Tag Archives: heavy-rail transit

Before the pandemic, the San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit District (BART) earned more than 70 percent of its operating costs out of fare revenues, more than any transit agency in the nation other than CalTrain. Ironically, this also made it most vulnerable to a ridership downturn, while agencies like San Jose’s Valley Transportation Authority, which covered only 9 percent of its operating costs out of fares (the fourth worst among the nation’s transit agencies), were relatively immune. Now BART is pleading for more money so it won’t have to dramatically reduce service as it exhausts federal COVID relief funds.

Click image to download a 12.6-MB PDF of this report.

As part of that plea, BART published a report on its role in the Bay Area earlier this week. The report admits that BART’s ridership has dropped — as of May, it carried less than 45 percent as many riders as before the pandemic — due to increases in remote work. “BART ridership is closely linked to office occupancy rates,” says the report, with an accompanying graphic showing that ridership has moved in almost exact parallel to San Francisco-Berkeley-Oakland office occupancies. Continue reading →

Someone recently asked me what I thought were the nation’s worst-managed transit projects. I suggested the Honolulu rail was number 1, the Maryland Purple Line was number 2, and BART to San Jose was number 3. But maybe I underestimated the insanity of the BART-to-San Jose line.

Estimates for cost and completion date of the BART rail extension into downtown San Jose:
2014: $4.4 bln, 2026
2020: $6.9 bln, 2030
2022: $9.3 bln, 2033
2023: $12.2 bln, 2036
2024: $12.8 bln, 2037
?The project has yet to break ground.

— John Arnold (@JohnArnoldFndtn) March 12, 2024

It’s even worse than Mr. Arnold suggests. In 2001, the Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority (VTA) did its initial alternatives analysis comparing BART with a wide range of alternatives including buses, bus rapid transit, commuter rail, light rail, and “Diesel light rail,” which is what the FTA now calls “hybrid rail.” BART was picked because they thought it would get the most riders even though it was also by far the most expensive. Continue reading →

Like San Francisco BART, the DC Metro rail system is facing a fiscal cliff, with a $750 million projected shortfall in operating funds in 2025. So why is the agency considering spending tens of billions of dollars on a new rail extension that will increase annual operating costs by $200 million?

For a mere $40 billion or so, DC Metro Rail can go from this. . .

Like BART, DC’s rail system historically has covered a high percentage of its operating costs with fares. Though that has declined from 68 percent in 2011 to 48 percent in 2019, the agency was still more vulnerable to ridership declines than agencies such as San Jose’s VTA, which before the pandemic covered less than 10 percent of its operating costs out of fares. Continue reading →

The first phase of the Honolulu rail transit system is supposed to open at the end of this year, with trains serving nine of the planned 21 stations. But those plans may be put on hold because contractors have discovered cracks in the concrete pillars holding up the elevated stations. Due to these cracks, the consultants have “advised that passengers not be allowed into the seven affected stations until further inspections are done.”

The Honolulu rail project was idiotically designed to be entirely elevated, creating problems both with scenic views and differential settling in swampy land.

That leaves just two stations that might open later this year. Most likely, none will open at all. What is known for sure is that the cracks are growing. Continue reading →

The Honolulu Authority for Rapid Transportation (HART) now says it will cost $9.9 billion to not finish its rail project by 2031. As recently as a year ago, HART insisted it would be able to complete the project by 2031, a mere 12 years late. But now it admits that it has a $1.4 billion funding shortfall that will prevent completion.

The rail line was supposed to go from Kapolei, a community of 21,000 people known as Oahu’s “second city,” to Ala Moana Center, Hawaii’s largest shopping mall. Even now, HART’s website claims it is essential for the rail line to go to Ala Moana “because of the Ala Moana Transit Center, which is the City’s largest bus transit center.” Rail passengers would be able to transfer there to buses that could take them to Waikiki, the University of Hawaii, and other destinations. Continue reading →

“Hey!” says someone in Cincinnati every few years. “Here’s some obsolete infrastructure that should never have been built in the first place. Let’s spend a few billion dollars finishing it!”

The stuff of nightmares: the unfinished Cincinnati subway. Photo by Jonathan Warren.

They are referring, of course, to the infamous Cincinnati subway. If you’ve never heard of it, it is because it never operated. But if you are transit wonk, you’ve almost certainly heard of it and have probably heard some other transit wonk wax nostalgic about how wonderful it would have been if the city had ever completed it. Continue reading →

My friend Scott Beyer, who calls himself a market urbanist, has his heart in the right place but often has his facts wrong. He thinks he believes in free markets, but he loves transit so much that he can’t accept that, in a true free market, most transit would disappear.

New York City subway construction, entirely paid for by taxpayers, in 1901.

His latest article asks if America will “get private subways (again)?” The article makes it clear that he believes the New York City subways were built with private money. Nothing could be further from the truth. Continue reading →

Unlike light rail, which means low-capacity transit, heavy rail is supposed to be high-capacity transit. But Virginia politicians effectively reduced the capacity of the DC Metrorail system when they demanded, over the objections of the Federal Transit Administration and Secretary of Transportation, the construction of the multi-billion-dollar Silver Line to Tysons Corner. Now Virginia politicians want taxpayers and auto drivers to spend tens of billions more rectifying that mistake.

A Yellow Line train crosses the Potomac River on an underutilized bridge that was ignored in WMATA’s analysis of alternatives to deal with the congested Blue-Orange-Silver lines river crossing. CSX’s Long Bridge is in the foreground. Photo by Ron Cogswell.

When the Silver Line opened, the Blue Line was already running at full capacity. Since the two lines, along with the Orange Line, use the same crossing of the Potomac River into DC, adding Silver Line trains meant cutting Blue and Orange Line trains. The number of Blue Line riders lost probably exceeded the number of Silver Line passengers gained. Continue reading →