Across the country light rail has been seen as a force for significantly mitigating pollution and congestion problems. But many cities have seen far less success than anticipated, and light rail has proven to be far more costly per commuter than other forms of public transit. While many urbanites could theoretically adjust their commuting habits, the real question is whether enough people actually would. In cities where light rail has been tried, most drivers remain unconverted. Consider:
The light rail saga in North Carolina began in the mid-90s when officials in two of the state’s major urban centers — the Raleigh-Durham Triangle area and Charlotte – began pushing for and planning projects. Raleigh expanded the Triangle Transit Authority (TTA) and Charlotte expanded the Charlotte Area Transit System (CATS) to go beyond buses. These centers share both had consistent population increases over the last decade, but the similarities end there. As its hyphen suggests, Raleigh-Durham is an urban area based on a cluster of population districts separated by university hubs, research centers and dispersed neighborhoods. By contrast, Charlotte is a city that has evolved more closely to the axis-and-spoke concept of the traditional city – that is, a dense downtown with surrounding suburbs. These geographic realities have gone far in shaping each area’s light rail destiny. Not to mention lobbying and a little luck.
In truth, there is no way TTA could have solved these problems. Predictive models used to gauge the value of light rail projects revealed a poor investment in the Triangle, despite the sanguineness of the TTA. “TTA cut four rail stations and seven miles of tracks from its plans,” writes Siceloff. “Costs fell but quickly rose again. The federal agency ordered an overhaul of a computer model used to predict Triangle traffic congestion and transit demand. A new report predicted only 10,200 daily train riders by 2030, half the number in earlier projections.”
In terms of traffic congestion alone, Ted Balaker of the Reason Foundation asks: “Is it worth it to spend nine times more on the next most expensive alternative, to decrease traffic by one percent?”
Federal planners ultimately rejected the Triangle’s 2004, $810 million light rail proposal because the projected population density and ridership numbers didn’t add up. (Note that Charlotte’s $550 million nine-mile track would have been rejected had the proposal been submitted just one week later, as federal standards for public transportation funding became stricter the following week, eventually tripping up the Triangle proposal.)
Yet today, city officials in the Triangle remain undeterred. Already, the city has spent $60 million on more than a decade of planning and land acquisition. Determined not to be left out, many city leaders – such as Durham Mayor Bill Bell – have regrouped to figure out how to bankroll light rail – with or without federal funding.
“The huge disparity between costs and returns is even more dramatic when examined on a per-unit-of-congestion-relief basis.
At $6,747, Charlotte’s annual cost per new rail rider — although less than the Triangle — is still steep.”
Since Balaker’s 2004 Reason study, Charlotte has encountered a series of technical and budgetary problems with the engineering firm, Parsons, and has filed a lawsuit. Past issues with the company threaten to delay the 2007 grand opening, and officials blame the design contractor for mistakes that helped push the budget from “$371 million in 2003 to $462.7 million today,” according to the Charlotte Observer.