Another Inane Low-Capacity Rail Plan

Some people in Durham, NC, want to build a $1.4-billion, 17-mile light-rail line, and the region has been spending millions of dollars planning it. A quick review of the project’s alternatives analysis reveals that planners and consultants have done everything they can to bias the analysis towards rail.

A Durham transit bus in front of Durham’s $10 million downtown transit station.

The most important thing to note is that planners projected that either of two bus-rapid transit alternatives would attract more transit riders than light rail (p. 5-78) at little more than half the cost (p. 5-105). But the analysis nevertheless recommended in favor of light rail, partly because “public and agency support” supposedly favored rail over bus and partly because of rail’s “demonstrated” ability to promote compact development.

Regarding the higher rail capital cost, the analysis said, “While LRT presents substantially higher costs than BRT, the cost of the LRT Alternative is still within the range of affordability” (pp. ES-7 to ES-8). This sounds like a car salesman talking someone into buying the most expensive car they can afford rather than the car they actually need.

Bus-rapid transit was also projected to cost less to operate than rail (p. 5-106). But the analysis again twisted this to rail’s advantage because, supposedly, the increased operating cost of an increase in the system’s capacity is less for rail than for bus–even though the operating cost for bus is lower than rail at both the lower and higher capacities (p. 5-107).

Both the lower and higher capacities considered in the analysis were ridiculously low: 800 passengers per hour vs. 1,500 passengers per hour. As Antiplanner readers know, light rail has a capacity of about 9,000 people per hour, while buses have a much higher capacity.

If Durham planners think they only need a capacity of 1,500 passengers per hour, they should plan an ordinary bus system, not some fancy system that requires huge capital spending and annual maintenance costs. Of course, the Antiplanner doesn’t think that spending $900 million building exclusive bus lanes makes much more sense than spending $1.4 billion on light rail.

Instead, it requires an overall modification cheap no prescription viagra look at here now in lifestyle. It will make your partner feel online cialis empty, helpless and alone. When we trust others we make ourselves vulnerable again.Some of the factors which affect our ability to have successful relationships and being heritageihc.com cialis prescription a chooser. These tablets are levitra brand online easy to get and affordable. The Antiplanner’s recent analysis of rapid buses concluded that cities with fewer than 40,000 downtown jobs have no need for any kind of rapid bus or rail systems. Downtown Durham has just 16,000 jobs out of 170,000 in the urban area. In a place like this, jobs are spread too thinly to require even a moderate-capacity transit system.

Of course, the goal of promoting compact development is to create a region that can support a moderate-capacity transit system. But this is circular reasoning: Why do we need a moderate-capacity transit system? To promote compact development. Why do we need compact development? To support a moderate-capacity transit system.

Of course, the claim that light rail has a demonstrated ability to attract compact development is highly questionable. If planners use prescriptive zoning to mandate such development and support it with tax-increment financing, of course developers will respond. But they are responding to the zoning and subsidies, not the light rail.

Compared with no build, the transportation system management (TSM) alternative is expected to have annualized (at 2.0 percent) capital and operating costs of about $12 million more a year and carry about 2.5 million more riders, meaning each new transit trip costs about $5.00. Compared with TSM, the proposed light-rail line will cost $35 for each new riders, while bus-rapid transit costs only about $20 per new rider. When compared with bus-rapid transit, light rail’s cost per new rider is infinite since BRT is projected to attract more riders than light rail (calculations based on data on pages 5-78, 5-105, and 5-106). It is ridiculous to spend $35 to get one new rider when many more could be gained at $5 a ride by implementing TSM in several corridors.

Although the analysis spends several pages on existing and projected levels of congestion (pp. 2-40 to 2-45), it casually dismisses the fact that both the bus and rail alternatives are projected to increase congestion (pp. 5-78 to 5-72). Buried in the analysis is the admission that light rail will create “minor increases in delay” (p. 5-78). For most people who don’t plan to ride the light rail, which means most people, the whole point is to reduce congestion, so if it is going to increase it, they have little reason to support it.

The analysis claimed that light rail is better than buses because it emits less air pollution. But North Carolina gets nearly half its electrical energy by burning coal, and more than two-thirds of electrical power by burning one fossil fuel or another. So all light rail does is move the impact of pollution from one place to another.

The alternatives analysis concluded by dismissing the bus-rapid transit alternatives that carry more people at a lower cost and recommends going forward with only the light rail alternative and the TSM alternative that was required by FTA rules at the time the analysis was written. However, the current rules require that a full range of alternatives be included in the project’s environmental impact statement. We’ll see if the FTA enforces those rules.

Like so many other moderately sized urban areas, transit is practically irrelevant in Durham, carrying less than 1 percent of passenger travel. The 2012 American Community Survey indicates Durham urban area has about 170,000 workers, of whom only about 10,600 (6.6 percent) take transit to work. While 8,400 workers live in households with no vehicles, nearly half them nevertheless get work by car while less than a third take transit to work.

Durham has already spent $10 million on a needlessly expensive downtown transit station. Spending $1.4 billion–which, with inflation, cost-overruns, and interest will quickly become more than $3 billion–on a light-rail line will not provide good transportation; it will merely spend money for the sake of spending money.