Streetcar Skeptics

The Antiplanner and Matt Yglesias don’t agree on a lot, but we agree that streetcars are a stupid idea. He points out that the Washington DC streetcar now under construction “will make mass transit slower and less convenient” and that it is not only slow, but it “slows the buses down.”

Similarly, Seattle transit advocate Bruce Nourish calls streetcars “a momentary lapse of reason.” Both Yglesias and Nourish dislike streetcars partly because they fear they divert resources from their goal of building rail transit lines that have exclusive rights of way, like Seattle’s $626 million per mile University Link light-rail line or Northern Virginia’s $3,900 per inch Silver Line.

On the other hand, Robert Steuteville, who believes in “better cities and towns” (meaning, presumably, ones with fewer automobiles) argues that streetcars are good even though they are slow and expensive. Why? Because they “can result in billions of dollars in economic development.” His evidence for this is, of course, Portland, which (he fails to mention) spent nearly a billion dollars subsidizing the development along most of its streetcar line–and got virtually no economic development on the part of the line where it didn’t offer developers any subsidies.

Streetcars are a lapse of reason, but so are new light-rail, commuter-rail, and heavy-rail projects. None of them make sense, not even in Manhattan, where they cost more than $2 billion a mile.

Their high cost just cannot be justified by the meager returns. Is it really worth spending $50 a trip or more to attract someone out of their car? That’s a typical cost for many of these projects. Some are less expensive, but none cost less per rider than bus improvements would have cost. Fortunately for the rail industry, the FTA under the Obama administration no longer requires transit agencies to compare rail with buses.

The capital cost of rail transit alone should make rail construction a non-starter. But, as I suggested in comments on Tuesday, that’s only the beginning of the costs. Other costs that rail proponents never count include:

  • The feeder buses needed to bring riders to the trains;
  • The interest on the debt that rail transit agencies take on but bus agencies rarely have to;
  • The maintenance costs that mount up after about 30 years;
  • The subsidies to the development they all promise will happen after the rail line is built; and
  • The hardships caused by the slow growth that results when businesses are discouraged by the high tax rates required to support the rail lines and transit-oriented developments.

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What’s going to happen 30 years from now when rail lines that opened in the last few years are deteriorating, while most of their intended riders are car sharing with self-driving cars? No doubt the rail industry will spread enough money to keep the propaganda flowing, no matter how badly the rail lines actually performed.

In other news, the Senate passed a bill to rescue the Highway Trust Fund until December, 2014. The House already passed a bill to rescue it until May, 2015. Why does the Senate only want to go as far as December? The only answer I can think of is that the Democrats want to create a new crisis during the lame duck session so if the Republicans take the Senate they will be able to win a few concessions before the 2015 Congressional session begins.

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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.

15 Responses to Streetcar Skeptics

  1. Builder says:

    I’ve often thought that many transit advocates have real life and amusements parks confused. Is the monorail the most efficient way to move people around Disneyland? Of course not, but it doesn’t really matter. Disneyland is an amusement park and the monorail is amusing. Real life is different. Costs and the ability to get things done are crucial. Pretending that this isn’t so doesn’t change anything.

  2. English Major says:

    Builder- great comment!

    As a resident of Portland, I have to point out the subsidies given to developers along the street car
    have diverted money from our schools and contributed to a truly dire situation for our streets.

    It is true that there were condos built along those lines. Many of the condo are mired in construction defect litigation and the owners have been trapped for years.

    But when you are stuck in a condo you cannot sell, you can at least amuse yourself by seeing how fast you are on foot compare to crawling on the street car For those of us outside of downtown who paid for the streetcar- not so much fun..

  3. Frank says:

    “subsidies given to developers along the street car have diverted money from our schools”

    Do you have any evidence of the diversion from schools or how much total (or per student) was diverted? Not doubting you. Just curious. My guess is that per pupil, it wasn’t much.

    As for diverting money from schools, Portland area schools would just have fewer tax dollars to waste by any possible diversion of funds. My first teaching job in the Portland area required me to travel to other teachers’ rooms; my only space was a shared desk in a supply closet, a closet filled with government waste. Entire sets of VHS tapes—that probably cost $500 to $1000 new—still in shrink wrap. Stacks of textbooks for curriculum abandoned after only a few years. I could go on.

    There are enough reasons to oppose streetcars; their possible siphoning of funds from wasteful government schools is not the strongest reason.

  4. metrosucks says:

    That’s true Frank. But the money is also diverted, of course, from fire & police, and what is clear now is even from the most basic services like water & street maintenance.

    Portlandfacts.com is a good place to start. They have examples of the most egregious property tax waivers.

  5. gilfoil says:

    From Matt Yglesias’ article:

    The only way to make a new surface rail project work is for it to have its own dedicated lane over significant portions of its route. To achieve that requires seizing road space from drivers and allocating it to transit instead.

    Very true. With the Antiplanner on board with this idea as well (see his PDF about Bus Rapid Transit), it’s an idea whose time has come. And indeed, the idea that cars should reign supreme in dense, urban areas itself a transitory, obsolete idea that will gradually be phased out.

  6. metrosucks says:

    Gilfoil, have you sucked that horse penis yet?

  7. gilfoil says:

    metrosucks, thank you for your on-topic comment!

  8. msetty says:

    Metrosucks, now we know what you obsess on, and what your handle really means.

    A guy using the handle “Metrosucks” really needs to to control the short-arm references, whatever species. Thanks for the cheap entertainment.

  9. metrosucks says:

    msetty,

    is it true, as I’ve heard, that you were known as Lord Hoover in Chico at the glory holes?

    And if we extend your logic to its extreme, I suppose you want to blow the Koch Brothers, all Big Oil Execs, Dick Cheney, and Bush, since you obsess about them so much. See how that works Mikey?

  10. MJ says:

    The only way to make a new surface rail project work is for it to have its own dedicated lane over significant portions of its route.

    Okay, I’ll bite. What is your (or Yglesias’) definition of ‘work’ in relation to these projects?

  11. gilfoil says:

    What is your (or Yglesias’) definition of ‘work’ in relation to these projects?

    I’d say for a project to “work” simply means that transit is faster and more convenient for transit riders than it was without the project. For example, bus riders in a BRT with dedicated bus lanes experience faster and more convenient trips than than they would otherwise.

  12. Frank says:

    Yes, let’s focus billions on something that is faster and more convenient for the 2% rather than focusing on the rest. Makes lots of sense… l0l

  13. transitboy says:

    One wonders if streetcars are so good for development then why don’t developers pay for them? In a refreshing twist property owners are paying for part of the capital cost of the proposed downtown Los Angeles streetcar, but not the operating costs. In Detroit, despite the fact that property owners pledge to pay 80% of the operating costs of the M-1 rail line, it is beyond absurd to build a rail line past vacant lots when the local bus systems are the worst of any major city in the United States, as this article demonstrates .

  14. MJ says:

    I’d say for a project to “work” simply means that transit is faster and more convenient for transit riders than it was without the project.

    So it doesn’t matter how many resources are expended in the process? By that standard, virtually every project that has ever been funded has ‘worked’.

  15. Tombdragon says:

    transitboy – Developers used to build streetcars to ferry potential customers out to the “suburbs” to see their new “electrified” homes. Unfortunately once the homes in the development were sold, the streetcars were no longer economically viable, the streetcar lines were sold or transferred to the municipalities where they were built. In Portland, they were consolidated forming the municipal power company, then spun off and given to the City. The new streetcar built by the City of Portland was used as a vehicle to entice developers to build the Pearl District, then extended to the east side of the river to attract development, but business has left because the streetcar is slow and drives business away.

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