Why is public transit more expensive than it used to be?
by Glen Bottoms
Rail transit’s great enemy isn’t public support or political will but its enormous price tag.
The expense of heavy-rail subway systems has limited recent growth to extensions of existing lines. The last heavy-rail construction completed in the U.S. was a 3.2 mile extension of Washington Metro’s blue line to Largo Town Center, completed in 2004 at a cost of $695 million ($217 million/mile). Phase I of the Metro’s 11.6 mile extension to Dulles Airport is estimated at a staggering $2.65 billion ($242.1 million/mile). The bite for New York City subway extensions is in another reality.
At first, Light Rail seemed to offer a solution, but its cost is steadily rising. The initial segment of Seattle’s 15.6 mile Central Link Light Rail system, which opened in 2009, cost $2.4 billion ($154 million/mile). Portland, Oregon’s proposed 7.3 mile MAX Light Rail extension to Milwaukie is estimated at $1.4 billion ($191.8 million/mile).
Now that streetcars have caught on in many U.S. cities—over 60 are currently planning streetcar projects—many fear that the cost-escalation virus could infect this mode as well. The price tag on Tucson’s streetcar project, now under construction, has grown by 20 percent. Costs for proposed streetcar projects across the country range from a reasonable $10 million to an eye-popping $60 million per mile.
What accounts for this dramatic escalation? Three key factors: 1) overdesign, 2) lack of technical expertise at the overseeing transit agency, and 3) external factors like political interference and rising material costs.
Consultants retained to design these systems regularly use plans that they already possess without regard to applicability or functionality, selecting higher-speed overhead wire in rail yards and city streets or specifying certain types of rail without regard for cheaper alternatives. Excessive tunneling is also a critical cost driver. Tucking Light Rail in subways to avoid disturbing traffic not only raises costs, it ignores the fact that dedicating lanes to cost-effective transit increases use. The technical knowledge to recognize these inappropriate designs is a critical element of cost control.
Supervisors often cite rising prices of construction components worldwide as the reason for transit projects’ blown budgets. But this is not a major part of the story. Consider the case of Norfolk, Virginia’s 7.4 mile Light Rail project, which suffered dramatic overruns as it was being built. One report indicated that 50 percent of the increase could be attributed to “soft” costs caused by poor management decisions, like the arrival of vehicles in a storage yard that hadn’t been built yet.
America’s rail infrastructure won’t be resurrected overnight. But history shows that we can build rail economically and on time. After all, we have been constructing systems of all sizes and complexities in this country for well over a hundred years. Recalling those past experiences today will give us the tools we need to build the trains of tomorrow.
Glen Bottoms is a former longtime Federal Transit Administration employee. He now serves as executive director of the American Conservative Center for Public Transportation.
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Many years ago I met Senator James Mills, who was the legislative “godfather” behind the San Diego light rail line. He was most disappointed by the high costs of some newer rail projects compared with the original line between San Diego and San Ysidro. There was a publication devoted to light rail developments, and its publisher had a particular “beef” about overbuilt overhead, saying about one installation, “You’d think they were planning to run GG-1′s [large mainline electric locomotives]” Elaborate stations, double track where single track with passing sidings would do until traffic built up, and other “gold plating” designs drew his fire. On the other hand, the Los Angeles to Long Beach Blue Line was built with platforms for 2-car trains. A few years later, passenger loadings increased to the point where 3-car trains were a necessity, and, at considerable expense, the plaforms were rebuilt.
Interesting. Best summed-up as penny wise, pound foolish, or I believe most recently coined “Penny Wise, Pound Fuelish.”
Costs are escalating for all modes, of course. Heck, even road salt sky-rocketed last year in the midwest. As for major transportation investments, a signficant part of the problem is how we compare costs for different modes. It isn’t so much a question of what costs we include by convention, but which ones we choose not to. Does rail truly carry an enormous price tag in comparison with other modes, all costs accounted for and using appropriate methodology? What about 50 to 100 years from now? What combination of modes best positions regions, states, and the nation for future success based on reasonably projected changes in economic, environmental, and social realities? Can cars, trucks, and busses continue to move large numbers of people and goods increasingly concentrated in urbanized areas along paved surface, still relying on oil and internal combustion engines? BRT isn’t a solution, either, but merely an expensuive placeholder; even touted “flagship” systems like Ottawa and Bogota are increasingly looking to rail. BRT is a good step up from nothing, or the myriad of private bus enterprises Bogota had before BRT, but it is not the foundation of a 21st century world-class transpoprtation system in heavily congested urban areas.
Yes, we need rail – for movement of people and goods in heavily congested urban areas, with solutions like true BRT to connect outlying suburban job centers. “America’s rail infrastructure won’t be resurrected overnight. But history shows that we can build rail economically and on time. After all, we have been constructing systems of all sizes and complexities in this country for well over a hundred years.” Yes, and that observation receives additional support when one includes robust consideration of costs and benefits associated with the mode.
“What accounts for this dramatic escalation? Three key factors: 1) overdesign, 2) lack of technical expertise at the overseeing transit agency, and 3) external factors like political interference and rising material costs.”
There’s a major fourth factor. (Or perhaps the following falls under “external factors”, but if so it’s an elephant swept under the rug.) All these projects are in major urban areas, which are hothouses for non-performing unionized transit authorities and/or corrupt contractors. They hold transit-dependent populations at their mercy, with the connivance of gutless and/or corrupt politicians and bureaucrats. I’m from New York City, and I’ve seen the Metropolitan Transit crews in “action” many, many times. Unless they’re working on lines with trains running, it’s no exaggeration to say that ground sloths move faster.
I’m in the Minneapolis area now. Everyone but the government-subsidized section of the inner-city population owns cars, even if they do bus to work (relatively few do–if you work late, you’re stranded). A huge portion of the jobs are dispersed throughout the suburbs, so mass transit is hardly feasible for them. Road and transit projects are completed a lot faster here, and (a certain bridge tragedy notwithstanding) are usually built to last. And when the metro transit union calls its biennial strike, the metro area laughs it off.
Expanded mass transit would be really nice. But we have a long way to go, politically or socially, before it will be feasible.
The following is Rail for the Valley’s take on escalating costs for LRT:
http://railforthevalley.wordpress.com/2009/05/20/is-lrt-becoming-the-new-light-metro/
[...] http://www.amconmag.com/blog/keep-america-moving/the-real-costs/ [...]
Public transit is, and always will be, expensive simply because it uses large vehicles to move masses of people along corridors that are only loosely connected the desired travel routes. Most of these large vehicles have to keep moving (almost empty) off-peak to provide satisfactory service levels.
Automobiles are so popular because they move small groups of people more-or-less directly between their origins and destinations. Automobiles simply sit around and wait when not needed. Small vehciles like automobiles only require light (inexpensive) infrastucture. Unfortunately we have not figured out how to seperate the infrastructure for heavy trucks from that for cars.
What is needed is a public transit system based on small vehicles with light infrastructure that carry people directly from origin to destination and do not require much empty vehicle movement at peak or off-peak times. Fortunately, such a system now exists. Visit http://www.prtconsulting to learn more.
I work in rail planning, and even I can’t figure out where all the costs come from. In Indianapolis in the early 90s, a private non-profit offered to donate tracks to bring rail from a growing suburb 80% of the way to downtown. They already had one statoin built, and they suggested using DMUs – a kind of light rail that doesn’t require the installation of overhead wires.
How we came up with a half-a-billion dollar price tag for the project, I don’t know. Perhaps it was the switch from the DMUs (which had never been used in the US) to light rail. But still, that’s a lot of money for a place like Indianapolis.
The old Budd Cars used in the 50′s, 60′s & 70′s (and still in use today on some railway lines. Example: the E & N) were DMU or Diesel Multiple Unit Cars.
The trouble with many new North American transit lines that they tend to be “gold-plated” with much needless add-ons. Simple streetcars become the basis for urban renewal, with all new infrastructure costs, including roads, utility replacement and street furniture added on. Toronto is doing this as we speak.
As well, transit projects tend to be the refuge of bureaucrats to hire many more employees, to make the office managers look and feel important.
But what has happened in North America is the morphing of light rail into light metro with hugely expensive and in most cases useless viaducts and tunnels.
In Helsinki, they can lay a km. of tram track and overhead for about CAD $5.5 million/km.! In US speak under USD $10 million/mile.
http://railforthevalley.wordpress.com/2008/12/26/trams-on-the-cheap-part-2/
[...] The American Conservative: The Real Costs – A look at the exploding costs of rail transit systems: “Rail transit’s great enemy [...]
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