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Capital Metro to Try, Try Again

By | | Transportation
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Having lost two light-rail ballot measures at the polls, and having built a semi-commuter-rail line that flopped, you’d think Austin’s Capital Metro would have learned its lesson. But no, twice as much to start, as originally projected, now costs nearly ten times as much per vehicle mile as Austin commuter buses, yet still only carries around 1,400 round trips a day. As the Antiplanner never tires of saying, it would have cost less to give every daily round-trip rider a new Toyota Prius every year than to run this.

On top of this, Capital Metro has lost 19 percent of its transit riders since 2012. Capital Metro hasn’t significantly cut either bus or rail service, so most of the lost riders were probably taken by ride sharing. Continue reading →

Getting It Right

By | | Transportation, Urban areas
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The modern escalator was perfected 96 years ago, so when someone is spending $625 million a mile on light rail (which technology is only 80 years old), you’d think they’d at least get the escalators right. Instead, “escalator failures have become a part of the daily routine” at Seattle’s University light-rail station.

If the system were brand new, you might say they were getting the bugs out. If it were old, you might say it was wearing out. Instead, it is not quite a year old, having opened on March 19, 2016. Despite that, they don’t work. To make matters worse, they came with a one-year warranty, which has expired because installation was completed before the station opened for business.
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Seattle recently voted to have some of the highest taxes in the nation going for transit. If they aren’t spending an appropriate share of this money on functioning escalators, it makes you wonder where it is going instead.

Light Rail Reduces Property Values

By | | Transportation
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Rail advocates love to claim that light rail and streetcars increase nearby property values even if hardly anyone rides them. According to their theory, the permanence of the rail line gives developers and potential buyers or tenants a sense of security that transit will be there when they need it.

This isn’t true in the case of the Norfolk light rail, a.k.a., the Tide. According to a study by economists at the Cleveland Federal Reserve Bank, Norfolk’s light rail actually reduced property values.

Rail transit, notes the study, could increase values because “homeowners could benefit from increased accessibility and transit related economic development.” On the other hand, “homes in a close proximity to rail transit could experience disamenity effects from crime, noise and parking issues.” Whatever the cause, the study found that “properties within 1,500 meters experienced a decline in sales price of nearly 8 percent.” At least in this case, the study concluded, “accessibility benefits do not outweigh apparent local costs.”

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