Another Portland Light-Rail Boondoggle

Comments on the draft environmental impact statement for the Milwaukie light-rail line (that’s Milwaukie, Oregon, not Milwaukee, Wisconsin) are due on Monday, June 23. You can email your comments to Metro or send a letter or make a phone call to Metro. If you want to download the DEIS in two documents instead of eleven, the Antiplanner’s loyal ally, Jim Karlock, has posted it on one of his web sites.

Although it is doubtful that Metro cares what the Antiplanner thinks, here is what I will tell them, though possibly in more polite language.

While this may not be the most pathetic light-rail project the Antiplanner has ever seen, it certainly comes close. Planners predict that building light rail will increase transit ridership in the Portland-Milwaukie corridor by a magnificent 3.9 percent (table 4.2-6). That’s the most expensive alternative; most of the others are only 3 percent.

This is predicted to reduce driving by 0.1 percent. Peak-period traffic on the highway paralleling the proposed light-rail line is expected to decline by 400 to 600 cars per hour — about 2.9 percent from the no-build alternative.

This huge decrease in auto driving is expected to reduce energy consumption by, at most, 0.1 percent (table 3.12-2). This doesn’t count the energy cost of building the line, which is equal to about 15 years worth of operational savings (3.12-3). Since rail lines must be substantially rebuilt every 30 years — requiring another large investment in energy — the net savings will be small.

Planners also presumed that automobiles will not get any more energy efficient than they are today (page 3-151 says future fuel consumption will remain proportional to miles of driving). This is flat-out wrong. Under the Energy Independence Act of 2007, auto energy consumption will decrease from about 3,450 BTUs per passenger mile today to 2,500 in 2030. The light-rail line will probably not match this (Portland’s other lines average about 2,500 today, but when the construction cost is added, it is much higher), so the Milwaukie line will be a net energy loser.

Planners also predict that operating the line will reduce CO2 emissions by 0.1 percent. Since most Oregon electricity comes from hydroelectric dams, you would think that CO2 emissions would be reduced by more than the energy savings. But, of course, they are going to keep running a lot of buses that will feed into the light-rail stations — the plan calls for reducing corridor bus service by a whopping 0.2 percent (table 5.1-3). Those buses will generate a lot of CO2, leading to minimal operational savings.

The DEIS fails to estimate the CO2 emissions during construction. I suspect that hydroelectricity is not going to be a big factor in the energy cost of construction. Instead, it will mainly be fossil fuels — the fuels needed to make steel, the fuels needed to transport and install all the materials. Burning fossil fuels generates about 150 to 200 pounds of CO2 per million BTUs of energy. Using the lower number suggests that construction will produce enough CO2 that it will take 19 years of operational savings to make up for it. And this doesn’t even count the huge, non-energy-related CO2 emissions involved in the use of cement and steel.

Need I say again that they didn’t take into account future improvements in auto energy efficiencies, which in turn will reduce future auto CO2 emissions? As with energy, this means this project is a net greenhouse gas producer.

So the light-rail line will increase corridor transit ridership by 3 to 4 percent, leading to imperceptible reductions in congestion and likely increases in energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions. Just what would you pay for something like this?

Portland expects to pay somewhere between $1.0 and $1.4 billion, depending partly on whether you are talking about 2007 dollars or “year of expenditure” dollars (table 5.1-1). The total cost includes $145 million in “finance expenses.” But the biggest cost is going to be a light-rail bridge they want to build across the Willamette River, which will cost several hundred million.

Ironically, this bridge will be just downstream from the Sellwood Bridge, which desperately needs to be replaced at a cost of about $100 million — but strangely, no one seems to be able to find the money for that.

Unfortunately, Portland always seems to be able to find money to build light rail. They tapped the federal government for 74 percent of the cost of the Interstate (yellow) line that they hope to eventually extend into Vancouver, Washington (about which more next week). Another 8 percent of the cost of that line came from tax-increment financing.

For the Milwaukie line, they plan to use $338 million in state lottery money. That money was originally intended to go for schools, but who needs schools when you have light rail? They hope to get the rest from the feds and various local sources. For example, they’ve asked the city of Milwaukie to pony up $5 million.

So there you have it: trivial benefits, huge costs. The fact that the region could improve bus service and get as many benefits for a tiny fraction of the cost is unimportant to Portland decisionmakers, who see light rail as their signature symbol, want to use it to impose higher densities on neighborhoods along the way, and no doubt are aware that light-rail manufacturers, construction companies, and engineering firms are generous with the campaign contributions.