But who knows what city taxpayers will end up getting for their “investment?”

Taxpayers likely won’t get the 17-mile route they were presented last year. After more than a year of study, it was recently announced that the first phase of expansion will run some 9 miles, roughly from Chippewa St. to the NGA site north of downtown, and will cost $700 million. The project is also totally dependent on federal funding, which is a big if at this point, and will begin operations, best case scenario, in a decade.

It’s also unclear whether the expansion will get St. Louisans out of their cars. While consultants project the line will carry some 9,200 riders a day, my colleague Joe Miller has pointed out that it runs through neighborhoods with relatively low population density—density about a quarter of what’s needed for light-rail to be successful. Also, overall MetroLink ridership is trending downward; not only has it lost 3.9 million annual rides since 2014, but the rail system carries fewer passengers than it did prior to the 2006 Shrewsbury expansion. And crime on and around MetroLink trains has, according to Metro, contributed to an 11% decline in ridership since last year. While I don’t doubt that an expanded system will (at least initially) carry more passengers, experience—and more than 15 years’ worth of data—suggest we shouldn’t get our hopes up.

Source: National Transit Database, Federal Transit Administration

But perhaps the biggest if is the economic renaissance promised by MetroLink officials and proponents. Transit advocates claim that rail spurs economic development, that, once you put the rails in, the traffic generated by riders will induce all sorts of business growth. Unfortunately, this claim just doesn’t hold up. Many MetroLink stations are surrounded by land that’s either (a) already developed (and likely heavily subsidized), or (b) relatively empty. In fact, transit-oriented and adjacent development is so scarce in St. Louis that rail advocates have to cast an incredibly wide net for any evidence of it. For instance, Citizens for Modern Transit, the region’s major transit advocacy group, includes investments on Interstates 64 and 70 and parking garages as development “spurred” by MetroLink. And Metro, which operates MetroLink, seems to think any investment within a half-mile of a rail station is causally linked to the presence of their trains. (Or, all they present is data on development within a half-mile of their stations.) Perhaps this is why consultants are now saying that MetroLink could “spur possibly millions of dollars in economic development….” (my emphasis).

At this point, it’s unclear what, if anything, taxpayers will get in return for hiking up their sales taxes. Although rail proponents may have inexhaustible faith, history and facts suggest taxpayers won’t get much for their investment.

The post What Will the City’s New MetroLink Tax Get Us? appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

Trolley officials “hope” their project will be up and running within the next month or two.

It feels as if I’ve written or said this more times than the project has actually been delayed, but: it’s hard to see the Loop Trolley as anything besides a policy disaster. Not only is there little evidence that the Trolley will accomplish all that its proponents promise, like increased transit-oriented development, but its leadership has rolled things out so poorly that it seems hard for the public to take the project seriously at all (see Exhibit A). It’s also hugely over-budget.

So, at this point, what do we do? How can we, or policymakers, try to make the current, regrettable situation any better? My suggestion is this: Spare us all the misery and simply admit you’ve got no clue when the Trolley will be up and running. Maybe you (Loop Trolley officials) have an idea of when it will be up and running, and maybe this time that idea is based on reliable information—who knows? Even so, the public has been toyed with so much that the best thing to do—the least damaging, that is—is to just say, “We don’t know when the Trolley will be up and running.”

As an academic and researcher, I’ve learned that sometimes (a lot of the time, actually) you need to admit that you just don’t know the answer to a question. Sometimes you can do far more damage by providing an answer that you’re unsure of than admitting you just don’t know the answer. Officials involved with the Loop Trolley project should, more than many others, understand this point.

The post Please, Just Give Us All a Break appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

Quote 1: “Trolleys are a proven catalyst for residential, commercial and recreational development in cities like Memphis, Little Rock, Tampa and Portland.”

Quote 2: “The evidence for the streetcar’s development effects is limited, controversial, and yet widely believed among many streetcar proponents.”

. . . Well?

If you guessed Quote 2, you’re right. It’s from a recent report by the Mineta Transportation Institute at San Jose State University. Quote 1 is from rail proponents on the Delmar Loop Trolleys’ website.

Despite the lack of empirical evidence, boosters of the Trolley—a 2.2-mile vintage streetcar line slated to begin service this spring—claim it will spur economic development. But as the authors of the Mineta report (and this one) explain, there is no solid link between streetcars and development.

And the development prospects look especially grim for the Loop Trolley.

Research shows that of all kinds of mass transit, ‘vintage’ or ‘heritage’ streetcar lines like the Loop Trolley are the least likely to generate development. That’s because of their low ridership and limited service. If the trolley doesn’t effectively serve as a transit amenity—for example, by getting people to work or school—it won’t attract economic activity. But the trolley is only projected to carry a paltry 800-1,200 passengers a day and won’t even start running until the lunch hour! To put that in perspective, a busy Metro bus route can carry anywhere from 5,000-9,000 passengers a day, and operates nearly 24 hours a day.

Trolley boosters might respond that the streetcar has already spurred development, including a new residential tower. But this response ignores the point driven home in the scientific literature: subsidies, relaxed zoning, and other perks do more of the spurring than the rail does. (In the case of the new East Delmar residential tower, the project received a 16-year tax abatement.) As a recent paper in the Journal of Public Transportation states, “The real explanation for Portland’s apparent redevelopment success is most likely a combination of these factors [namely, financial incentives and regulatory inducements], combined with a desirable location and a vibrant local real estate market” (p. 44).

The truth is, the Loop real estate market is doing just fine. Delmar is not blighted, and didn’t need a $51 million vanity streetcar to grow. And if our community wants to drive development east of Skinker, it will have the most success by lowering tax and regulatory burdens, not because it has a vintage trolley creeping by. 

The post The Unscientific Claims of Streetcar Boosters appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

• Over $440 million in road, bridge, and parking garage investments. That’s right, asphalt to drive and park your car on. (Most curious are improvements to Interstates 64 and 70.)
• $3.4 billion in renovations and expansions of established institutions like Barnes Jewish Hospital, Washington University, Saint Louis University, and the University of Missouri–St. Louis—investments that likely would have occurred with MetroLink or without.
• Another $785 million from government agencies and publicly funded sources—not the privately funded, mixed-use development rail advocates promise.
• CMT even associates another transit project—the $51 million Loop Trolley—with MetroLink.

Who, besides those ideologically wedded to rail, would think MetroLink is primarily responsible for these projects?

The chart below shows other developments that CMT associates with MetroLink. Even charitably assuming a causal link between rail investments and development, much of the economic activity CMT cites is tangentially related—at best—to MetroLink. So, be wary of claims about the economic payoff from rail investments. If MetroLink was so good at driving development, its advocates wouldn’t have to cast such a wide net for evidence of its success.

The post Has MetroLink Spurred Development? appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

In making the case for expanding the streetcar, Kansas City officials have claimed that the streetcar (despite the fact that it only recently opened) has spurred development within the rail’s transportation development district (TDD). But the data on the market value of property within the TDD tell a different story. In fact, as the chart below shows, property values within the streetcar’s TDD follow largely the same trajectory as property values did in the county as a whole. According to data provided by Jackson County, market values grew in the early 2000s, fell during the recession, and began rising again in 2014. While the market value of property within the TDD has grown faster than values in Jackson County as a whole from 2000 to 2015, that growth occurred before the TDD’s creation, and is mainly due to the construction of the Power and Light District (which opened in 2007).

If we simply look at market values after the streetcar’s TDD was finalized in 2012, Jackson County as a whole performed better than the TDD. This directly contradicts the idea that the Kansas City Streetcar is boosting development downtown:

So why the disconnect between city hall’s streetcar rhetoric and the actual property data? Findings from the latest report from the Federal Transit Administration on streetcar development may shed some light on the situation:

Almost all [civic] representatives interviewed believed that streetcars positively affected the built environment, particularly in attracting new development or enhancing revitalization, although the degree of impact varies. Few systems, however, reported the types of ancillary changes in the built environment, such as reduced parking garage construction, increased pedestrian or bike lane investments, or explicit parking reductions that often are associated with light rail systems. Few, if any, streetcar system operators seek information on their impact on economic activity, although most interviewed consider economic-related questions to be vital and desire further research on this topic. [emphasis added]

Put another way, never let the truth get in the way of a good story.  

The post Is the Streetcar a Development Magnet? appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

First, let’s analyze MetroLink’s effect on public transportation usage. It is true that people (including myself) use the MetroLink; the system handles an average of about 44,000 trips per day. However, MetroLink’s effect on total transit ridership has been modest. Despite the immense expenditures (around $3 billion) and multiple expansions, total bus and rail ridership today is lower than bus ridership alone was in 1991, three years before the MetroLink opened. Even worse, not all MetroLink expansions have even resulted in sustained higher MetroLink ridership. Take the case of latest expansion, from Forest Park to Shrewsbury, which opened in 2006. While the addition initially pushed rail ridership to new heights, ten years later total MetroLink ridership is lower than it was the year before the expansion opened.

The increasing supply of light rail, along with flagging enthusiasm for its use, has meant that in terms of passengers, MetroLink now has the lowest rate of use it has ever had, with only 2.55 riders per vehicle revenue mile.

Next let’s evaluate the MetroLink’s impact on development in Saint Louis. Consider the expectations of MetroLink’s proponents when the initial line opened in 1994. They hoped rail would generate urban renewal, with specific hopes that it would save Saint Louis Centre and bring life (and even a golf course) to East Saint Louis. Far from rejuvenating areas that were down on their luck, the MetroLink failed to prevent decline in areas of its route that appeared on the ascendency in 1994, like Union Station and Laclede’s Landing. Some areas near MetroLink stations have done well, like the Central West End or the Loop, but in these places development seems to be happening near the MetroLink, not radiating from it. With few exceptions, MetroLink platforms remain areas of quiet repose, far from businesses, residences, and crowds. It’s ironic, given the claims of rail advocates, that the true success stories of urban renewal in Saint Louis City are places like Soulard, South Grand, the Grove, and now Cherokee Street, located far away from any MetroLink station.

With regard to increasing transit usage in Saint Louis and spurring urban revitalization, the MetroLink has, to this point, been an expensive disappointment. There is no reason to think any MetroLink expansion will create different results. It’s time for the region to start looking for better, more cost-effective ways to achieve progress toward public transportation and development goals. 

The post Saint Louis Should Learn from MetroLink’s Disappointing Past appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

On January 8, the Huffington Post published a piece titled “A Streetcar Named Deception,” by Lawrence Hanley, president of the Washington, D.C., transit workers union. Hanley echoes many of the concerns made in this blog and elsewhere:

Streetcars today are of little, if any, use to those who actually depend on public transit as their primary means of mobility. Unlike light rail, heavy rail, and bus rapid transit, streetcars don’t have dedicated lanes to keep them moving free of automobile traffic. And in many cases, they run slower than a standard bus. And unlike a bus, a streetcar can’t shift out of its lane to avoid an obstacle, causing more traffic.

Streetcars also divert taxpayer money away from mobility-focused transit that helps working people and into boutique transit loops meant for “choice riders.” Meanwhile, bus service that takes people where they really must go gets short shrift, with routes being cut and fares going up. Adding insult to injury, streetcars are usually marketed as “sleek,” “premium,” “clean” ways for the rising urban class to get around. Rather than investing in and improving transit for everybody, politicians and their corporate backers are intentionally developing parallel transit systems—one for the well-to-do and one for the rest of us.

A month later, the New York Times published a piece arguing that money spent on streetcars is largely wasted:

“Bus-based public transit in the United States suffers from an image problem.”

That fact, laid out in a 2009 report from the Federal Transit Administration, isn’t surprising, but it has led to a perverse outcome: Transit agencies are spending millions of dollars on new rail infrastructure that is no faster than existing bus service, simply because riders perceive a train as better than a bus.

Many who are serious about effective transit have abandoned streetcars as a viable option. Why do Kansas City leaders persist when no one, especially Kansas City voters, thinks this is a good idea?

The post Streetcars Have Lost the Left appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

The case with Saint Louis and Kansas City, with only around 10 percent of the job market density of NYC, is considerably worse. In both cities, less than 1 percent of job opportunities in the city can be reached within 30 minutes of transit travel. Only around 5 percent of jobs can be reached within one hour. A chart of percentage of jobs available by transit travel time is below:

As a result, moving from suburban residences (where most Saint Louisans live) to suburban workplaces (where most Saint Louisans work) is not well served by transit. Furthermore, large employment centers in exurban areas are difficult to reach via transit at all. Despite significant investment and operating costs—usually more than $300 million per year in Saint Louis—it is clear that very few workplaces can be reached quickly via transit in Missouri.

What accounts for this disconnect? One factor may be that cities like Saint Louis and Kansas City are polycentric urban centers with employment clustering in different nodes across the metropolitan area. Focusing on Saint Louis, while virtually all of Saint Louis City and much of Saint Louis County has reasonable access to transit, much of the system is focused on bringing people in and out of the downtown core. A map of MetroBus accessibility is show below:

A second problem is that transit is time-costly even where it regularly operates, putting work locations outside the 30- or 60-minute transit range. Again taking Saint Louis as an example, it takes 30 minutes to travel from the Chase Park Plaza (in the Central West End) to City Hall via walking and transit. That is about as transit-friendly a route that exists in the city. Traveling from the Central West End to Monsanto headquarters for work (around 8.5 miles apart) would take an hour or more via transit, necessitating a commuter to leave at 7:38 a.m. to get to work by 8:55 a.m. The drive, depending on traffic, is less than 20 minutes.

These realities likely contribute to the very low share of commuters who choose transit in Saint Louis and Kansas City. And unfortunately, it is unlikely that any feasible increase in transit spending or service extension will meaningfully alter these realities. Without significantly rethinking how transit is provided, there is little chance the mode will be able to provide timely transportation for labor pools in Saint Louis and Kansas City.

The post Where the Buses Don’t Run appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

We have written many times before that using tax incentives to lure development either generally diverts development from other areas or, worse, provides tax breaks to development that would have occurred anyway. These abatements put the pressure of funding local services on businesses or areas of the city that are not so favored by the city council. This type of central planning by tax policy creates an uneven playing field that is unfair and ultimately economically damaging. Allowing a luxury property developer and future residents to pay lower property tax rates, when rates were just increased for the rest of Clayton, is questionable policy.

The argument that this development will boost transit ridership is also flawed. While changing zoning restrictions to allow less parking for a downtown building is not objectionable, using possible transit ridership to justify tax favoritism is bad policy. The relative affluence of Clayton has meant that local MetroLink ridership is far below what planners hoped for before the station opened in 2006. Original projections would have had the Clayton station serve 3,000 riders each weekday shortly after opening. Today, total ridership is 880 per weekday, and only 213 Clayton residents use the MetroLink to get to work. Four times that number walk.

The idea that luxury apartment dwellers will greatly boost this ridership is unlikely, because the affluent typically own vehicles and are much less likely to use transit than those with lower income. Even if all the residents of The Crossing did use public transportation, is it not enough that city, county, and federal government spent hundreds of millions building a light rail line to Clayton, and they continue to provide subsidized tickets that cover less than a third of that rail’s operating costs? Do we need to subsidize their luxury apartments next to the station as well?

Chances are some of the new residents will use transit, more will walk, and most will drive to their destinations. As for the local economy, the effects of diverting development and rearranging tax burdens will go unseen. But the good news is (for those with the means), new luxury apartments are coming on the market! And just wait until you see the location …

The post Luxury-Oriented Development in Clayton appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

“The stated goal of this project is economic development. That’s the dominant goal,” [Russ] Johnson said. “The dominant goal is not to have a lot of people ride it. The dominant goal is to develop the city.”

The Show-Me Institute has argued repeatedly, and apparently successfully, that streetcars do not contribute to economic development or provide reliable transit. More people are waking up to this fact.

CityLab, formerly The Atlantic Cities, just published a column titled, “Overall, U.S. Streetcars Just Aren’t Meeting the Standards of Good Transit,” and it is worth the read. The author offers the following:

• The most commonly cited problem with new streetcars—Matt Yglesias calls it the “original sin“—is that they tend to run in mixed traffic alongside cars. The resulting slow speeds, combined with the relatively short length of the lines (often just a mile or two), means many potential riders could sooner reach their destination by foot.

• Very few next-generation streetcar lines run with the sort of frequency that might counterbalance slow speeds or short distances.

• As streetcar skepticism grows louder, even among traditional transit advocates, there’s some confusion about its source. Some mistake it for an anti-rail sentiment (a misperception perpetuated when critical pieces quote actual rail opponents, as the Economist recently did). In fact, the true spirit of the concern is not anti-rail or anti-transit but anti-bad rail transit.

These three items appeared in the most recent campaigns for a streetcar: they ran along commercial thoroughfares; they were to run slowly and infrequently; and opponents were accused of just being anti-transit. The CityLab piece saves the best part for last. The author concludes that the reason streetcars fail to meet standards of good transit is because of boosters like Johnson:

“[The problem is] the way too many new streetcars are being deployed—as economic engines first and mobility tools second (if at all), even after being constructed with painfully limited transportation funding—that’s inspiring much of the criticism.”

Not only were Johnson and others who promoted economic development wrong on the facts, but transit supporters also are beginning to realize that streetcars don’t even provide worthwhile transportation.

The post Streetcars Aren’t Good Economics or Transit appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

We have written many times about the boondoggle that is the modern streetcar movement. Streetcars are incredibly expensive, often with a price tag of more than $50 million per mile, and do little to improve mobility. Claims that streetcars induce economic development are anecdotal at best, as streetcar lines are always paired with significant subsidies for developers and related investment.

Despite the very real costs of streetcars and their dubious benefits, Saint Louis City officials propose spending $35 million on Phase I of a streetcar from downtown to the Central West End. If the whole downtown to CWE Streetcar could actually be built for that amount, perhaps my objection would be less vehement. However, the total cost of the plan is estimated to be $540 million. That makes this Phase I investment less than 7 percent of the plan’s total costs. Even if the city can convince the federal government to unwisely pay for half of the total, the city still has to raise another $235 million. If the experience of other cities is any guide, Saint Louisans are in store for higher sales taxes, property taxes, and parking fees to pay the balance.

Another wasteful request is a plan to make “improvements” to the Forest Park-DeBaliviere and Delmar MetroLink stops. These improvements will waste taxpayer dollars to subsidize Transit-Oriented Development near MetroLink stations and accompanying aesthetic improvements. We have written about the empty promises of TOD, and this project is no exception. TOD often is nothing more than corporate welfare enabled by urban planners, succeeding only in diverting development at taxpayer expense.

TOD rarely succeeds in greatly increasing transit ridership, even if it can attract residents in the first place (not a given). If the MetroLink and the planned Loop Trolley are not enough incentive to bring more housing or new businesses near MetroLink stations, there is little reason spend $14 million of transportation sales tax money to make it happen.

Saint Louis City’s transportation wish list is just another example of why the proposed 0.75 cent sales tax is not good policy. Supposedly necessary because the Missouri Department of Transportation (MoDOT) cannot fund necessary highway improvements, the money instead will be spent on projects (or 7 percent of a project) with political support, not transportation merit.

The post Saint Louis City To Waste Sales Tax Monies On Streetcars, Transit-Oriented Development appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

One such claim is on page three, where the “Guide” suggests that the streetcar will:

Develop a transit spine around which existing transit can be more effectively organized.

What’s a transit spine? The term usually refers to bus rapid transit or rail corridors from which bus routes radiate. In a sense, the model works like highways and local streets. A driver takes a local road to the highway, which allows him/her to move quickly across the city, and then transfers to another local road to get to his/her destination. In transit, a resident would take a local bus to a light rail or BRT line, which moves him/her across the city quickly, then he/she would transfer to a local route for his/her destination. Of course, this concept only works if the transit spine: 1) spans a significant area of the city and 2) is significantly faster than local routes. The Downtown Streetcar is neither of those things. Using the streetcar as a transit spine would be like routing local roads to a highway that only went a couple miles and had a 30 mph speed limit and traffic lights.

There are many other examples of questionable claims in the “Guide,” but what perhaps goes unnoticed is the consistent use of unscientific, usually values-laden, urban planning concepts. These include:

• Livable communities. What, one might ask, is an unlivable community? Of course, planners have a definition that fits what they think a community should look like, but it is a subjective concept.
• Strong physical connection. A streetcar is supposed to create this between communities. It is a very soft concept that streetcars are simply defined as achieving. I know of no way this is testable.
• Expanding the cultural environment. Again, a strange concept that is only subject to highly dubious measurement.
• Authentic experience and authentic place. I find it hard to think of what an inauthentic experience or place is. Perhaps the Tokyo Dining Restaurant at Epcot Center? Or maybe the little Potemkin Villages that urban planners call transit-oriented development?

The “Guide” has little to be taken seriously, full of propaganda and values-charged language as it is. Unfortunately, this white noise is the basis of plans to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on streetcars and urban development subsidies.

The post An Authentic, Sustainable Blog Post That Creates A Strong Physical Connection Between Streetcars And Facts appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

According to the NextRailKC website, the 7.6 miles of streetcar could achieve anywhere from 13,700 to 23,200 passengers per weekday, based on modeling they have performed. With 7.6 miles of track, that is between 1,800 and 3,000 weekday passengers per mile. While models can be useful, at some point, someone should have checked what streetcars achieve in other cities.

Simply put, these ridership estimates are unrealistic. The high-end estimate would make it the most successful streetcar line in America according to ridership. It would have more riders than Seattle, the busiest streetcar line in America, which is only a mile long and is right in the heart of downtown Seattle. Do they really think that is going to happen?

If Kansas City achieved its low estimate of 13,700 riders per day, it would be performing about as well as Portland’s streetcar.  Portland’s system is considered highly successful in terms of riders, but there are reasons to think that Kansas City will have difficulty reaching Portland’s ridership levels. Portland has offered streetcar users low fares (originally there were free zones and the price eventually increased to $1) and used significant subsidies for transit-oriented development.  In addition, rail lines in Portland run through much denser population centers than what is proposed in Kansas City.

Of course, other streetcars see much less ridership than Portland’s and Seattle’s. Streetcars in Memphis, Tenn., and Kenosha, Wis., each had ridership below 1,000 daily passengers per mile. Why do Kansas City planners see no possibility of their streetcar performing at that level?

It is possible that the Kansas streetcar will be wildly successful, and garner 23,200 passengers on an average weekday. But that is not something that is fair to sell to the public as a likely occurrence. The lower estimate, 13,700, is a more realistic maximum estimate given the performance of existing streetcar operations in other cities.

The post The Overly Optimistic Estimates For The Kansas City Streetcar appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

In Saint Louis and Kansas City, less than 4 percent of the population uses public transportation regularly. While both cities have bus services, Saint Louis has only two light-rail lines and Kansas City has none. Both have streetcar systems in the works, but they have not been completed. This, if we believe those who push for trains and trolleys, is failure. To them, success is a city like Portland, Ore.

Portland, with a comparable metro population to Saint Louis and Kansas City, has a light-rail system, extensive streetcar service, buses, transit-oriented development, and bike share programs. Transit heaven. However, according to the U.S. census, only 10 percent of Portland residents use transit to get to work while 81 percent drive (71 percent drive alone). Despite the city’s much publicized streetcar investments, the major growth category for commuting in Portland is telecommuting, not transit. Providing 10 percent of the population with transit cost Portland almost $4 billion in capital expenses in the last 20 years, none of which has been recovered from commuter fares. That number does not include the cost of maintenance and regular operation. In fact, Portland invested $1.7 billion of capital in transit since 2000 to see total public transit commuters rise from 7 percent to 10 percent.

To sum it up, if Kansas City and Saint Louis invest billions in infrastructure, cordon off growth, and subsidize transit-oriented development (as Portland has), they might get 10 percent of people to commute on public transportation. This is progress if the only measure of success is getting people on transit regardless of cost. However, if the goal is to create economically efficient transportation options for Missouri, this approach is ineffective. Even if your goal is to get as many people on public transit as possible, there has to be a better way.

The post Public Transit: What Does Success Look Like? appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

The post Kacie Galbraith Discusses Transit Oriented Development on The McGraw Show appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

This is what has happened in Saint Louis and what would happen in Kansas City. Ridership from valuable and successful bus transit is depleted in favor of a much more expensive and much less flexible rail transit. In 1999, Tom Irwin, who was executive director of Saint Louis’ transit authority, the Bi-State Development Agency (now Metro), indicated that increases in rail ridership — in the face of a fare increase — seemed to come directly from bus ridership. From a 1999 St. Louis Post-Dispatch article:

The increase in light-rail riders is canceled out by the drop in bus ridership, meaning the agency’s revenue remains relatively flat, Irwin said. That’s because there are more bus passengers than rail riders, so each percentage point signifies a greater number of riders.

Years later, in 2008, Metro threatened to cut about half of its bus routes in Saint Louis if a sales tax, partially to expand light rail, was not approved. In other words, they would sacrifice efficient bus transit to pay for inefficient rail transit.

Kansas City voters have rejected light rail multiple times, so city officials contrived a special tax district in which only 300 affirmative votes were necessary to embark on a multi-million dollar city outlay. The line they propose will be along existing roads, and likely will not attract the traffic (or the convention business) to fill them. What is certain is that it will never be self-funding, but instead will require taxpayer subsidies in perpetuity.

Supporters of light rail will never be dissuaded from their vision. Economics will not do it, studies such as these will not do it, and in Kansas City, even repeated rejection from voters will not do it.

The post Light Rail Does Not Replace Cars appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

Citizens for Modern Transit recently hosted a luncheon with national TOD expert Dena Belzer on the Economics of Building Around Light Rail. I had an opportunity to review her Powerpoint presentation, which did not convince me of any such economic benefit.

Granted, I have to hedge my comments with the fact that I did not physically attend the presentation. That being said, the most outrageous trend running throughout the presentation is that TOD will save money. It will save money for the government, it will save money for households, employees, employers — pretty much everybody.

The presentation suggests that compact development helps municipalities save money. Just like you save money at Jos. A. Banks buying two suits to get the third one free, when you did not even need a suit. Spending money just to get a “good deal” is not always a good justification for spending that money.

And what about households? Belzer’s presentation suggests that TOD can save households billions of dollars and that money can be reinvested in the community. First of all, TOD will not save us money when we are paying for it in our taxes.

Secondly, she cites figures that suggest Portland’s transit policies save residents $2.6 billion per year. However, more than half of that imaginary figure comes from the estimated value of commute time that has been reduced due to transit options — the opportunity cost. I do not know about you, but I have not found a way to manufacture gold coins from the time I save on days that traffic is light. Nor do I mind my commute to work. Many people choose to spend more time commuting in favor of lower housing costs, community preference, or a variety of other factors.

Other people prefer to use transit or live near a Metro stop and enjoy a predictable commute. There is nothing wrong with that. However, it is not a sufficient reason to compel all taxpayers to subsidize housing, retail, and office facilities around transit stops so that planners can impose their views on the rest of us.

The post The Questionable Economics Of Building Around Light Rail appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

The post Transit-Oriented Development: The Economic Development Myth appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

You still got a carrot, but it definitely was not what you were expecting. Believe it or not, government-subsidized economic development programs often end up with the same result. It may seem like these new Transit-Oriented Developments will create jobs and attract new investment to the area. And you might see some new stores pop up and think, “Wow, this is progress.”

But what is underneath? In the Saint Louis area, governments provided about $2 billion of economic development incentives for retail development from 1990 to 2007. Over this time, only 5,400 retail jobs were added to the region. You might say, “That is better than no jobs, Kacie, stop being such a Debbie Downer.” But the East-West Gateway Council of Governments released a report that estimates each one of these jobs costing about $370,000 each.

That is insane! If you knew the real cost before these types of projects were put into place, would you still support them?

The post Finally, The Numbers: TOD Problems (Part 3 of 3) appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

New Transit-Oriented Development (TOD) in Saint Louis is a tool the government uses as an attempt to design where and how we live. They want to make more people ride the Metro, reduce car trips, and increase economic development in the area. There is nothing wrong with wanting economic development, but the government cannot see into the future. I used to work for the government, so trust me — they know just as much as you or I do. They cannot prove that Transit-Oriented Development will achieve their goals.

Just because the government creates shops and housing around a Metro station, it does not mean that more people will want to ride the Metro. Those who already used the Metro will continue to ride it, but those of us who prefer to drive our cars will continue to drive our cars.

Surveys suggest that four out of five Americans prefer a home with a yard as opposed to living near shops, transit, or jobs. It is a waste of resources to create TODs because they simply are not capable of achieving the intended goals. If the government really wants us to ride the Metro, they will have to do something more drastic, such as shutting down all the roads, or making it illegal to drive. But I think it is safe to say those things will not happen.

The post We Like the ‘burbs: TOD Problems (Part 2 of 3) appeared first on Show-Me Institute.