I don’t think you can look at rail vs. buses without looking at travel time and capacity.

You can look at all those things. The rue cost per mile vs ridership lets you decide the margin cases. What headways make the most sense. At some times of day does it make more sense to run buses instead of trains (more flexible, feeder service required in some areas anyway). Does it make sense to extend the tracks or stick with buses. And a big one is fare structure (ridership vs actual recovery).

For travel times while link might not do better than buses outside of peak hour it will be much better than buses in peak hour since Link doesn’t get stuck in traffic congestion. In the case of U link and North link rail will have better travel times than buses during midday as well.

As to capital cost I will point out two things. First rail is still cheaper than adding a lane each direction to a highway. Yes U link and North Link are both expensive, but what would adding a lane to I-5 between downtown and Northgate cost? Second the capital cost of a rail line and exclusive ROW BRT are very similar. However the rail line has greater capacity and lower operating costs.

The .52 fare recovery is a nice improvement but it comes at a significant capital cost. How many jobs do you cut for every billion in capital spending?

Actually the spending creates good paying jobs. Subsidizing jobs through inefficiency doesn’t usually work (i.e. no self serve gas in Oregon). I don’t know how the numbers break down and it sure would be nice to see a study that doesn’t start with a conclusion and work backwards to support it.

My question is efficiency. If it cost a dollar a mile to move someone by train and you get 50% fare recovery buses at 60 cents per mile and 20% recovery are cheaper. Those numbers have no basis in fact, it’s just to illustrate what we need to look at. Operations and amortized capital costs need to be included in the analysis. The other biggy is true ridership based costs, not idealized full capacity. The percent fare recovery versus percent of full capacity would be very interesting to see.

It would be very, very bad to take away the 194 and replace it with something much, much more expensive.

But that’s what we voted for. The train is a much nicer ride for not a whole lot more money (zero if you’re using a pass). A lot of the fare from the airport will be out of towners. A classic way to increase revenue while minimizing impact on locals; like the tax on rental cars and the hotel/motel tax. If I remember right we paid a fairly hefty fair to take the train from downtown London out to Heathrow (and then you’re at Heathrow, yuck ;-).

Is there really a need for a low income subsidy to the airport? Maybe for some employees that would take the train from Rainer Valley but that can be handled through the employers by the Port of Seattle. I’d look at a $1 surcharge for the segment from Hwy 99 to the terminal. A free shuttle paid for by the hotels, airport parking and rental cars along International Blvd would provide the cheaper option and free up seats at the terminal. Sure it’s a bit elitist but don’t we really want this Portal to the City to shine? When we’re looking a service cuts a cheaper seat to the airport doesn’t seem like a priority.

If we eliminate subsidy for other forms of transporation I’d be willing to consider reducing or eliminating it for transit.

Well that requires state and (especially) local action. There is essentially no federal subsidy for roads. Rather, drivers subsidize other methods of transportation. The amount of money that comes out of the federal Highway Trust Fund for rail and transit and other uses is so enormous that you would have to envision a level of externalities exceeding that of any estimate I’ve seen. However, the state and (especially) local level is quite different, where local property taxes often pay for a lot of roads.

Actually, there has been federal subsidies for roads in the last two years, in the amended transportation budget and in the stimulus. Republicans opposed raising the gas tax, but also didn’t spend more on roads than in the gas tax trust fund. When the Democrats took Congress, they were either too scared to raise the gas tax or couldn’t get it past opposition (within and without), but felt that roads and bridges were underfunded, so money has been transferred from General Funds to roads and bridges for the first time in many, many years over the last two years.

http://transit.metrokc.gov/tops/bus/fare/fare-info.html#How_to_Pay