The Light Rail ‘Boondoggle’
Posted on 10. Aug, 2010 by Seth Anderson in Featured, News
Seth Anderson is one of the featured guest bloggers this week on LRB. In addition to his own blog where he talks about growing up Mormon, Arizona History, and some other thoughts, Seth also writes for Downtown Phoenix. An advocate of light rail, Seth was one of the original readers of my blog.
It’s the age old question: What came first? An urban community or the light rail?
When I was an economics student at ASU, class time was usually spent discussing the economics of current events. Proposition 400 had recently passed and my professors made no secret about their opposition to the half-cent transportation sales tax and what they called the “folly trolly.”
One professor argued that light rail was an unnecessary expense since busses were far cheaper to operate. More importantly she said, busses could be re-routed to follow growth patters, where as rail was permanent.
I disagreed with her then and I still do. Light rail doesn’t need to follow growth patterns. Light rail drives them.
The rail in Phoenix is not even 2 years old but we have already seen a movement of businesses, retail and residential developments towards the light rail path. The Tempe Gateway building, for example, uses its proximity to the 3rd and Mill station as a selling point. As does the Grigio Metro on Apache and McClintock. The phrase “near the light rail” is common in residential real estate listings.
Since the debut of the light rail, ridership has consistently exceeded expectations, even during the summer months. More interesting is that when Valley Metro increased the cost of a ticket on July 1 2009, ridership didn’t drop, it went up.
Far from being a “folly” or “boondoggle” as critics like to claim, the light rail is an economic engine that has given citizens and tourists convenient, affordable transportation options and was the missing element needed to create an urban landscape.
The answer to the age old question is simple: the light rail came first, and an urban community is growing up in the city around it.
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5 Responses to “The Light Rail ‘Boondoggle’”
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Matthew Petro
10. Aug, 2010
Great post! I agree that Phoenix has become more urban as a result of light rail. It seems that growth in Phoenix follows the money spent on transportation. When we spent a lot of money building freeways to the outer reaches of the Valley, we got huge developments out in the desert. When we spent money on light rail in the middle of town, we got urban projects.
I say, spend more money on light rail and expand it. We have more than enough houses out in the desert.
Michael
10. Aug, 2010
Seth – you have my empathy, studying economics at ASU. That aside, the light rail, connecting CenPho, downtown and downtown (Tempe), is one of the pieces to making Phoenix an urban community. Let’s hope the other puzzle pieces fill out the picture.
(Oh yeah, and Mesa and Christown are on the lightrail too…)
katiecakes
10. Aug, 2010
i agree with Seth. i would love to live closer to the lightrial, i would take it everywhere if i could. i lived with subways back east and didn’t even get my drivers license until i was 35. The lightrail is a blessing, especially in our pollution ridden city.
Chloe
11. Aug, 2010
Agreed! To extol the virtues of buses over rail is to catch a ride on the folly trolly. One constant remains – there are many, many people who will ride rail, who will not ride buses. Citizens and tourists alike fall into this category. Tourists are quick to hop a ride on the rail; rarely are they seen on buses.
P.S. – Raise my taxes for mass transit improvement any day!
coyote
20. Sep, 2010
I am sure everyone just loves the pretty trains, but you guys are so divorced from any kind of fiscal reality it is amazing. Sure, everyone loves to ride a train rather than a bus, particularly the rich and middle class who would not be caught dead on a bus (which is, by the way, light rail so often mirrors upper middle class commuting routes).
From your chart, take an average figure of 1,000,000 riders per month. that is 33,000 per day. Since these are one way boardings, divide by two to get 16,500 average daily round trip riders. Then, take the original capital cost of 1.4 billion. This is $84,848 in capital cost per average daily rider. Of course the users love it — they are getting an enormous taxpayer subsidy from the rest of us, and this does not even include large annual operating losses. How is $84,000 per person to commute make any sense? We could buy every daily rider a Prius and still save 2/3 the capital cost if we had not built it.
And don’t tell me that it reduces congestion. For most of its route, the line removed one lane (arguably two from Washington and Jefferson) in each direction. A lane of road has a capacity of 2,000 cars per hour or, even at one person per car, 24,000 people each way during the 12 hours of the business day. Light rail is only carrying 16,500 per day in each direction, so it actually increases congestion by using the lane of road less well.