No Light Rail in Vancouver!
FasTracks Costs Up 179 Percent
No matter how disastrous rail transit plans turn out, their advocates can always count on public innumeracy to overlook the problems. Take the case of FasTracks, the plan to build 119 miles of new rail transit in Denver.
When approved by voters in 2004, RTD, the region’s transit agency, estimated it would cost $4.7 billion. Last May, that estimate went up to $6.2 billion, which RTD reluctantly admitted (two months later) it could not afford.
Now, the latest report indicates that the cost will be $7.9 billion. That’s 68 percent
above the voter-
Yet the very first comment to the Denver Post story about the latest hike is, “Build it no matter what it costs. It’s only 35% more.” So now, $6.2 billion has become the “approved” standard. (Actually, $7.9 billion is 35 percent more than $5.9 billion — who knows where that came from.) Worse, even one of the opponents (”Mike 8″) uses the 35 percent figure.
Actually, even 68 percent — the increase from $4.7 to $7.9 billion — is wrong. The
real decision to build FasTracks rail lines was made in the major investment studies
that RTD conducted between 1997 and 2001. These studies all compared the costs and
benefits of rail with alternatives including buses, new highway lanes, and HOV lanes.
As shown on page 9 of a report the Antiplanner wrote in 2004, every single study
found that rail transit was the least cost-
When added together, the studies estimated that the FasTracks rail lines would cost less than $3 billion (adjusted for inflation — see page 14 of this report). Actually, RTD did not prepare major investment studies for all FasTracks lines, but — in an appendix to the 2004 FasTracks plan — RTD admitted that the original cost estimate for all of the lines together was $2.8 billion, meaning that the costs had risen by about 68 percent by the time they put the issue to the voters.
The current estimated cost of $7.9 billion is a mere 179 percent more than the original cost. So much for building its lines on budget, which RTD repeated claimed it could and would do during the 2004 campaign.
When rails were estimated to cost $2.8 billion, buses were far more cost effective. Improvements in bus service can also be put into effect almost immediately instead of waiting 9 to 12 years to build rail lines. So what does that say about the cost effectiveness of rail at a $7.9 billion price tag?
On top of this, RTD’s Annual FasTracks evaluation reveals that the agency projects a $2.8 billion tax revenue shortfall (up from a previous projection of a $1 billion shortfall). So FasTracks is going to cost $3.2 billion more than projected and they have $2.8 billion less than projected — which adds up to a total $6.0 billion shortfall.
The problem is that human brains can’t comprehend any numbers larger than 5 or 6 except as abstract ideas. Most people have a pretty good abstract idea of how much a thousand dollars represents. But very few understand a million or a billion. I figure most people think a million is about twice a thousand, and a billion is about twice a million. So, when RTD says “$4.7 billion,” most people figure that’s about 20 times a thousand dollars.
Meanwhile, RTD made the mistake that many people say too many American consumers made in the past few years. It projected its revenues ahead for 30 years (optimistically assuming there would never be a recession during that period), then asked, “How much can we borrow today based on our ability to repay that debt?” Just as people have been accused of spending too much on cars or homes just because someone offered to loan them that much money, RTD planned a system that would consume all of its income and leave very little room for error.
And, by “RTD,” I mean RTD’s board of directors, which is made up of people who are no more numerate than most other Americans. Several of them firmly believe that rail is the most cost effective solution to Denver’s transportation problems despite the evidence in their own documents. (Either that or they are very effective liars, and maybe it is just the softness in my heart that I prefer to believe they are stupid than that they are liars.) In any case, if FasTracks gets built, it will only be because people are so easily confused by large numbers.
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Reprinted from The Antiplanner