBUTIONS OVER $5,000 $884,800
    PERCENTAGE OF ALL CONTRIBUTIONS 76.5%

    TOTAL, CONTRIBUTIONS OVER $1,000 $980,640
    PERCENTAGE OF ALL CONTRIBUTIONS 84.8%

    TOTAL, ALL CONTRIBUTIONS $1,156,340

    Source: Records for Oregonians for Roads and Rails and for Oregonians for Local Control at Secretary of State’s Office, Elections Division, Salem, Oregon.

    posted on January 29th, 2007 at 1:26 pm

  9. 9 On January 29th, 2007, Dan said:

    Yes, the development community wants light rail.

    Must mean they can make money.

    They must think the market’s there if they want to invest.

    DS

    posted on January 29th, 2007 at 5:09 pm

  10. 10 On January 30th, 2007, The Antiplanner said:

    DS,

    Yes, the development community wants light rail. They know it will be followed by subsidies, expedited permitting, and other incentives for them to build. After facing years of delays and disincentives to build, they welcome the change. That doesn’t mean it is good for the community.

    posted on January 30th, 2007 at 2:32 pm

  11. 11 On January 30th, 2007, Dan said:

    Randal,

    They won’t get a loan nor will they carry the paper if they can’t get occupancy and cash flow. If there’s no demand, they won’t get a loan nor will they take the risk.

    And it’s interesting that you decry gummint regalayshun and talk about PPPs, incentives, and such, yet here in this issue incentivizing and expedited permitting is suddenly bad.

    DS

    posted on January 30th, 2007 at 5:02 pm

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