Reason Foundation - Authors > Randall O'Toole

Rail Disasters 2005

info@reason.org (Randall O'Toole) — Wed, 01 Jun 2005 00:00:00 EDT

Executive Summary

This update to Great Rail Disasters, which was published in February 2004, traces transit ridership from 1982 through 2003 in nearly all U.S. urban areas that had rail transit in 2003. It also reviews preliminary data for 2004, compares the growth of transit usage with the growth of driving in these regions, and presents an overview of the transit industry as a whole. Each transit system is given a letter grade, A through F, based on its growth in transit ridership relative to the region’s growth in driving. Major ﬁndings include:

The eight “old rail regions”—that is, regions with rail transit throughout the twentieth century— received an average grade of F+ because all but Boston have suﬀered declining or stagnant transit ridership over the past two decades.
Fifteen “new rail regions”—that is, regions served by bus-only transit in 1970 that have built new rail lines since then—received an average grade of D– because most of them have had stagnant transit ridership or ridership growing either slower than the growth in driving or than transit grew before the region built rail lines. Only two of these regions, San Diego and Washington, received a grade higher than D.
In contrast, eight fast-growing regions served by buses only through 2003 received an average grade of B+ for their ability to attract new transit riders much faster than the growth in regional driving.
The high cost of rail transit produces two major threats to transit systems. First is when high construction costs and cost overruns force transit agencies to cut back on bus service and/or raise fares, depressing transit ridership. This is best illustrated by Los Angeles, which lost 25 percent of its transit riders when building rail transit between 1985 and 1995, but similar circumstances can be found in Portland, Sacramento, and Salt Lake City, among others. Second is when a recession reduces the tax revenues that subsidize transit, forcing transit agencies to cut transit service to avoid defaulting on rail construction bonds. This is best illustrated by San Jose, whose transit ridership dropped by a third in response to service cuts made since 2001, but similar circumstances can be found in San Diego, San Francisco, and Washington, among others.
Experience in cities that have built new rail transit suggests that the opening of a new rail line can produce a one-time increase in transit ridership, but does not increase—and often reduces— ridership growth. Even the one-time increase is not guaranteed and depends on the agency not being forced to cut bus service to pay for the rail construction.
In a few regions that have highly concentrated job centers, such as Boston and Chicago, heavy rail or commuter rail has increased transit passenger miles even if transit ridership has remained ﬂat or declined. While this may sound like good news, in some cases it indicates that transit is serving middle-income suburbanites at the expense of cutting service to low-income inner-city residents. In any case, neither heavy rail nor commuter rail have worked in areas with dispersed jobs, such as Baltimore, Dallas, Miami, and Los Angeles.
Inﬂation-adjusted subsidies to the transit industry have grown from $20 billion per year in 1992 to nearly $31 billion in 2003. These compare with subsidies to highways of $6.6 million in 1992 growing to $15.2 billion in 2003. Yet highways produce nearly 100 times as much passenger transport plus far more freight transport than transit.
Transit ridership in 2004 was less than in 2001 and 2002. Even when transit ridership has been growing, it hasn’t grown as fast as improvements to transit service. Achieving a 10-percent increase in ridership requires a 30-percent increase in transit service. This helps explain why subsidies to transit have grown about four times as fast as ridership.
The growing cost of transit is in part due to the high cost of rail transit. Although rail transit carries only 36 percent of transit trips, it consumes 66 percent of transit capital funds. Light rail is particularly wasteful, producing only 3.6 percent of transit trips yet sonsuming 12 percent of transit capital funds.

Transit’s fundamental problem is that Congress has given transit agencies incentives to overspend on highcost transit systems rather than to provide the most eﬃcient transit service to the industry’s core market of low-income and other transit-dependent people. The result is more hardship for such low-income people while transit is increasingly a subsidy to well-oﬀ suburbanites. Fixing this problem will require major changes to the federal transportation funding process.

Great Rail Disaster

info@reason.org (Randall O'Toole) — Mon, 16 Feb 2004 00:00:00 EST

Los Angeles Daily News

Does rail transit improve urban livability? To answer this question, the Reason Foundation reviewed transit, congestion, cost, safety, and other data for all two-dozen U.S. urban areas that have rail transit.

Our conclusion is that, far from enhancing livability, rail transit reduced the livability of every urban area that has it. Los Angeles' rail system scores particularly poorly because rail transit did almost nothing to prevent a huge increase in congestion. The Los Angeles light-rail and commuter-rail trains have also unnecessarily killed many people.

Our study found that rail transit tends to reduce the mobility of both transit riders and auto users. Collectively, the two-dozen urban areas with rail transit lost 33,000 transit commuters during the 1990s. By comparison, the two-dozen largest regions with bus-only transit gained 27,000 transit commuters in the 1990s.

Rail advocates often call rail critics "anti transit," but our analysis shows it is rail transit that is anti transit. During the 1990s, a period of rapid growth in the transit industry, transit's share of motorized travel declined in two out of three rail regions.

For auto users, rail transit doesn't relieve congestion; in fact, it seems to make it worse. Sixteen of the twenty urban areas with the fastest rising congestion have rail transit, and one of the other four is building rail.

One reason rail transit doesn't work is its high cost. Our study found that buses are far most cost effective than rails, while freeways are eleven times as cost effective at moving people as Los Angeles' rail lines.

Congestion in rail regions is rapidly growing because rail's high cost leads most such regions to dedicate 50 to 80 percent of their transportation funds to transit systems that carry only 1 to 5 percent of urban travel. This doesn't leave much left over to relieve congestion for the other 95 to 99 percent of travelers.

Nor is rail transit particularly good for the environment. Three out of five rail lines consume more energy, per passenger mile, than automobiles. The red line subway, for example, uses 80 percent more energy per passenger mile than passenger autos.

Since automobiles pollute most in congested traffic, rail transit often leads to more, not less, urban air pollution. Even where rail transit can reduce air pollution, the cost is exorbitant—roughly $1 million per ton of reduced emissions, compared to $10,000 per ton for many other air quality measures.

Rail lines, especially light rail and commuter rail, are also dangerous. Between 1992 and 2001, Los Angeles' commuter-rail trains have killed five times as many people per passenger mile carried as either buses or urban interstate freeways, while light rail has killed nearly nine times as many people per passenger mile as buses or urban interstates.

Rail transit fails because it doesn't go from where you are to where you want to go. Even if Los Angeles built another 100 miles of rail transit, well over 95 percent of all motorized travel in the region would still be by automobile. Where rail transit does go, it goes slow, rarely averaging more than 30 miles per hour.

Despite Chicago's extensive rail network and an 18-percent increase in jobs, Chicago transit carried 15-percent fewer riders in 2000 than in 1990. Tourists love Washington, DC's beautiful subway system. Yet Washington lost 22,000 transit commuters in the 1990s even while it gained more than 100,000 jobs. If rail transit doesn't work in these regions, how will it work in Los Angeles?

Our research shows Los Angeles can reduce congestion and provide better transit service than rail transit, all without raising taxes. MTA can improve transit using bus-rapid transit, which means running buses on rail schedules. At a fraction of the cost of rail and without waiting for years of construction, MTA can start running bus-rapid transit lines that go faster and serve more areas than rail.

To reduce congestion and further improve transit service, Los Angeles can turn existing high-occupancy vehicle lanes into high-occupancy/toll (HOT) lanes, which low-occupancy vehicles can use by paying a toll. Toll revenues can then build a complete network of HOT lanes throughout the region, speeding the bus-rapid transit lines and reducing congestion for everyone.

The choice is clear: Spend billions of dollars on rail transit lines that actually reduce urban livability; or relieve congestion and improve transit without raising taxes by building a HOT-lane network and running bus-rapid transit. I hope Los Angeles chooses wisely.

Randal O'Toole is the director of the Center for the American Dream and author of the Reason study, Great Rail Disasters

Great Rail Disasters

info@reason.org (Randall O'Toole) — Sun, 01 Feb 2004 00:00:00 EST

Executive Summary

The stampede to plan and build rail transit lines in American cities has led and is leading to a series of financial and mobility disasters. They are financial disasters because rail projects spend billions of taxpayers’ dollars and produce little in return. They are mobility disasters because rail transit almost always increases regional congestion and usually reduces transit’s share of commuting and general travel.

Out of the nation’s fifty largest urban areas, twentythree had rail transit in 2000. This study reviews those twenty-three regions and finds:

Half of all rail regions lost transit commuters during the 1990s;
Taken together, rail regions lost 33,500 transit commuters in the 1990s;
Non-rail regions among the fifty largest urban areas gained 27,600 transit commuters in the 1990s;
Transit lost market share of commuters in twothirds of all rail regions in the 1990s;
Per capita transit rides declined in half the rail regions;
Transit’s share of total travel declined in a majority of rail regions;
Sixteen of the twenty urban areas with the fastest growing congestion are rail regions—and one of the other four is building rail transit;
By comparison, only three of the twenty urban areas with the slowest growing congestion are rail regions—and only because all three have nearly zero population growth.

Based on these and other criteria, including cost effectiveness, safety, energy, and land use, this paper constructs a Rail Livability Index that assesses the effects of rail transit on urban areas. Every rail region earned a negative score, suggesting rail reduces urban livability.

Rail transit is not only expensive, it usually costs more to build and often costs more to operate than originally projected. To pay for cost overruns, transit agencies often must boost transit fares or cut transit service outside of rail corridors. Thus, rail transit tends to harm most transit users.

Rail transit also harms most auto drivers. Most regions building rail transit expect to spend half to fourfifths of their transportation capital budgets on transit systems that carry 0.5 to 4 percent of passenger travel. This imbalanced funding makes it impossible to remove highway bottlenecks and leads to growing congestion.

Rail’s high cost makes it ineffective at reducing congestion. On average, $13 spent on rail transit is less effective at reducing congestion than $1 spent on freeway improvements. Investments in rail transit are only about half as effective as investments in bus transit.

Rail transit also tends to be more dangerous than other forms of travel. Interstate freeways cause 3.9 deaths per billion passenger miles. Accidents on urban roads and streets in general lead to about 6.8 deaths per billion passenger miles. Among the various forms of urban transit, buses, at 4.3 deaths per billion passenger miles, are the safest; heavy rail averages 5.0, commuter rail 11.3, and light rail 14.8.

Rail transit does little to save energy. The average light-rail line consumes more energy per passenger mile than passenger cars. While some commuter- and heavyrail transit operations 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.

Nor is rail transit an effective way to clean the air. Even where rail transit has attracted new transit riders out of their cars, rail transit costs roughly $1 million per ton of air pollution eliminated. Many other techniques to clean the air cost less than $10,000 per ton.

Rail transit attracts riders because of its higher frequencies and fewer stops—and thus higher speeds— than bus transit. Yet buses can also operate more frequently with fewer stops. Rail transit requires years to build and can cost fifty times as much to start as comparable bus transit. As a result, the cost of attracting one auto commuter onto rail transit, relative to bus improvements, averages $10,000 a year or more.

For many, rail transit’s incredible expense is its main attraction. Auto-haters love rail transit because it consumes funds that could otherwise be spent reducing congestion. Politicians love rail transit because the companies that will profit from it are a source of campaign contributions. Transit agencies love rail transit because it boosts their budgets and national prestige. But the public should not be fooled: For everyone else, rail transit is a disaster.

Are We Paving Paradise?

info@reason.org (Randall O'Toole) — Thu, 01 Jan 2004 00:00:00 EST

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Transportation Costs and the American Dream

info@reason.org (Randall O'Toole) — Mon, 01 Sep 2003 00:00:00 EDT

Introduction

The Surface Transportation Policy Project’s (STPP) report, Transportation Costs and the American Dream, claims increasing transportation costs are threatening the American dream of homeownership. The solution, STPP suggests, is more public transit. The report is based on the Consumer Expenditures Survey, which is regularly published by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. STPP puts its spin on these data to support the group's agenda to increase spending for public transportation. In fact, a review of the Consumer Expenditures Survey, along with other available data, reveals that the truth is the exact opposite of STPP's claims.

STPP notes that transportation expenses make up 19 percent of household budgets today. The group implies that this is too much money and suggests it would be less if people used public transit more.

STPP says that transportation expenses made up only 10 percent of family budgets in 1935, 14 percent in 1960, and 19 percent from 1972 through today. Since more urbanites rode public transit and lived in compact cities in 1935, STPP suggests that automobiles and suburban development are responsible for the increase in expenses.

There are several problems with STPP's analysis. Briefly:

STPP fails to account for the benefits of automobiles in terms of boosting personal incomes;
STPP ignores other, more reliable sources of data that refute the survey data it cites;
STPP's presumption that public transit costs less than automobiles is dead wrong. The cost of transit per passenger mile is many times greater than autos;
STPP fails to recognize that auto ownership is voluntary. In contrast, most public transit costs are paid out of taxes collected from people who rarely, if ever, use transit.

Because transit is so much more expensive than autos, STPP's prescription of spending more on public transit and less on highways is a far greater threat to the American dream of mobility and homeownership than any nominal changes in the price of automobiles or fuel.

San Jose Demonstrates the Limits of Urban Growth Boundaries and Urban Rail

info@reason.org (Randall O'Toole) — Sat, 01 Mar 2003 00:00:00 EST

Introduction

Cities around the nation struggle to cope with citizens’ concerns about suburban development and traffic congestion. Recent years have seen urban-growth boundaries and light rail systems become very popular policy tools of urban planners and some municipal leaders.

The theory behind both urban-growth boundaries and light rail systems seems sensible at first. Growth boundaries stop development from “sprawling” beyond the limits it sets and forces new development and growth into denser development within the boundary. Light rail systems can carry a lot more people to and fro on a strip of land than can two lanes of cars with one occupant.

But from the beginning, reality has not matched theory. Urban-growth boundaries don’t allow the kind of suburban house with a yard that most Americans want to own. Instead, they drive up the costs of all homes to increasingly unaffordable levels. And to frost the cake, by increasing density, they increase traffic and congestion. Likewise, light rail systems just don’t meet any of the goals envisioned for them. Very few people can both live and work on a single thin line drawn by a planner for a light rail route. Very few people are willing to take a bus to the train, the train to a bus, the bus to work, and vice versa on the way home. So, light rail systems all carry vastly fewer passengers than expected as all transit systems keep losing market share to automobiles.

San José, California, provides an excellent case study of how the realities of urban-growth boundaries and light rail systems come home to roost. In the 25 years preceding the middle of 2001, San José housing prices grew by 936 percent, more than any other major urban area. And one consequence is that the city has spent hundreds of millions of dollars to provide housing subsidies to offset rising costs.

Meanwhile, San José’s light rail system has flopped. Passenger miles of travel have remained below 1992 levels in every year through 2000 except 1998, and light rail ridership on the first line never exceeded half the riders projected in the original study. The system’s operating costs are more than twice the national average for similar light rail systems and are more than the city’s bus system measured either per passenger or per vehicle mile.

San José is a cautionary tale about believing the theory of urban-growth boundaries and light rail systems. The proponents of these polices prefer to talk about the theory, the logic, and the projections, and to ignore the harsh realities exposed by cities like San José that have implemented them. The story of what happened in San José can help policymakers evaluate urban-growth boundaries and light rail systems and understand why they have not lived up to their promises.

Urban Transit Myths

info@reason.org (Randall O'Toole) — Tue, 01 Sep 1998 00:00:00 EDT

Executive Summary

Public transit plays an important role in providing mobility to those without access to automobiles as well as those who prefer not to drive. Unfortunately, America’s public transit policies suffer from numerous myths that are harmful to both transit and to American cities. This report discusses ten of the most dangerous and widely believed transit myths:

The Subsidy Myth: Transportation subsidies are unfairly biased towards autos and highways, so we must increase transit funding to provide balanced transportation.	The Reality: At least since 1975, transit subsidies have been tens to hundreds of times greater than highway subsidies. Moveover, a quarter of the transit subsidies have been paid directly by auto drivers.
The Decline Myth: America’s urban transit systems have been steadily declining for decades, and only more funding can reverse that decline.	The Reality: Both transit funding and the facilities provided by transit agencies have been steadily increasing for decades.
The Funding Myth: More money for transit will boost ridership; we need to transfer highway dollars to transit and increase state and local taxes for transit agencies.	The Reality: There has been no relationship between transit funding and transit ridership; despite huge increases in transit funding over the past two decades, ridership is stagnant or falling.
The Federal Myth: Federal funding of urban freeways must be balanced by federal funding of urban mass transit.	The Reality: The federal share of the Interstate Highway System was completely paid for out of federal highway user fees, while the federal government collects no transit user fees.
The Congestion Relief Myth: We can’t build our way out of congestion through highway construction; instead, we can mitigate congestion by diverting more highway funds into mass transit.	The Reality: Transit’s effect on congestion is insignificant in most American cities. Spending dollars on transit to reduce congestion is more likely to increase because it diverts funds from activities that have a more significant effect on congestion.
The Traditional Transit Myth: Transit agencies should continue to focus on 19th century fixed-route transit lines radiating from downtown hubs.	The Reality: American cities have evolved, and modern travel patterns are too complex to be served by traditional transit. Transit agencies must adapt by providing new kinds of transit.
The Monopoly Myth: Public monopolies are essential for transit to work.	The Reality: Competition is one of the best ways to improve transit services.
The Nostalgia Myth: Turn-of-the-century transit systems offered Americans greater mobility and livability than the transit and highway systems of today.	The Reality: The automobile has made Americans the most mobile people in the history of the world. That mobility has significantly improved urban livability in many ways.
The New Urban Myth: It makes more sense to rebuild our cities to serve transit than to redesign transit systems to serve modern cities.	The Reality: Attempts to redesign cities to improve transit ridership would be expensive and ultimately unsuccessful. It is far more effective to modernize the transit system to serve contemporary needs.
The Morality Myth: Public transit is morally superior to private automobiles.	The Reality: Most of transit’s supposed advantages over the automobile are based on aesthetic judgements not shared by a majority of Americans.

Sound transit policy requires that policymakers understand the reality behind these myths. Funds available for transit will always be limited. It is therefore incumbent on policymakers to invest these limited funds in ways that produce the greatest value for the taxpayer’ dollars.