 |
Click here to order back issues. |
| July 25, 2008 |
 | |||||||
|
|
|
|
Case Study: Seattle's Link Light Rail Sound Transit (ST) gained voter approval to build Link, a 21-mile light rail line from Seattle's University District to SeaTac, for $1.7 billion(1995 dollars). By the time it submitted its proposal to the Federal Transit Administration for funding, that part of the project already had ballooned to $2.1 billion (also 1995 dollars). Since then, admitted costs have pushed it past $2.2 billion, and some major, as-yet-unestimated costs have emerged. Further, as costs began to soar out of control, ST began eliminating and deferring stations-apparently in a belief that access and egress to the trains are expendable options. So more than $500 million in anticipated cost overruns will be accompanied by a less-than-promised system. Even before it cut back on stations, ST projected Link would attract only 32,000 "new riders" by 2010. Since it counts each one-way trip, that's only 16,000 autos removed from the daily commute, at best. Taking the $2.2 billion figure, that's a $137,500 capital investment, in1995 dollars, for each automobile removed by 2010. In current dollars, the figure will approximate $175,000-and higher still if costs are not contained or ridership goals are not met. Even so, that is somewhat better than Sound Transit's new commuter rail line, the Sounder. It will serve 5,000 "new riders" (i.e. 2,500 new round-trip commuters) for a capital investment of $670 million. That's a$268,000 capital investment for each auto removed from the daily commute(1995 dollars). Though Link and Sounder also will serve people who currently ride buses, that's hardly a bargain, because that entails escalating the cost of serving current transit patrons. Buses are heavily subsidized; trains require considerably higher subsidies. Further, experience has shown that the new bus lines necessary to convey train riders to and from the stations are markedly less efficient than established bus lines, so subsidies for train riders are even higher than they appear. Between the 1996 vote approving these projects, and the up-and-fully-operating date of 2010, the region's population will grow by 600,000 people. So even if Link and Sounder are 100 percent successful, their addition to transit ridership will equal a puny three percent of the region's population increase during development. It is a plan that guarantees much worse congestion even as the community's scarce capital assets massively hemorrhage away. Of course this is only phase I, which stars the gold-plated Link "starter rail" system. A supposed shake-down for Puget Sound's future urban rail era, in which legions of people will putatively live in "transit-oriented communities," to facilitate their switch from auto to train. Folks have been sold a mirage that one day there will be a train station handy to where they are, that will take them conveniently to the places they want to go. But it is inescapable that the dream will quickly encapsulate itself. Here's why: By 2010, phase I is scheduled to be complete and fully operating. While voter-approved Sound Transit taxes will continue to gush at roughly $250million per year, overhead costs to support phase I will absorb about $100million annually. Annual debt payments on $1.4 billion in long-term notes will absorb most of the remaining $150 million for decades to come. There will be little fiscal capacity for expansion beyond the so-called "starter rail," unless the public votes to increase its hefty transit tax burden still further. The sad story related above is, in fact, the hopeful version. It stipulates that Sound Transit will accomplish what it said it would; reality will be much darker. Sound Transit's representatives insisted that cost estimates were "very conservative." Already that's proven to be false, and the tough construction challenges lie ahead. Sound Transit solemnly promised it would not go back to the state for more money, because those scarce resources are required for other important transportation needs. That pledge has been violated, too. Sound Transit launched a massive lobbying effort to extract more money from the 2000 legislative session, demanding a flow of added state funds to continue for years, plus generous tax breaks. And how about the understanding with the public that taxes could be rolled-back after phase I? It's clear that's as false as the other promises. Now Sound Transit is pondering proposing still-higher sales taxes merely to complete phase I, plus stretching hoped-for federal funding grants further and further into the future, taking money from other transit needs. For sure, its finances are in such a mess that it desperately needs More. Butthe prospect of solving its problems with another tax increase will face the issue of broken trust: next time the voters will be more seasoned, enlightened, and wary. Sound Transit spent $90 million to plan and promote its system. It has proven to be skillful at promoting and not so good at planning. Its tunnel under the ship canal was to be relatively shallow, but soil conditions-which Sound Transit tested only after it selected and committed the route-necessitate University District rail stations as deep as 260 feet under ground, which makes them candidates for the world's deepest. Imagine! Rather than hop on a bus for the current ten minute ride from the University District to downtown, a transit patron will start her venture with a subterranean, 26-story plunge! Sound Transit also determined it has to tunnel under Beacon Hill, which was not anticipated before the election-but it won't provide a station to serve the residents of Beacon Hill, because it's too costly. It planned to make the existing downtown bus tunnel serviceable for trains mainly by working nights and weekends-but the necessary alterations and excavations are so massive the tunnel must be closed for two years at least. These illustrative, major alterations, each with huge cost implications, have not been realistically factored into the estimated cost, or bonding. And they raise disturbing questions about the competence and veracity of Sound Transit's leadership. That's the cost side, or part of it. The benefits side of the equation looks similarly disillusioning and suspect. Downtown businesses were assured that Link light rail would share the existing downtown tunnel with buses, and that the bus/train tunnel would add needed capacity to move transit patrons through Seattle's hourglass core. So they supported the plan, until the truth caught up. It turns out those assurances also were false. The tunnel can't accommodate both trains and buses, so buses currently in the tunnel will be added to already gridlocked surface streets. And the service capacity of the trains will be less, not more, than the transit capacity of the tunnel today, with buses. With so much else going haywire, people have begun to wonder about Sound Transit's ridership projections. But the agency keeps its models and electronic data secret, and thereby avoids having it subjected to independent review. This adds to the suspicion that ridership claims are inflated, which is normal for rail projects. Meanwhile the official metropolitan planning agency, Puget Sound Regional Council (PSRC), on whose modeling Sound Transit is supposed to rely, has radically downgraded its estimations for transit ridership growth between now and 2010, as indicated in PSRC's May 28, 1998 update of its Progress Report for the 1995 Metropolitan Transportation Plan. Why Do People Support Rail Projects? The Seattle area has terrible traffic congestion, among the worst in the nation. The population is growing rapidly, vehicle miles traveled are growing even faster, and people are desperate to see something done. In1988, King County councilman Greg Nickels channeled that frustration into anon-binding, advisory ballot which said, "Should public funding for the development of a rail transit system to serve the residents of King County be accelerated so that service in King County can begin before the year2000?" It didn't indicate how much, it didn't balance costs and benefits, or consider alternatives, just do you want rail? The advisory proposition won, and that victory has been used as a political mandate to build a rail system, cost be damned, benefits be damned. The fact that both state and federal statutes require the genuine consideration of alternatives, and their economic and environmental impacts, has been finessed. A Regional Transit Authority (RTA) was formed to pursue transit needs for Pierce, King, and Snohomish counties, with Seattle at its core. When a state representative from Seattle, Dick Nelson, agreed to co-sponsor a bill authorizing the RTA in the state legislature, he was explicitly promised that it would search for the best alternatives, not just push trains-but that promise was not kept. Lobbyists representing METRO, the City of Seattle, and King County assured me that all feasible alternatives would be considered. Since I was one of a handful of Seattle legislators on either of the legislature's transportation committees, they needed my active support for the legislation authorizing the Regional Transit Authority. And they knew that I was skeptical of rail as a technical fix for a complex transportation problem. Indeed, the bill I cosponsored does not specify rail transit. But after the legislation passed, it soon became abundantly clear that the RTA had no intention of giving serious consideration to comprehensive improvements to the existing bus system to increase its utilization, or to pursuing low-cost strategies to manage growing auto travel demand. They simply wanted to build a rail system, irrespective of its costs and benefits. As RTA went from a gilded $13 billion rail plan that wasn't politically viable, to a $6.7 billion rail plan that lost at the ballot, it never considered the relative merits or costs of rail-just how to get rail past the voters. Ironically, RTA's $3.9 billion measure that passed in 1996included high-occupancy vehicle lanes and suburban express buses-because RTA's polls indicated that that would make the rail package more palatable.(In scrutinizing the successful 1996 proposal, only one-quarter of the money is scheduled for non-rail expenses, but 63 percent of the predicted"new riders" will be on the buses.) It is useful to analyze support for rail objectively and subjectively. The adoption of rail projects may seem irrational, since the routine consequence is to diminish, not enhance, the effectiveness of transit systems in the auto-available circumstances of contemporary urban North America. But that's not so. If one is in the elaborated construction business, rewarded for designing systems, drilling holes, laying track, manufacturing rolling stock, building stations, engineering, promoting, financing, bonding, lawyering, lobbying, et cetera-it's perfectly rational to promote public works projects, the bigger the better. In an op-ed piece for the Los Angeles Times, University of California, Irvine, economics professor Charles Lave offered this explanation for how LA got into its star-crossed rail building program: "These companies know that new rail systems cannot lure people out of cars-no rail system built over the last twenty years has done so. But, like cancer quacks, consistent failures do not bother them. They know there is money to be made by peddling hope." A visit to Sound Transit's Website enumerates a breathtaking, intimidating, array of vested interests. Already contracts have been awarded to at least40 law firms, 25 engineering-architecture firms, 15 art and public art establishments, and seven temporary employment services. There are innumerable commitments for design, construction, permitting services, geotechnic engineering, fare collection systems, government relations, public affairs, community outreach, accounting, appraising, auditing, economics, banking, software, electronic services, telecommunications, relocation services, friendly community associations, office suppliers, etcetera and so forth. Largess has been distributed through roughly 400 contracts so far, some for mere scores of thousands of dollars, others ranging up to scores of millions. The biggest ones are still to come. There tends to be a corrupting effect of money when a community gets enmeshed in huge pork barrel projects. In Los Angeles, for example, more than $500,000 was given annually by the ten largest contractors to theelected representatives who serve on the Metropolitan Transit Authority board-the equivalent of Sound Transit's board, which is comprised of mayors, county executives, and elected members of city and county councils. It was so blatant that the California state legislature finally intervened. As the scandal surrounding Boston's Big Dig intensifies (a tunneling project with disquieting similarities to Sound Transit's Capitol Hill tunnel), attention is beginning to focus on the pattern of political contributions, and whether the firms that were contracted to exercise oversight responsibilities performed in an appropriate, candid fashion. The naïve think that unwarranted influence may happen in Boston and Los Angeles, but not the gentle Northwest-but it happened big-time with respect to WPPSS, and, anyway, it's largely the same business interests here as there, and politicians with similar fears and aspirations. The array of elected and appointed public servants who comprise Sound Transit (formerly Regional Transit Authority, RTA) spent $90 million in public funds on internal operations and studies, meetings and committees, focus groups and polls, public relations and advertising campaigns, professional associations and consulting services. The primary purpose was not to solve congestion-had it been, the operation would have focused on costs and benefits-but to advance prospects to win a ballot proposition to fund rail development. Then they worked closely with their outside allies and formed a private sector group, the Committee for Regional Transit, to put the election over the top, since it's not legal to use public money directly on electioneering. The public group, RTA, served notice on vendors all over the country-from huge engineering firms to sole practitioners-that$4 billion in planning and construction money would be in the contracting pipeline, provided the public vote passed. Then the private group, Committee for Regional Transit, followed with a solicitation letter, informing the prospective vendor, based on the scale of the enterprise, what would comprise an appropriate contribution. The solicitation net was cast broadly, nationwide, including a faraway prospect who had never even performed work in the Northwest. There were other, disinterested contributors, presumably motivated by civic virtue, the big ones being Boeing and Microsoft at $50,000. From prospective vendors and others, a formidable election war-chest was assembled, and artfully applied. One can peruse the list of campaign contributors yesterday, and compare it with the list of contractors today, to measure how rational their support for rail projects is. And finally, there's the Federal Transit Administration (FTA), the agency that reviews and signs-off on the plans, making them eligible for federal funding. Given the lack of objective merit to Sound Transit's Link light rail plan, I asked current and past high-level US Department of Transportation (US DOT) analysts and administrators why it was accorded FTA's highest rating. Here are some of the illuminating responses: [T]he problem is the structure of the federal grant program that funds transit projects, which encourages local political officials to behave as if costs are benefits. Stated simply, the more extravagant and costly is the project, the more 'free' federal money is available for the local congressional delegation to take credit for delivering to their home districts, and the more construction jobs can be 'created' and local political officials can claim credit for....The incentives for local officials to select-and for federal officials to embrace-ineffective, extravagant projects are simply too powerful for any alliance of dedicated citizens armed with rational analysis to overcome. [The author of this comment has been a high-ranking US DOT official.] A federal agency whose very mission in life is to dole out money, has no incentive to deny funding to its clients. There is no reward system within the agency that would reward its officials for NOT spending the FTA budget.[C. Kenneth Orski, associate head, Urban Mass Transportation Administration, US DOT, during the Nixon and Ford Administrations, 1974-78. [The FTA's] behavior is shameless. At least the FWHA [Federal Highway Administration] has to be instructed by statute to spend money on pork barrel projects; the FTA, on the other hand, has institutionalized the doling out of pork. It is all that their program does. To be sure, the federal government should never have been in the urban transportation business in the first place-though we did not understand that in the Johnson Administration when all of this transit stuff was started. The experience of the last thirty years has made our mistakes painfully obvious, but now there is a phalanx of pigs up at the trough. It will be really tough to get rid of them. [A. Scheffer Lang, head of the Federal Railroad Administration, US DOT, during the Johnson Administration, 1967-69. Since the point is to hand out pork, the quality of "oversight" by US DOT agencies is predictable. After Boston's "Big Dig" tunnel project had ballooned from an estimated $2.5 billion to $13 billion-with the latest cost overrun as large as the original estimate for the entire project-a federal auditing task force was sent to investigate: In its report, the Task Force faulted Massachusetts for breaching its trust with the US Department of Transportation's Federal Highway Administration(FHWA) and others by 'intentionally withholding knowledge of the Project's potential cost overrun.' It also faulted FHWA for failing to maintain a sufficiently independent relationship with [tunnel] Project leadership to adequately fulfill its oversight role. But aside from the machinations between the construction industry, politicians, and agency bureaucrats, how is it that people in positions of responsibility can act this way? Why does the public permit them, even support them in their pursuit of capital-intensive extravagances rather than solid steps to address the real congestion and mobility problems facing their communities? That's where subjective support comes in: the rail extravagances are given aid and comfort by trusting, good-hearted citizens who are susceptible to the romance of rail. Many who have ridden the trains and subways of Europe, New York, and Washington DC, believe they are amenities essential to modern civilization. They are oblivious to the consistent failures of the current generation of rail projects in North America to improve transit market share, efficiency, or congestion, and they are oblivious to the steep downward trends of rail market share in contemporary Europe. As they ride the wonderful subway in Washington DC, they are ignorant of the immense discrepancy between their modest fare and its huge cost. As Michael Horowitz, former general counsel of the US Office of Management and Budget, put it, "I suppose the United States of America, the Leader of the Free World, Home of the Greatest Economy in History, can afford a system like this for the nation's capitol. But if you think this has anything to offer to the transportation needs of urban America, you don't understand what's going on here." People are acutely frustrated by problems associated with the automobile: maddening congestion, 30 or 40 percent of urban land devoted to roadways and parking spaces, ugly sprawl, alienation of open space, air and water pollution, storm sewer runoff problems, etc. They're upset, they want their elected officials to "do something" about it, they're looking for leadership, and they have extended their trust to their elected representatives and public transportation agencies, the public servants with expertise. Assured that Trains Are The Answer -- just vote yes and congestion relief will be on the way-many good citizens are predisposed to believe. The author of this article-like many other critics-once supported such rail projects, eager for an alternative to sprawl and cars, willing to pay taxes for a good civic purpose, and ignorant about mundane issues like cost-per-mile, transit market share, and population density. That generous inclination is exploited by clever campaigning, especially by presenting myths in place off acts based on experience.
|
|||