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The Raleigh Transit Miracle

By | | Transportation
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While transit ridership declined in April 2018 vs. 2017 in the vast majority of urban areas, it grew in Raleigh. Not only did it grow there, it grew by a miraculous 20 percent, more than any other of the nation’s fifty largest urban areas. The first four months of 2018 saw a more modest but still trend-bucking 9 percent growth over the same months in 2017.

What is responsible for this rapid growth? According to the TransitCenter, it resulted from a boost to transit service that came after voters approved a half-cent sales tax for transit in November, 2016. This was a sales tax increase that opponents called a “transit plan to nowhere.”

FTA data show that GoRaleigh, Raleigh’s main transit agency, offered 10.0 percent more bus service in April 2018 than 2017, and carried 26.5 percent more riders. Bus service for the first four months of 2018 was 6.8 percent greater, and riders 11.7 percent more numerous, than in 2017. So it seems plausible that service increases are responsible for the growth in ridership. Continue reading →

Charlotte Opens Light-Rail Extension

By | | Transportation
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Last week, the Charlotte Area Transit System (CATS) opened a 9.3-mile extension to its light-rail system. The extension cost $1.1 billion, or about twice as much as the city’s first light-rail line, which was about the same length.

Back in 2002, CATS did a major investment study that estimated the light-rail line would cost about $370 million (about $485 million in today’s dollars). The study found that rail would cost 80 percent more to build and slightly more to operate than bus rapid transit, yet buses would attract about 60 percent more riders than rail.

So naturally, they chose to build rail. As near as I can tell, bus rapid transit was not given any further consideration despite its clear advantages. Continue reading →

Megaprojects Invite Corruption

By | | News commentary, Transportation
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FBI agents posed as transit-oriented developers willing to bribe the mayor of Charlotte to get his support for a streetcar line, light rail, and related projects. The now-ex-mayor Patrick Cannon gladly accepted bribes in exchange for lying to investors and pushing city planning agencies to fast track the developments. When on the city council, Cannon had opposed construction of a streetcar line, but mysteriously changed his vote when he became mayor.


Who did developers bribe to get this project completed?

The Antiplanner isn’t enthusiastic about police entrapments, but this case brings to light one of the seamier sides of rail transit. These projects cost so much that they make some sort of corruption, if only in the form of campaign contributions, mandatory. The FBI sting has to raise questions about other rail projects and developments, especially considering the current U.S. Secretary of Transportation was the mayor of Charlotte just prior to the one who was stung.

Continue reading →

The Seductive Appeal of Value-Capture Finance

By | | Regional planning, Transportation, Urban areas
23 Comments

Today, the Antiplanner is in North Carolina, where transit agencies seem to be competing to plan the wackiest, most-expensive rail transit lines that few people will ever use. Right now, the leading contender must be Raleigh, which (according to a paper by UNC-Charlotte transport professor David Hartgen and transit accountant Tom Rubin) is planning a light-rail line that will cost $33 per trip and a commuter-rail line that will cost $92 per trip.

The Antiplanner, however, is in Charlotte looking at a proposed commuter-rail line that is expected to cost more than $450 million to start up and is projected to carry only about 5,600 trips (meaning 2,800 round trips) a day in 2025. The Antiplanner calculates that, for about the same price as the rail line, taxpayers could give every one of the 2,800 riders a brand-new Toyota Prius every other year for the life of the rail project.

This rail line is such a dog that not even the Federal Transit Administration will help pay for it. So the Charlotte Area Transit System (CATS) is proposing that local cities and counties cover half the costs, while the other half would be shared by CATS and the state of North Carolina. Under a proposed financial plan, five cities and two counties are to use “value capture” to raise their half of the money.

Continue reading →

Charlotte Light Rail a Big Flop

By | | Transportation, Urban areas
28 Comments

Let’s see: 100 percent cost overrun? Check.

Anemic ridership? Check.

Requires tax breaks, tax-increment financing, and other “public investments” to stimulate transit-oriented development? Check.

Declared a great success by the transit agency desperate for tax increases to fund further rail projects? Check.

Must be light rail.

As Wikipedia points out, when planned in 2000, Charlotte’s light-rail line was supposed to cost $225 million. The final cost turned out to be $467 million. Even after adjusting for inflation, that’s close to a 100 percent cost overrun. (Actually, considering inflation from 2000 to 2007, that’s about a 75 percent cost overrun.)

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