In Seattle, the AWV replacement project has been characterized by obstructionism from the start. By 2007, WSDOT was still planning to build their 6-lane elevated replacement, which shows Ms Crunican was not seriously considering alternatives. She allowed clueless environmentalist-types to believe the streetcar line could be installed in the Wide Plaza for years. When finally called out on the hazardous route, she dropped the Waterfront Streetcar line entirely. The current design for Alaskan Way boulevard will not handle traffic well, with or without the Deep-bore tunnel. The Deep-bore does not handle traffic anywhere near as well as the 4-lane cut-n-cover tunnel. The Mercer West project will do harm to Lower Queen Anne community, and SDOT plans are kept secret til it’s too late. She’s a rat luring progressive urban planners and clueless environmentalists into accepting inferior plans.

http://www.soundtransit.org/Riding-Sound-Transit/Rider-Alerts/Central-Link-Delays.xml

Central Link Light Rail – Central Link Light Rail Service Delays

Posted Date:12 / 08 / 09 – 12:00 a.m.

Due to switch problem encountered early Monday, December 7, 2009 please anticipate delays with train service.
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Note the posted date! It’s tomorrow! I assume they meant that service will be delayed today? Or is it tonight while they work on the switch? Either way, I think I’ll chose an alternate mode of travel.

The reason I cite Tri-Met because it is an example of a system that has had rail for over 20 years and it shows what the overall operational cost savings could be when we build our system out.

The page at http://www.publictransit.us/ptlibrary/specialreports/sr6.PortlandvsSeattle.htm compares operating costs of Seattle’s “all-bus” system vs Portland’s light rail trunk system.

For Sounder, I did not do any calculations, since I am not familiar with Sounder trains, but I expect it is the same: per car, not per train.

So the LINK operating cost per boarding in 2010 is projected to be higher than Metro’s average operating cost per boarding by a significant margin. Metro is $3.70 and LINK is projected to be $5.63. That is quite a difference. As of now, it costs a lot less to move people by Metro bus than by LINK, without even considering capital costs of each. Is that correct?

The cost/boarding is expected to decrease as ridership increases. The ST2 plan lists 2030 costs as follows:
Link light rail 88.5M annual riders (same as boardings?), $127M annual operating costs, $52 annual operating revenue, 41% farebox recovery. That’ll be $1.44/rider.

Metro has fare/operating cost ratios for each route by time of day in their Route Performance Report so you can see the breakdown. The recovery ratio can be as high as 71% (1 Kinnear during peak) or as low as 2% for rural routes.

ST Express consists only of limited stop, long-distance routes while Metro has a mix of services from inner-city to rural routes.

You can cherry-pick routes but the fact remains that system wide, Tri-Met’s costs per boarding are lower than Metro’s.

In general, the shorter of trip you take, the less chance of being checked for a fare. I estimate that fare checkers board a train about 1 of 5 times on a full trip between Westlake and Tuwkila. If you ride only between downtown and Beacon Hill, for example — as many people do — your chances of having your fare checked are much less, maybe one in ten.

And, for anyone intentionally trying to ride for free, all they have to do is stay alert, and leave the train whenever a fare checker boards. That is easy to do.