Posted on 10/02/2003 10:47:55 AM PDT by Frapster
What's wrong with METRO's Plan?
| Costs too much and does not relieve congestion: |
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By METRO’s own calculations, the initial 22 mile light rail component of this referendum will cost over $2.6 billion. The total 72.8 miles of METRO’s rail component found on the ballot will cost over $8 billion and move less than 1% of the trips in the Metro Service Area*. |
| Light rail may actually increase area congestion: |
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The rail could well add to congestion because it runs at street level, stops traffic and removes many lanes of roadway from our current system because most of the light rail is being built in the existing roadway.
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| It consumes funds needed to implement true congestion relief: |
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According to the Houston Galveston Area Council, METRO is currently scheduled to consume 48% of area transportation dollars through the year 2022 while moving about 2% of our traffic. Under METRO’s own light rail proposal, this imbalance would only get worse. We cannot afford to waste these precious public tax dollars. |
| We will not lose matching federal funding if the light rail is not built: |
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The federal match of capital to be allegedly spent "on rail" can still be received if the money is spent on roads, technology, express streets, grade separation, bus expansion, commuter rail, or even (better planned) light rail. |
| Dallas already tried this experiment, and it has not worked: |
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Dallas has 44 miles of light rail, 34 miles of commuter rail, and a bus system, yet only 2% are riding all of this combined. Also, they are facing a $37M shortfall and have asked for federal assistance. Dallas has spent billions on three light rail lines, a commuter line, and an expanded bus sytem, and the census shows that fewer people rode public transit to work in 2000, than in 1990 before the billions were spent on additions and expansions. |
| The 25% General Mobility money is not protected: |
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METRO promised to protect the 25% of the METRO sales tax going to the City of Houston, Harris County, and neighboring towns, for roads. But METRO is very likely to experience major cash flow problems long before their plan is complete, and the 25% is simply not protected if consumed by operating losses or construction cost overruns. |
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METRO is already on highly unstable financial footing |
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An analysis of METRO’s budgets show that they have vastly overestimated their sales tax and federal grant revenues. METRO is likely to experience major cash flow problems in the near future and their precarious financial condition makes it inappropriate to ask voters to approve a massive, $640 million bond program, let alone embark on a $8 billion rail plan. |
| The plan is not structured to accommodate Houston’s growth: |
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If METRO’s plan passes, the first 22 miles of light rail is designed almost exclusively for serving downtown, even though only 7% of existing jobs are downtown, and 95% of the new jobs that will be created in Houston are not going downtown either. METRO says we need this new system to keep up with growth, but the majority of the growth will not be where the rail is being built. |
| Vast majority of proposed rail riders would come from buses: |
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Since the vast majority of rail riders (a very expensive system) will come from buses (a relatively inexpensive system), the METRO plan will make almost would have almost no impact on traffic and congestion and simply shuffle current riders to a new system, at great expense. In fact most riders will still have to take a bus to the rail, then ride the train, then take another bus when they disembark from the rail. |
| METRO's plan does NOT significantly expand bus service: |
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Contrary to METRO's claims, they would spend only 3.3% of the new funds on buses thru 2010, and absolutely no new funds from METRO Solutions goes to buses until 2006. In fact, most cities who build light rail, including Dallas, end up with a large increase in costs which results in cutting bus service and/or raising fares to support an expensive, inefficient rail system. Dallas recently increased the basic one-way fares from $1.00 to $1.25 and reduced train and bus service. By their own estimates, this will reduce ridership (boardings) by 5% to 7%. The result is that the person who has no choice and depends upon public transit pays more and gets less service, thus fewer people ride transit. |
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This wasteful expenditure |
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If over $2 billion is wastefully spent on the initial 22 miles of light rail, which will not reduce congestion, it will deplete those limited funds available for other true congestion relief projects, and probably lead to a tax increase (i.e. property, gasoline, sales tax, and/or toll increases) to replace those wasted funds. We cannot afford to waste billions of transportation dollars on METRO's proposal, when it does almost nothing to solve our congestion problem. |
| We don’t need rail to be a “world class city” or for economic development: |
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Dallas has rail, but was dropped from consideration for the Olympics long before Houston. On the other hand, San Antonio landed a huge Toyota plant after voting down their light rail system. Austin also voted down light rail, and has Dell, Motorola, and a large amount of new business development and entrepreneurs. Consider our energy industry, the Medical Center, the Port, NASA – we Houstonians have built a thriving, wonderful city without a light rail system that does not reduce congestion. Congestion is the real threat to growth, and this plan does not address congestion. |
| (* Rail construction costs, operation and maintenance costs, contingency costs and debt service..) |
That kind of anti-transit rhetoric is so patheticly stupid that it's hilarious.
Metro was created to shove rail down our throats - no doubt about that. The problem is that they are the only authority who can do this without being held politically accountable. They are the epitome of an incompetant, thoroughly corrupt, and heavily bloated bureaucratic agency with significant unrestrained power and virtually no public oversight.
If we get rid of metro and liquidate its assets in a public auction the pro-rail people will still be there but they won't have a chokehold around the region's neck by way of undeserved political power. They'll be just another private interest group trying to get its issue passed in city hall.
It may be all of those but it is also incredibly true. People don't want to ride around like cattle. Take those billions and build some roads.
Some do, some don't.
That's the whole idea behind providing alternatives from which people may choose.
It's arrogantly presumptuous to pretend that you know what everybody wants.
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