Red Ink Pinellas

The Cato Institute has published a new paper on Greenlight Pinellas, or, as I prefer to call it, Red Ink Pinellas. As previously mentioned in the Antiplanner, this is a plan to spend $1.7 billion building a light-rail line from St. Petersburg to Clearwater, Florida and boost local bus service by 70 percent.

The paper reveals that the Pinellas Suncoast Transit Authority, which is pushing for light rail, has a poor track record of spending. From 1991 to 2005, it increased bus service by 46 percent but saw a 17 percent drop in passenger miles. Then the recession forced it to cut bus service by 5 percent, yet ridership grew by 9 percent. Given this history, boosting bus service is likely to result in a lot of empty buses. Meanwhile, the agency projects that so few people will ride its light rail that it will only need to run one-car trains.

When compared with bus-rapid transit, the cost of getting one person out of their car and onto the proposed light-rail line is projected to be $50. That means getting one person who currently commutes by car to switch to light rail would cost more than buying that person a new 5-series BMW every year, or a new Tesla class S every other year, for the next 30 years.

It is a small blue pill, review generico levitra on line which you should take only when you like to do sex. soft tabs viagra This sorry state is a sign of sickness of behavior. If you want something generic levitra pill you ought to lose something. However, it is this gland that is responsible for blood regulation and ED can be caused many a time due to poor blood flow into the penis. cialis from india tadalafil These calculations don’t even count the cost of interest on debt, inflation, and overruns. The $1.7 billion cost is in 2011 dollars; inflation is expected to bring the actual cost up to around $2.3 billion. Interest on debt is likely to add another $700 million, bring the cost of one lightly used light-rail line up to $3 billion.

The Antiplanner’s analyses of such rail projects rarely mention cost overruns, as the agencies’ own data are incriminating enough. But such overruns seem to be a fact of life for rail transit projects. Pinellas taxpayers should note that the lowest bids for part of Honolulu’s rail line have come in at more than more than $100 million over expectations, which is nearly 75 percent higher than planned.

One curious omission from Pinellas Suncoast’s analyses of the proposed light-rail line was an estimate of its effect on congestion. It seems almost certain that the agency made such an estimate, as the documents project future congestion under the “no-build” alternative. The fact that they didn’t publish the projected congestion under the build alternative suggests that they didn’t like the result and decided to keep quiet about it.

Instead of wasting a lot of money on light rail, the Antiplanner suggests that the transit agency save money by contracting out bus service to private operators. Some of this savings can be used to beef up existing bus service and some can be used to experiment with low-cost rapid buses that use shared lanes. This could increase ridership by more than a single light-rail line without increasing taxes.

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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.

3 Responses to Red Ink Pinellas

  1. metrosucks says:

    If only there was something like a planner’s kryptonite, to keep these scum away from wherever we live.

  2. bennett says:

    “Instead of wasting a lot of money on light rail, the Antiplanner suggests that the transit agency save money by contracting out bus service to private operators.”

    I haven’t read your report yet and don’t fully understand the context in St. Petersburg, but I think this sounds like a reasonable solution. Many public bus services across the country are run by private contractors with great success. If Pinellas Suncoast Transit Authority is truly making a mess of it, hiring a contractor may be the answer.

  3. Fred_Z says:

    Metro: an opportunity for you. Change your handle to krypto, or similar. MetroKrypto? KryptoMetro?

    “the Antiplanner suggests that the transit agency save money by contracting out bus service to private operators”.

    Hmmm, might be able to force them to do that. There’s no money or perqs in it for the transit agency, no promotions to Sooper Dooper Bus Supervisor, no raise, no big new office with a large breasted secretary, no new subordinates to bully, nothing. So the agency will fight it tooth and nail. There is however, plenty of graft in it for politicians – Member of the Board of Supervision of Private Bus Operators, just like a taxi commission, private bus conferences in Tahiti, annual re-certification hearings, meetings at nice hotels and golf courses with the private applicants to discuss something, and maybe even get a little brown paper bagged campaign contribution.

    You Americans may remember that our Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney, got cash in brown paper bags of $1000 bills in three secret meetings in hotels in Montreal and New York City, from one Karlheinz Schreiber totaling either $225,000 (according to Mulroney) or $300,000 (according to Schrieber). Schreiber was working for Airbus, with $20M at his disposal for secret commissions to induce our PM, and others, to influence the newly privatized, but still heavily regulated, Air Canada to buy Airbus planes.

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