Posted on 05/17/2011 11:42:32 AM PDT by Qbert
A study released earlier this month by the Cascade Policy Institute questioned whether pricey mass transit options in Portland, Oregon are really being used by the public. The city has been a leader in securing funding for various forms of passenger rail and trolley systems. The Obama administration, for example, pledged $745 million in federal gas tax dollars to pay for the construction of a $1.5 billion, 7.3 mile light rail project connecting Portland to Milwaukie. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood has singled out the city’s priorities as for praise.
“By adding innovative transit opportunities, Portland has become a model livable community, a city where public transportation brings housing closer to jobs, schools, and essential services,” LaHood wrote in March.
The Cascade Policy Institute wanted to verify the claim that the TriMet transit system was able to move more passengers than a standard bus line. The researchers did so by attending five special events where use of mass transit would make the most sense, including the final playoff game for the Portland Trail Blazers. The events were spread throughout the year to examine the effects of different weather conditions on transit use. City officials have never made a study of this sort.
“This is important because transportation planners at Metro, TriMet, ODOT and other agencies routinely make multi-billion-dollar decisions based on travel surveys, computer models or simply their own personal beliefs about how people should travel,” Cascade President John A. Charles, Jr wrote in his report. “They rarely have any direct knowledge of how people actually travel under specific conditions of time, mode availability, parking pricing and geographic constraints.”
The Cascade team counted a total of 47,666 individual attendees, noting how many headed toward the venue from a light rail station and how many arrived by automobile, bicycle or foot. At best, 21 percent arrived by rail to see the Trail Blazers. At worst, the opening of the Gresham Civic Station saw just 2 percent arrive by rail. On average, rail accounted for just 11 percent of the trips recorded.
“The field research shows that continued use of the phrase ‘high-capacity transit’ by local planners to describe the regional rail program is Orwellian,” Cascade President John A. Charles, Jr. said in a statement. “Light rail is actually a low-capacity system, and the streetcar is simply irrelevant. TriMet’s buses carries two-thirds of all regional transit trips on a daily basis, and that’s the service that should be recognized as high-capacity transit. Unfortunately, bus service is being sacrificed by TriMet in order to build costly new rail lines that carry relatively few people.”
A copy of the report is available in a 1.2mb PDF file at the source link below.
http://www.thenewspaper.com/rlc/docs/2011/cascademyth.pdf
“That’s a lot of crumbling bridges and roads that could be fixed.
I fail to see why the federal government should be collecting any gas tax. With the Interstate Highway System completed, roads should be a state responsibility.”
I wonder sometimes if they are intentionally letting some roads crumble- try to get people so fed up that they are essentially forced into mass transit.
“Mostly the last (their own personal beliefs about how people should travel). The surveys and computer models are used primarily to justify the personal beliefs.”
Yep, social engineering.
Have you noticed how Cap Metro has gone to counting the number of "boardings" now? Get on at Leander, get off at one of the other stations, get back on and go all the way downtown and get off again. One passenger but four boardings.
What’s with all the rail haters on this site? It isn’t that you all hate subsidies because I’ve never seen anyone on FR whine about highways that are 100% supported by taxpayers. When is an Interstate highway held to the ‘self suifficient’ standard that rail is held to? What about airports? Even airports are massively subsidized by tax payers and I’ve never seen anyone whine about them.
The reason that rail projects end up being government run is because when private enterprise tries to do it - like they did in Texas - then they have to deal with airlines like Southwest suing them into the dirt so the airline doesn’t lose passengers. Only government can afford to fight off people who make billions off of short flights and highway congestion.
Is Willie Green still around here?
One way to look at the Obummer administration is that it is the first (historic!)to take over the top, ruinous ideas from localities around the country and attempt to apply them nationally. The pay per mile tax for driving originated in Oregon for instance, many years ago.
The attitude of the ruling class is astonishing in that although they get to tax and redistribute wealth, they actually despise those who have the ability to pay the taxes in the first place. How dare they make so much working for the private sector! Those evil bastards!
That is why many cities pulled up the streetcar rails back in the 50s and 60s. Now the Austin Silly Council is trying to add light rail from downtown to ABIA.
Of course it is.
And if these clowns would stop "studying" it, the ridership would be even lower.
Rail rojects suck up so much cash from the Feds that there is none left over for roads and bridges.
I saw the headline yesterday about the line from Westlake to Capitol hill and the U-district. Whenever I see this stuff I always add this footnote: “...and that is why I bought my farm in central Kentucky.”
Its Austin what did you expect? Thank God most of the libs hang out there and haven’t spread out through out the state.
I watch the light rail every morning in Dallas block the road to my job at 6:32 every morning. Two trains with perhaps 6 folks on each. Strong showing!
Can't have that!
Public transportation is a nightmare. I spent all last year taking trains and busses in Stockholm Sweden. A city which has this type of transit down to a science. You still have to walk 900 miles to get to and into a train. Some stops I had to take three escalators down or up just to get to my platform to catch a train, never mind the four or five blocks to get on it. Many times I’d have to take a bus to get to a train to get to another bus just to get to my location. Painful, painful way of life these socialists make for everyone. And somehow they convince a whole lot of lemmings, it’s GREAT!
I love choo choos. That doesn't change the fact that buses are a better way to deal with municipal traffic in most U.S. cities, and they can seldom compete with airlines for convenience and efficiency over greater distances.
Look at the infrastructure involved with choo choos compared to buses. If traffic patterns change a little, all a bus system has to do change the schedules. If traffic patterns change a lot, they have to install a few benches and maybe cut out a few stops. But choo choos? Crap, they have to tear up miles of roadway and lay new rails, install new infrastructure, screw up traffic for years.
Choo choos are really neat, but they are 19th century technology.
Freedom to go where you want when you want...without getting their permission.
Can't have that!
My husband loves the light rail here in Los Angeles, but he only ever uses it/ goes downtown to Jury Duty every two years. I would never use it, but I don’t go downtown either.
They have to subsidize light-rail to the gils to get anyone to ride it, but the libs say ‘that is always the case.’ I think it is STUPID.
Rail is the triple play of liberal politics:
1. Construction companies get paid tons of money for union labor to build these giant systems.
2. These systems require boatloads of maintenance, all of which is supplied by public sector union labor.
3. The jobs are used to prop up employment data stats.
In the end, transit has never made sense for any community below a certain population density. I can’t imagine, for example, NYC without the subway, or Boston without the T. For me, Chicago could have lived without the L, but honest men can differ on this.
Rail is PERMANENT employment for democrats. The more rail the better from the left’s perspective. This is why AGW is such a compelling premise for the left. It ties every liberal sinecure program together in a pseudo-scientific package.
So if they doubled the fare to $3.40 then it would pay for itself?
Rail is more viable than I thought.
Once gas is routinely $6.00 a gallon then that will settle it.
The anti-rail posters are hypocrites: Every form of transportation is "subsidized" which, in our perverted modernist lexicon means, "not taxed to death all the time."
In the old days, when people had a LOT LESS money, rail (and a lot of other things) was viable. Of course, taxes were reasonable.
But tax everything to death, and nothing is viable...Without the evil "subsidies."
Last time I checked he was singing those "Disappearing Railroad Blues."
“One way to look at the Obummer administration is that it is the first (historic!)to take over the top, ruinous ideas from localities around the country and attempt to apply them nationally. The pay per mile tax for driving originated in Oregon for instance, many years ago.”
Yep. And the pay per mile tax is also a blatant attempt to punish suburban and rural residents (IOW, less likely to vote Dem).
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