No Light Rail in Vancouver!
Light rail costs too much, does too little
Cleveland: While most American rail transit systems either date from before the Depression
or were started after 1975, Cleveland is unique in having rail lines that were built
in the 1950s. Despite upgrades to these lines, transit has been doing poorly. But
in 2005, ridership jumped an astounding 13 percent, including a 21-percent increase
in light-rail riders. These increases pushed transit’s share of travel from an amemic
1.1 percent to 1.3 percent.
Dallas-Ft. Worth: As it expands its rail system, Dallas is in the uncomfortable position
of losing more bus riders than it gains rail riders. Light-rail ridership grew by
nearly 7 percent in 2005, but bus ridership fell by 8 percent. Since there are a
lot more bus than rail riders, overall ridership fell by 4.6 percent. The Dallas-to-Ft.
Worth commuter rail also lost riders, but its numbers are so low that it is irrelevant
(except to the taxpayers who have to subsidize it). Despite the overall loss in ridership,
the transit agency claims a 12.7 percent gain in passenger miles, but that was not
enough to significantly improve transit’s 0.6 percent share of travel.
Denver: Denver’s transit system is doing well, though bus ridership is actually growing
faster than rail. Transit trips posted a 4.6-percent gain in 2005, with a 9.0 percent
growth in transit passenger miles. So transit’s share grew from 1.3 to 1.4 percent.
A new light-rail line opened two months ago and the transit agency is busy planning
several more lines approved by voters in 2004. However, cost overruns are forcing
the agency to plan several cuts from the service that was originally promised.
Houston: Houston’s bus ridership and its share of passenger travel was growing steadily
before the region decided to build light rai. But the 2004 opening of a downtown
light-rail line, known locally as the “wham-bam tram” because of the weekly accidents
it is involved in, was accompanied by a decline in overall transit ridership. Although
light-rail ridership doubled in 2005, the system lost more bus riders than the gain
in rail riders and posted a 1.6-percent overall decline in ridership and a 3.6-percent
decline in transit passenger miles.
Los Angeles: L.A. posted a 10-percent gain in transit riders, led by a 15.6-percent
gain in light-rail riders. The Los Angeles transit system took a major beating between
1985 and 1995 when rail cost overruns forced the transit agency to raise bus fares
and cut back bus service, thereby losing 17-percent of its riders. A NAACP lawsuit
charging racial discrimination forced the agency to restore bus service and led it
to focus more on transit riders than on rail utopias. Bus ridership in 2005 almost
returned to the 1985 level, and total ridership greatly exceeded that in 1985. Transit’s
market share grew from 1.6 to 1.8 percent.
Miami-Ft. Lauderdale: This region’s transit system suffers from an expensive mixture
of modes: bus, heavy rail, commuter rail, and people mover. When the heavy-rail and
people-mover systems installed in the early 1980s failed to excite much transit growth,
Miami focused on bus service instead and saw steady ridership growth. Ft. Lauderdale
has run an expensive commuter-rail line that carries hardly any riders. In 2005,
transit ridership grew a respectable 4.8 percent, most of which was in the bus system.
Transit’s share grew modestly from an unremarkable 0.93 percent to 0.98 percent.
Minneapolis-St. Paul: The Twin Cities suffered a transit strike shortly before opening
its first light-rail line in 2004, so it would be a surprise if it did not post gains
in 2005. In fact, total ridership grew by nearly 21 percent. Transit’s share grew
from 0.8 to 1.0 percent. We will soon see if it can sustain this growth.
New Orleans: 2005 transit data for New Orleans (not to mention most of the transit
system itself) was a casualty of Hurricane Katrina.
New York: The big apple’s transit ridership grew by a modest 2.7 percent in 2005,
but passenger miles actually declined — for some reason, reported commuter-rail trips
lengths have declined. So transit’s share fell from 9.7 to 9.6 percent.
Philadelphia: Philadelphia’s transit ridership grew by just two-thirds of one percent
in 2005 and transit’s share of passenger travel remained at 2.5 percent. The region’s
transit ridership has been trending upwards since 1998, but it is still 11 percent
below 1984 levels, when transit carried nearly 4 percent of the region’s travel.
Pittsburgh: In a reversal of previous trends, Pittsburgh transit posted a 1.9-percent
gain in 2005. It will be interesting to see if this is a new trend or just a blip
in the region’s downward spiral which has cost it nearly 30 percent of its transit
riders since 1982. Transit’s market share is a barely perceptible 1.3 percent.
Portland: Partly due to recent expansions of its light-rail system, Portland posted
a 10-percent gain in light-rail riders and a 2.3 percent gain in bus riders. Passenger
miles, however, actually declined for both modes. As a result, transit’s share of
regional passenger travel fell from 2.3 to 2.2 percent.
Sacramento: California’s capitol city has also been expanding its light-rail system,
and light-rail trips grew by 9 percent in 2005, while total transit trips grew by
3.3 percent. Transit passenger miles grew by 4.0 percent, but driving grew by 6.6
percent, so transit’s market share declined slightly from 0.72 to an even more insignificant
0.70 percent.
Salt Lake-Ogden: Did Salt Lake City have a world’s fair in 2005? The Utah Transit
Authority reported an unbelievable 45-percent increase in transit ridership in 2005,
which earned a “Q” from the FTA. Bus trips supposedly grew by even more than light-rail
trips, but passenger miles only grew by 20 percent. If the numbers are correct, they
pushed transit’s share of travel from 1.0 to 1.2 percent. But to show just how difficult
it is for transit to make a difference, even if Salt Lake transit could maintain
this incredible growth, it would take more than four decades for transit to reach
10 percent of regional travel. (At more reasonable rates of growth, it would at best
take well over a century.)
San Diego: Light-rail trips grew by 10 percent, but bus trips declined and commuter-rail
trips grew by an imperceptible 0.2 percent. So total transit trips grew by only 1.5
percent and overall transit passenger miles by 2.2 percent. That was enough to push
transit’s share of travel up slightly from 1.08 to 1.10 percent.
San Francisco-Oakland: Transit trips grew by 2.4 percent and transit passenger miles
by merely 0.7 percent. Calculation of transit’s share of travel is obscured by a
splitting of the San Francsico urbanized area into several smaller areas. Highway
Statistics reports a decline in driving in the San Francisco-Oakland area, but that
is because no data are provided for the parts of the region that were in the 2004
data.
San Jose: The Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority (VTA) continues its slide
into oblivion with another 3-percent loss in passengers in 2005. This respresents
a total loss of 34.4 percent since 2001. VTA opened a new light-rail line which gained
21-percent more riders for the light-rail system, but it lost more bus riders than
it gained rail riders. The number of riders on the Altamont Commuter Express line
grew slightly, but they are an insignificant number anyway. Transit’s overall market
share stayed constant at about 0.9 percent.
Seattle: Seattle voters had the good sense to cancel a monorail project but were
not given a chance to kill a light-rail project that has gone way over budget. This
cost might be having an impact on bus ridership, which had grown rapidly until recently,
but by only by about 2 percent in 2005. Transit’s share remains at 1.8 percent. Puget
Sound Transit doubled its commuter-rail lines in 2004 leading to a 33-percent increase
in commuter-rail trips. But since commuter rail accounts for only 1 percent of the
region’s transit riders, this is more for show than for any real effect.
St. Louis: The bi-state light-rail line posted an 8-percent increase in riders, but
they lost bus riders, so the overall growth in transit trips was only 1.2 percent.
Transit passenger miles grew by even less — 0.4 percent — so transit’s share remained
constant at about 0.7 percent.
Washington, DC: Transit trips grew by a respectable 4.2 percent, with the largest
gains posted by the buses — 5.1 percent — while the subway system grew by only 3.5
percent and Maryland and Virginia commuter-rail trips grew by 3.9 percent. Passenger
miles, however, actually declined, due solely to a decline in subway passenger miles.
As a result, transit’s share of regional passenger travel fell from 4.2 to 4.0 percent.
Conclusions: High fuel prices in the early 1980s gave many transit systems a boost.
But most systems in regions with rail transit have lost a significant share of travel
since then. Even if high gas prices in 2006 led to an increase in transit ridership,
few will approach the 1982-1984 shares.
I suspect that if, instead of investing billions to build rail lines in a few corridors,
transit agencies had concentrated on improving bus service throughout their regions,
transit riders today would be better served by those systems. In a future post, I’ll
look at 2005 transit ridership in regions with all-bus systems to see how they compare
with rail regions.
Region-by-Region Review of Rail Transit
About twenty-five urban areas had rail transit in 2005. Transit systems in five of
these lost market share to the automobile, they gained in eight, and in eleven they
held their own (when measured to the nearest tenth of a percent). Data for the twenty-fifth,
New Orleans, are not available.
“Holding their own” may sound good for transit systems in our auto-oriented society.
But it is a disappointment when so much more has been promised for the expensive
rail lines being built in so many cities. This is especially true when all but seven
of these transit systems — rail and bus — carry under 2 percent of total passenger
travel in the regions they serve.
Atlanta: Atlanta transit ridership grew slightly in 2005, but not as fast as driving.
After first opening its rail lines in the late 1970s, transit ridership had grown
rapidly, reaching 2.0 percent of regional travel by 1983. But then, despite continued
expansions of the rail system, ridership began a long slow decline. The 1996 Olympics
gave it a boost, but it has mostly declined since and now the transit system carries
only 1.05 percent of passenger travel.
Baltimore: Despite a much ballyhooed light- and heavy-rail system, Baltimore’s transit
ridership declined by 9 percent in 2005. The biggest decline was in light rail, which
lost nearly 15 percent of its riders, while buses lost more than 10 percent. Heavy
rail increased slightly; driving increased by 1 percent. Transit’s market share,
which had reached 2.4 percent in 1984, fell to 1.4 percent.
Boston: The Massachusetts Bay Transit Authority is notorious for earning the “Q”
— meaning “questionable” — rating from the FTA for its transit statistics. In 2005,
it reported a 16-percent increase in bus trips but a 6-percent decrease in bus passenger
miles. Overall transit trips supposedly increased by 1.4 percent but transit passenger
miles supposedly declined by 7 percent. Because I calculate market share based on
passenger miles, transit’s share of Boston passenger travel declined from 3.4 to
3.1 percent. Even if the trip numbers are more reliable, they did not grow as fast
as the 3.6-percent growth in driving. Boston’s experiment with density and transit
is failing.
Buffalo: Buffalo started building a light-rail system expecting rapid population
growth which never materialized. In 2005, bus ridership grew — by 2.7 percent — for
the first time in years, but rail ridership declined by 2.0 percent. Transit’s market
share is down to 0.6 percent.
Chicago: Chicago, which saw a 27-percent decline in transit ridership between 1985
and 1995, was one of the few bright stars in the rail universe in 2005. Transit ridership
grew by 3.6 percent, including a 4.5-percent increase on the elevated but only a
1.6-percent increase on commuter trains. Transit even increased market share from
3.6 to 3.7 percent. Of course, ridership is still 20 percent below 1985 levels, but
at least the trend is in the right direction.
Reprinted from The Antiplanner
Change 2004-2005 Transit Share
Trips Pass. Mi. 2004 2005
Atlanta 1.8% 0.5% 1.1% 1.1%
Baltimore -9.1% -1.4% 1.5% 1.4%
Boston 1.4% -6.5% 3.4% 3.1% Q
Buffalo 1.6% 5.0% 0.6% 0.6%
Chicago 3.6% 3.2% 3.6% 3.7%
Cleveland 13.2% 16.4% 1.1% 1.3%
Dallas-Ft. Worth -4.6% 12.7% 0.6% 0.6%
Denver 4.6% 9.1% 1.3% 1.4%
Houston -1.6% -3.6% 0.9% 0.9%
Los Angeles 9.9% 6.8% 1.6% 1.8%
Miami-Ft. Lauderdale 4.8% 6.5% 0.9% 1.0%
Minneapolis-St. Paul 20.9% 23.4% 0.8% 1.0%
New Orleans RIP
New York 2.7% -1.4% 9.7% 9.6%
Philadelphia 0.7% 2.6% 2.5% 2.5%
Pittsburgh 1.9% 2.2% 1.3% 1.3%
Portland 4.7% -1.7% 2.3% 2.2%
Sacramento 3.3% 4.0% 0.7% 0.7%
Salt Lake City 45.1% 20.6% 1.0% 1.2% Q
San Diego 1.5% 2.2% 1.1% 1.1%
San Francisco-Oakland 2.4% 0.7% 3.9% 4.0% Q
San Jose -3.2% 0.6% 0.9% 0.9%
Seattle 2.0% 5.9% 1.8% 1.8%
St. Louis 2.1% 0.4% 0.7% 0.7%
Washington, DC 4.2% -2.3% 4.2% 4.0%
Q - Questionable (see text)
