What happens when you try to build a transit system outside of its economic niche? Something like this: $4.5 BILLION to provide commuting for 29,000 commuters a day. For those without their calculators handy, thats $155,000 capital expense per commuter. However, if they shut down competing bus lines and FORCE people to take the subway, even if it takes more time, they HOPE to get 60,000 commuters a day, reducing the capitalization cost to a mere $75,000 a head. And this is in an area with a population density much higher than King County. From the LA Times:

http://www.latimes.com/communities/transit/buses/19991112/t000102965.html MTA to Cut Several Popular Bus Lines to Benefit Subway Transit: Riders on the San Fernando Valley routes instead will be dropped at new stations. By T. CHRISTIAN MILLER, Times Staff Writer

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority plans to cut several popular bus lines in the San Fernando Valley in an attempt to funnel commuters into subway stations set to open next summer. The cuts, involving 5,000 riders, mostly commuters on express buses running from the Valley to downtown, will coincide with the creation of a bus service in the Valley, East Los Angeles and Mid-City designed to have fewer stops and speedier service. The changes will avoid duplicating transit service and save commuters money, MTA officials said. Buses that now run from the Valley to downtown will be redirected to new subway stations in Universal City and North Hollywood, where riders will transfer to the subway for the trip downtown. "It makes sense for people to use the rail system. It does not make sense to duplicate bus service along subway lines," said Marc Littman, an agency spokesman. But critics charge that the changes, the subject of a public hearing this Saturday, are an attempt by the MTA to force more people onto the Red Line subway to boost ridership. Similar cutbacks, proposed before the Hollywood leg of the Red Line opened this summer, were postponed after an outcry from angry bus riders. Eighteen bus routes were going to be altered; in the end, only 10 were changed. By June 2001, the agency hopes to double the number of people on the $4.5-billion subway system from the current 29,000 riders a day to about 60,000 a day, a figure that has been lowered over time as ridership figures have flagged. Critics also say the changes will deprive the agency's poorest, most vulnerable customers--its bus riders--of a choice in transit. The MTA board won't act on the plan until January at the earliest. "You're forcing people off the bus and onto the subway. I believe it's a trick" to show increased ridership, said Martin Hernandez, an organizer for the Bus Riders Union.

-- Craig Carson (craigcar@crosswinds.net), January 19, 2000

Answers

All in all, it wasn't a great year for transit in LA. Despite its high population density compared to King County, they nearly bankrupted the system trying to make Heavy Rail work. They did win a recent stay of the court order requiring them to halt subway construction and buy more buses, since they were destroying inner city service to attract rich suburban dwellers. Of course, the stay was from the ninth district court, and the Supreme Court over-rules them with some regularity. From the LA Times (again): 1999: THE YEAR IN REVIEW By JEFFREY L. RABIN

http://www.latimes.com/communities/transit/buses/19991226/t000117808.h tml It was a Hollywood opening to be sure. Cast members from the "Wizard of Oz," a crowd of VIPs and later the public celebrated the start of subway service to the entertainment capital last June. The opening of the 4.6-mile Hollywood line with its five new stations marked a milestone for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which has struggled with cost overruns and construction problems on the $5-billion subway project. Trains run daily between Union Station near downtown Los Angeles and the movie-motif station at Hollywood and Vine. The final 6.3 miles of subway from Hollywood to the San Fernando Valley is scheduled to open the middle of next year. For the MTA and Bus Riders Union, it was another contentious year. A federal judge ordered the MTA to buy 248 new buses to relieve overcrowding, but the agency won a reprieve pending further legal arguments. The death toll on the light rail Blue Line rose to 53 when an unlicensed driver in a bandit cab tried to beat a train across the tracks and was rammed. Six people died. Search the archives of the Los Angeles Times for similar stories about: 1999 (Year), Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority, Subways .D, Transit Stations. You will not be charged to look for stories, only to retrieve one.

-- (craigcar@crosswinds.net), January 19, 2000.

$4.6 mile for $5 BILLION?

And we thought we were getting taken to the cleaners!

Screw transit. Build roads.

-- (zowie@hotmail.com), January 19, 2000.

I note with some amazaement that this $155,000 investment per head is not to get MORE transit riders, at least in the case of the 5000 people in this report. It is to get 5000 EXISTING bus riders to ride on heavy rail instead of buses. I wonder how many centuries (millenia?) it will be before the savings in operating expenses (if any) for these riders offsets even the best-case $75,000 capital investment?

-- Mark Stilson (mark842@hotmail.com), January 20, 2000.

It's about a $.30 per passenger mile difference, five miles each way, say 450 trips a year. $1350 savings a year. Payout is about 55 years IF they really do get their numbers up. If they don't, the fixed costs eat them alive and they will NEVER break even over the bus only option.

-- (craigcar@crosswinds.net), January 20, 2000.

I remember many, many years ago, the Feds spent an ungodly amount of money to build a subway in Washington, D.C. I love that subway, and thoroughly enjoyed my visit to D.C.

As long as the Feds are going to throw the money away, anyway, why not have them throw money in your backyard on a rail project?

My community is being forced to pay a toll for a new roadway (not even increased capacity, really). So, politics is really about spite. If my community can't get federal funding for increased capacity of our main artery, then neither should anyone else. That's why we end up with a seemingly overpriced rail project. It results in the least jealousy amongst the communities.

Privatize the road system, and use the money towards elimination of the national debt. Then, we'll see what happens with your theories of free enterprise.

-- Matthew M. Warren (mattinsky@msn.com), January 20, 2000.

"As long as the Feds are going to throw the money away, anyway, why not have them throw money in your backyard on a rail project? "

We have met the enemy and they are us.....

Pogo, about 1965 I think. Maybe zowie knows.

Because they pay a percentage of the capital investment and then you pay the operating expenses and maintenance expenses and ultimately the REPLACEMENT capital expenses. And if it doesn't make econonomic sense without government subsidization, it ultimately is more costly than the alternatives.

-- (craigcar@crosswinds.net), January 20, 2000.

In fact I do. 1971.

See this legendary cartoon at http://www.nauticom.net/www/chuckm/whmte.htm

You environmentalists ought to download a copy for your refrigerators. (CFC-free refrigerators, to be sure)

zowie

-- (zowie@hotmail.com), January 20, 2000.

Matthew,

Hmm...Your community is being forced to pay a new toll.... It sounds to me like your position regarding Transportation issues may be heavily influenced by this very event.

Your positions on Ferry fare increases, rail, HOV lanes etc. have more to do with DOT and Transit NOT doing the job of meeting your Transportation needs, than Tim Eyman's Initiatives. Would we be having all these forum discussions if they had? If road capacity had kept pace with demand, and getting across the Narrows was quick and free, I think you would not be posting here. We can argue all day long about roads, rail and Transit. But the fact of the matter is, we payed taxes, DOT spent the money, and we have a big congestion mess.

Build the Roads!

-- Marsha (acorn_nut@hotmail.com), January 20, 2000.

To Marsha: Expand capacity in my community, first. Why should folks on the Peninsula subsidize roadbuilding in the Eastside?

-- Matthew M. Warren (mattinsky@msn.com), January 20, 2000.

" Why should folks on the Peninsula subsidize roadbuilding in the Eastside? "

And why should Eastside residents subsidize roadbuilding for folks who placed themselves at the mercy of an over subsidized ferry system? In fact, why should Eastside residents subsidize anything outside of their own community?

-- Gene (Gene@gene.com), January 20, 2000.

To Gene: I agree. That's why we need to privatize the roads, if, in fact, we are not just a bunch of hypocrites.

I never could understand why people on the Peninsula are so adamantly opposed to increases in the gas tax. Now I know why. All these years, they pay and pay and pay, but the folks on the eastside get I-90 and I-405.

-- Matthew M. Warren (mattinsky@msn.com), January 20, 2000.

All the pro-transit people keep pointing to how much more Europe and Japan use transit than the US does, and how we should emulate them. Parenthetically, dang few of these transit advocates have BEEN overseas or know the FACTS of the transportation modal shares in these countries. The reality is that the auto is dominant in all of these places, and continuing to gain market share. The FACTS according to the 1997 transportation statistics annual report. page 230 figure10-1, are these:

Rail: European Union (EU) 6% Japan 33.4%, US 0.6% Buses: EU 9% Japan 8.7%, US 1.2%

Air: EU 5% Japan 5.3%, US 9.5%

Auto: EU 80% Japan 51.5%, US 86.5%

And the trends are for the auto to gain increasing mode share in all of the EU and Japan.

Motor vehicles, particularly private passenger cars, are now dominant in most OECD countries and are gaining modal share elsewhere. In 1994, automobiles and similar passenger vehicles accounted for 86 percent of the pkt in the United States and 52 percent in Japan, while they Between 1970 and 1990, growth in both the number of cars and in highway travel was higher in Europe and Japan than in the United States, as shown by figure 10-2. The United States, however, continues to have more auto-mobiles and more automobiles per capita than any other country. In 1991, the most recent year for which comparative data are available, the United States also led in overall mobility, with 24,331 pkt (15,119 pmt) per person. (As reported in chapter 1, the per capita U.S. figure for 1995 was 26,554 pkt (16,500 pmt) by motor vehicles and 27,681 pkt (17,200 pmt) by all forms of transportation.) Most Europeans traveled half as much; people in developing countries traveled considerably less (see table 10-2). Non-OECD countries added cars at almost twice the rate as did OECD countries from 1970 to 1990, and accounted for 19 percent of the worldUs passenger cars in the early 1990s. (OECD 1995) 4

-- (craigcar@crosswinds.net), January 26, 2000.