Kemper Freeman is fighting light rail in Vancouver. Well, not himself, but by proxy with Michael Ennis at the Washington Policy Center doing the dirty work. Kemper’s a big donnor to WPC (Jon DeVore at HA has some details on where WPC gets its money, and how they spend it). Some in Clark county way to extend Portland’s Max across the Columbia to Vancouver. Mike Ennis’s opinion piece in the Columbian is so full of absurdities as to almost be hilarious.
Light rail does not reduce traffic congestion. In 2005, light-rail systems on the West Coast served only about 2 percent of the work force in their service areas. On average, these systems only remove between 0.39 percent and 1.1 percent of cars from the roadway.
As I’ve said a million times at this blog, the goal is to move people, not cars. I don’t really care whether cars disappear from the road. As people move here (and Portland/Vancouver), there will always be more cars.
Light rail is expensive and it requires significant public assistance. On average, West Coast light-rail systems need taxpayer subsidies to pay for 73 percent of operations and 100 percent of capital improvements every year.
Yeah and roads make tons of money, that’s why we have such an easy time replacing the Viaduct and the 520 bridge. So do buses, those things are cash cows! I wonder what the figure is for the BRT that Ennis loves so much?
Light rail is far less efficient than a bus system. Attracting a new rider to light rail costs 16 to 47 times as much as attracting a new rider to a traditional bus system. And when accounting for passenger demand, West Coast light rail is 12 percent more expensive to operate than bus service.
Sure the capital costs of rail are large compared to buses, so it’s not surprising that rail costs more to “attract a rider”, but that statistic is massively misleading. And the 12% figure is not only wrong, it ignores the fact that advertising revenues are 15~25% of operating costs for rail systems, while just 10% for bus systems.
Just to get an idea of what kind of guy Ennis is, check out this post from the WPC blog:
On this Earth Day, I’m reminded of the push for highly dense, urban centers by incorporating transit oriented development (TODs). The idea is to build residential and commercial development along a railway or transit station. Through public subsidies and tax breaks, TODs typically require government manipulation of the market to attract the new community. Some also result in high vacancy rates and empty businesses because of the unnatural market.
Here is Thailand’s version of a TOD:
I wish I could make this stuff up.
So Mike Ennis is a big transit fan I take it?
That post of his is remarkably juvenile.
That video link is dead … I’m curious what it was supposed to link to.
Thanks for the link to the analysis. It was very poorly done. He conveniently made a lot of assumptions that downplayed rail ridership. At first I read your post I thought you were a little too harsh with the fellow, but I have to say, he certainly deserved it for being not even being credible.
Phil-
I think that is a video of a train passing through a market in Thailand.
Basically shot of busy street market scene. Suddenly the street clears of people and vendors pull their goods and awnings from the street. Train passes through (turns out market is along a rail ROW). Street fills with awnings, goods, and people again.