The mental juggernauts over at the Rio Grande Foundation take on the streetcar.

 

With City Council Vote on ($224) $270 Million “Modern Streetcar” Looming, the Rio Grande Foundation Provides 10 Reasons to Oppose

 

(Albuquerque, New Mexico)  With voters’ attention focused on Election Day, Albuquerque taxpayers need to keep a watchful eye over City Council where a ¼ percent gross receipts tax may be extended and made permanent to pay for what Mayor Chavez calls a “modern streetcar” system for Albuquerque. In an effort to focus attention on the issue and ensure that a massive new project is not embarked upon without debate, the Rio Grande Foundation is pleased to present “10 Reasons the Modern Streetcar is wrong for Albuquerque.” 

 

1.      The cost of constructing the “Modern Streetcar” project is currently estimated to be $28 million a mile for a total of ($224 million) author's note: as indicated in the following parentheses, these estimates are indeed frequently lowballed, but in the brief time between the publication of this article and Council's vote, the cost of this project had risen from $224 million to $270 million  (this is likely to rise as starting estimates are notorious for being low-balled).[1]

 

2.      Annual operating costs are currently unknown although subsidies often cover 75 percent of the operating costs of similar systems.

 

3.      According to the Transit Authority, Albuquerque’s entire bus system costs only $35 million annually to operate.[2] The money used to pay for streetcars could pay for significant improvements in the bus system. These might include improved buses, increased use of “bus-only” lanes, and increased frequency on existing routes.

 

4.      While advocates of the streetcar project often use Portland, Oregon, as a model for Albuquerque’s proposed streetcar system, Portland is much better suited to rail than is Albuquerque. With 2,483 people/sq mile, Albuquerque is only 60 percent as dense as Portland which has 4143 people/sq mile. Also, Albuquerque’s metropolitan area has only 40 percent as many people as Portland (797,000 vs. 2 million).[3]

 

5.      Even with massive investment and a local bureaucracy dedicated to restricting growth to transit-friendly areas, Portland’s mass transit system actually carried a higher percentage of the region’s daily trips in 1982, prior to building its rail system (2.6 percent), than it does now (2.3 percent).[4]

 

6.      Supporters of this plan favorably compare the “Big I” reconstruction cost of $230 million to the $224 million cost of the proposed streetcar, arguing that “if we can invest this kind of money in roads, we should do the same for transit.” This is a false comparison. The “Big I” is an integral component of our region’s economy, transporting thousands of people and tons of cargo daily; although supporters have not produced specific estimates, the streetcar plan will have a negligible impact relative to the “Big I.”[5]

 

7.      The high cost of rail transit threatens the rest of our transit system. High construction costs and cost overruns often force transit agencies to cut back on bus service and/or raise fares, thus depressing transit ridership. Los Angeles lost 25 percent of its transit riders when it built its rail transit system between 1985 and 1995.[6]

 

8.      Low income and minority advocates in both Los Angeles and the San Francisco Bay Area have sued transit agencies or transit planners for building expensive rail service to wealthy suburbs while they let bus service to low-income neighborhoods stagnate or decline.[7] If we spend hundreds-of-millions of dollars on this “modern streetcar” project, our bus system is likely to suffer from lack of resources as well.

 

9.      Though highways receive less than half the subsidies transit does, highways carried 96 times as many passenger miles of travel as transit, not to mention far more freight.[8] Limited resources should be directed to modes of transportation that people actually use, not the ones government bureaucrats want them to use.

 

10.  Despite its reputation as an environmentally-friendly mode of transportation, rail transit does little to save energy. The average light-rail line consumes more energy per passenger mile than passenger cars. Even among those systems that use a little less energy per passenger mile than cars, the energy consumed to construct rail lines can more than make up for this savings.

 

 

[1] Albuquerque Journal Editorial, “Streetcar’s Price Tag May be Big Roadblock,” September 20, 2006, http://www.abqjournal.com/opinion/editorials/494202opinion09-20-06.htm

 

[2] Numbers provided during telephone conversation with Albuquerque Transit Authority.

 

[3] Data compiled from each city’s web page at Wikipedia.

 

[4] Randal O’Toole, “Great Rail Disasters: The Impact of Rail Transit on Transit Ridership,” American Dream Coalition, June 2005, http://americandreamcoalition.org/RD2005.pdf. 

 

[5] Data contained in Power Point Presentation of Greg Payne at September 26 public meeting.

 

[6] Randal O’Toole, “Great Rail Disasters: The Impact of Rail Transit on Transit Ridership,” American Dream Coalition, June 2005, http://americandreamcoalition.org/RD2005.pdf. 

 

[7] Ibid.

 

[8] Federal Highway Administration, Highway Statistics 2003, table HF-10, http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/policy/ohim/hs03/xls/hf10.xls, cell O32.

 

 

Author: Paul Gessing

 

http://www.riograndefoundation.org/new/articles/?EC=ReadArticle&ArticleID=106

can we put this in the "what other cities/states" are doing with transit thread?

That would probably be a good idea...HEYALP!

I think we ought to create a thread "Watching the libertarian assault on cities" and put this stuff in it. These guys are kissing cousins to the Buckeye Policy Institute, Reason Foundation, Heritage Foundation and all white suburban men who talk out of their asses.

I think we ought to create a thread "Watching the libertarian assault on cities" and put this stuff in it. These guys are kissing cousins to the Buckeye Policy Institute, Reason Foundation, Heritage Foundation and all white suburban men who talk out of their asses.

 

Ahh...well tell us how you really feel!

I love how out of touch with reality they are. Rail is so bad, that's why places that have it, especially Europe, have such horrbile transit. When I was there, buses came by regularly and on time, but of course, it just can't compare to the superior service COTA provides. And where was this pro-free market stance during the suburbization of our country? "Oh well we're for the free market...*waits for a half-century of heavy government subsidation of sprawling suburbs*...now."