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Greasing the Gears of Deficit Spending

By | | Transportation
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Washington Metro says it will have to end weekend train service, close 19 rail stations, and reduce bus service by 45 percent if Congress doesn’t give the transit industry $32 billion (on top of normal federal funding of $13 billion) in 2021. In order to keep from making similar cuts, San Jose’s Valley Transportation Authority (VTA) says it will spend money that voters had approved for roads on transit instead. All over the country, transit agencies are preparing for doomsday, when they run out of the $25 billion that Congress gave them (in addition to the normal $13 billion) in 2020.

The New York Times editorial board thinks it has found the solution to problems like these: pork barrel. “Nothing greases the gears of government quite like pork,” it says. Specifically, the Times calls for a return to earmarks, which were banned in 2011 when a Tea Party-dominated Congress rebelled against wasteful spending.

During most of the twentieth century, Congress appropriated transportation dollars in general categories, such as airports, highways, and railroads, and gave them to state agencies to decide how best to spend them within broad guidelines. This was based on a philosophy of government that the local people understand their problems better than people sitting in offices in Washington DC. Continue reading →

Let the Banks Pay for the Subway

By | | Transportation
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Everyone knows that New York City is the heart of the United States, Manhattan is the heart of New York City, and the subways are the arteries that keep that heart pumping. Thus, when the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) warns that it will have to make “doomsday cuts” if Congress doesn’t give it another $12 billion, and that such cuts would “devastate the city for years to come,” people listen.

At the same time, New York officials say that subway riders should not have to suffer any fare increases to keep the system running. After all, the whole country benefits, so why should the lowly subway riders have to pay the full cost of their rides?

But who really benefits from the New York City subway? The extensive subway network has allowed Manhattan to grow to and maintain population and job densities found nowhere else in the country. So Manhattan property owners benefit, but how does that benefit the rest of the country? Six years ago, the land alone in Manhattan was estimated to be worth more than $1.7 trillion, which is more than $120 million an acre, and a considerable portion of this value is due to the subway system. Continue reading →

Amtrak Continues to Lie

By | | Transportation
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Amtrak is maintaining the twin fictions that subsidies from state taxpayers are “passenger revenues” and that depreciation isn’t a real cost even though its accountants list it as an operating cost on its consolidated financial statements. Based on these fictions, Amtrak claimed that it was “on track to break even financially for the first time in its history” in 2020.

The pandemic derailed that fantasy, so now Amtrak claims that it lost $801 million in fiscal year 2020 (which for Amtrak ended on September 30). Yet a close look at its unaudited end-of-year report reveals that the actual operating losses were well over $2 billion.

The end-of-year report says that Amtrak received $342 million in state operating subsidies, up $110 million from 2019. It counts these as passenger revenues even though most of the passengers on state-supported trains would never have ridden those trains if they were asked to pay the full fares. Continue reading →

Will Transit Get Back Its Riders?

By | | Transportation
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Steve Polzin, a researcher with the Department of Transportation, estimates that transit will recover 90 percent of its prepandemic riders by 2023, but will never get much more than that. I think 90 percent is far too high, but he has access to more data than I have.

This chart is based on numbers on page 9 of Polzin’s presentation.

Polzin, who has been mentioned here many times before, made his projection in a presentation last week to the Transportation Research Forum. The presentation covered far more than just transit, and made good points about air travel, freight, and other modes as well. Continue reading →

More Reasons Not to Ride Transit

By | | Transportation
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Ridership on New York City subways may be down by 66 percent, but two things that haven’t declined on the subways are violent crime and vandalism. Homocides, rapes, and burglaries have all increased since the pandemic began, reports the New York Times.

Just last week alone, a woman was shoved onto the tracks in front of an on-coming subway trains; a man was also pushed onto the tracks; a Broadway actor was beaten severely enough to require surgery; and two men beat a woman for telling them to wear masks. And those were only the most horrific attacks of the week. Continue reading →

New Jet Service a High-Speed Rail Killer

By | | Transportation
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JSX, formerly known as JetSuiteX, is a new airline with a new operating model that will kill any idea that high-speed trains could compete with air travel in short-haul markets. The airline flies many routes that have been planned for high-speed trains, including Oakland-Los Angeles, Los Angeles-Phoenix, and — starting last week — Dallas-Houston.

JSX uses small jet planes with seats for only 30 passengers, allowing it to by-pass TSA requirements as it conducts its own airport screening. Technically, passengers don’t fly JSX, they make reservations and JSX charters a plane that happens to be owned by a JSX subsidiary, which is another way that it by-passes TSA rules. The result is that people can arrive at the terminal just 20 minutes ahead of their flight’s departure. Continue reading →

Don’t Blame Congress for Transit Cuts

By | | Transportation
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“D.C. Metro faces service cuts due to Congress,” says a recent headline. The Metro board decided yesterday to cut both bus and rail service, but said it wouldn’t have needed to make those cuts if Congress had passed another bailout bill.

But don’t blame Congress for not spending money the federal government doesn’t have to rescue transit agencies that have already had a $25 billion bailout and more than six months to adjust to the new reality of much lower ridership. Instead, blame the fact that most DC transit riders are able to work at home, with the result that ridership is down 81 percent as of September. Blame the fact that, instead of cutting service in parallel with the drop of ridership and revenues, Metro cut service by only 42 percent as of September.

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Watching the Sausage Get Made

By | | Transportation
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Amtrak ridership is down by 87 percent, so Amtrak needs a $2.9 billion rescue from Congress, the company’s executive vice president, Stephen Gardner, told a congressional subcommittee yesterday. Transit ridership is down 70 to 90 percent, added American Public Transportation Association president Paul Skoutelas, so the transit industry wants a $32 billion bailout from Congress.

Those are just their short-term demands, as was made clear in the hearing held by the House Subcommittee on Railroads, Pipelines, and Hazardous Materials. Both Amtrak and New York commuter railroads want $20 billion for the Gateway Project, which would replace bridges and tunnels between Newark and New York City. Transit agencies want $106 billion to restore their backlog of poorly maintained rail systems. And even that is only the beginning. Continue reading →

Vote No, They’ll Build It Anyway

By | | Transportation
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In 1998, Portland-area voters rejected plans to build a new light-rail line. So TriMet, the region’s transit agency, built it anyway.

In the recent election, Portland-area voters rejected plans to build a new light-rail line. Now TriMet is salivating at the possibility that the next Congress will pass an economic stimulus bill that will allow it to build it anyway, perhaps by requiring only 20 percent local matching funds instead of the current 50 percent.

Portland’s first light-rail line, which opened in 1986, cost about $30 million a mile in today’s dollars to go east from downtown Portland to Gresham, Portland’s largest suburb. The second line, which opened in 1997, cost about $75 million a mile in today’s dollars to go west from downtown Portland to Beaverton and Hillsboro. Continue reading →

September Driving Exceeds 90% of 2019

By | | Transportation, Useful Data
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The number of miles Americans drove in September was just 8.6 percent less than in September, 2019, according to data released last Friday by the Federal Highway Administration. This is the first month since February of this year that driving rose above 90 percent of last year’s levels. This contrasts to transit ridership, which, as noted here last week, remains 62 percent below 2019 levels.

Driving remains lowest, relative to 2019, in Hawaii, which is still down 31.5 percent due to less tourism. The other states with double-digit drops are Illinois, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, O Rhode Island, Vermont, and Virginia, all of which are between 10 and 15 percent down. Driving in Montana is actually 2 percent greater than it was in 2019, and driving in Idaho and South Dakota are within 1 percent of 2019 levels.
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Urban driving is down by a little more than 10 percent while rural driving is down by only 5 percent. Rural driving is greater than in 2019 in Arizona, Idaho, Montana, and South Dakota and within 1 percent of 2019 in Arkansas, Florida, Michigan, Nevada, and Utah.