Transportation and Land Use Coalition

Ninth Annual Summit

April 1, 2006

How to Choose:Comparing Transportation Modes

Thomas A. Rubin, CPA, CMA, CMC, CIA, CGFM, CFM

Subjects To Be Covered

• Transportation Capacity Metrics

• Modal Capacity Comparisons

• Cost Metrics and Methodologies

• Modal Cost Comparisons

• Other Considerations

Transportation Capacity Metrics

• People vs. Freight

• Persons/Tons Past A Point

• “Transportation Work”– Passenger-Miles– Ton-Miles

• Per Unit of Time (commonly, an hour)

Freeway “Level of Service” (LOS) Criteria

Level of ServiceMax Speed Max Service Flow

A 75.0 750

B 75.0 1,200

C 71.0 1,704

D 65.0 2,080

E 53.0 2,400

F <53.0 >2,400

(Above is for Free-Flow Speed, which has nothing to do with the speed limit, of 75 mph.)

Case Study – Crossing the Bay

Which has more capacity?

The Bay Bridge?

Or BART?

(Peak Hour, Peak Direction)

Measurement Metrics

Number of Lanes or Tracks x

Vehicles or Trains per Hour per Lane/Track x

Vehicles per Train x

Passengers per Vehicle =

PASSENGERS PASS A POINT x

Speed =

TRANSPORTATION WORK (Passenger Miles Index)

BAY BRIDGE vs. BART

Bridge BARTLanes-Lines 5 1Vehicles-Trains/Lane-Line 2,000 23Vehicles/Train 1 9.13Average Occupancy 1.5 80.3

Passengers Past a Point/Hr 15,000 16,869

(Approximately Equal)

BAY BRIDGE vs. BART

Bridge BART

Passengers Past a Point/Hr 15,000 16,869

Speed (mph) 20 58.7

Transportation Work

(Passenger-Miles) Index 300,000 990,210

(BART’s index over three times Bridge’s)

How to “Tilt” a Modal Comparison

• There are many different methodologies, and variations, for comparisons

• Almost all are valid, and useful – when properly utilized by people who know what they are doing

• It is very easy to misuse metrics to make them appear to show that your desired result, your modal selection, is the “right” one

• WATCH OUT FOR PEOPLE WHO PLAY GAMES WITH DATA AND METHODS

How to “Tilt” a Modal Comparison IITo make your favored mode look better, show:

..............Road………..…. …………….…Rail………..…..…

Location Entire Metro Area Length Peak Load Point

Time FrameAll Day Peak Hour

Metric Transportation Work Passengers Past a Point

Methodology Actual Theoretical f/Rail, Actual f/Road

Freight Include Exclude

Examples of What to Watch Out For

Cynthia Sullivan, Chair, (Seattle) Central Link (light rail system) Oversight Committee, “When this system is up and running, Northgate to SeaTac, in 2020, it will carry as many people every day as I-5 does today.”

Center for Transportation Excellence: “It would take a twelve lane freeway going in one direction to equate the same amount of capacity of one light rail line.”

Passenger Carrying Capacity Modal Comparisons

..L.A. Blue Line..……..CFTE....…. Peak Peak El Monte/ NY Port

Light …Real World…. Load Trip Busway AuthorityLOS “E” ..Rail.. LOS “E” LOS “F” .Point. ..Ave.. HOV Lane Bus

Term.

Trains/Hour 20 12 12Cars/Train 6 2.5 2.5

Cars/Hour 2,000 120 1,800 2,100 30 30 1,218 515-779Occupancy 1.25 125 1.15 1.15 150 80 4.36 32-48

Passengers 23,187-Past a Point 2,500 15,000 2,070 2,415 4,500 2,400 5,310 34,685

Speed

55 25 15 24 56.9

Transportation Work Index 113,850 60,375 37,500 56,700 302,166

“E” Index 1.00 .53 .33 .50 2.65

“F” Index 1.189 1.00 .62 .94 5.00

Cost and Related Considerations

Will it Work?

Is it the Best Option?

Can we Afford to Build it?

Can we Afford to Operate it?

Will it Negatively Impact Other Transportation System Components?

Schedule – How Long to Get It Going?

Risk – Financial, Political, Technical, Management?

Cost Metrics

Federal Transit Administration Financial Capacity Analysis:

1. Is there funding to operate existing transit system?

2. Is there funding for capital renewal and replacement of existing transit system?

3. If answers to 1. and 2. are yes, then, and only then, is there funding to construct and operate the proposed system expansion?

FTA 49 USC 5309 “New Start” Tests

The “new” metric is “Incremental Cost Divided by Transportation System User Benefit.”

“Incremental Cost” is calculated in accordance with detailed procedures.

“Transportation System User Benefit” is expressed in “time equivalent units,” which is basically travel hours saved.

The “old” metric, which is still reported, is “Incremental Cost per Incremental Passenger,” aka “Cost per New Passenger.”

Annualized Project Cost

Simplified, the “Cost” for old and new metrics is:

Annualized Capital Cost

+ Annual Operating Cost

+ Other Cost Changes (such as savings in operating costs for pre-existing

transit lines)

= Annual Cost (usually, 20 years out)

“Annualized Capital Cost” spreads original capital costs of assets over their specified useful lives.

Annualized Capital Cost

Asset Type Useful Lives Factor

40-foot Bus 12 years .126Pavement 20 years .094Rail Cars 25 years .086Track, Electric, Structures 30 years .081Land 100 years .070

“Factors” math is the same as for a 7% mortgage.

Benefits

“User Benefits” and “New Passengers” are outputs of transportation planning models, which must be approved by FTA.

“Cost per New Passenger” was implemented because Feds believed the same riders were being shifted to more expensive transit modes, for no real transportation benefit.

Change was made to “new” metric because opponents of many “new starts” projects were use “cost per new passenger” values to show it would be cheaper to least each new rider a car – often a luxury car.

The Role of Transportation Modeling

Transportation Modeling, as performed for purposes including “new starts” projects refinement and analysis, is a highly complex process that can be almost impossible for lay persons, or even decision-makers, to understand.

The “cost per user benefit” metric, and even the older “cost per new passenger” metric, are also often very difficult for even some people who should know better to comprehend.

Example of Cost/New Passenger Confusion

“Frankly, light rail is very expensive. With respect to virtually all new systems, it would have been less expensive to lease each new commuter a car in perpetuity – in some cases, a luxury car, such as a Jaguar XJ8 or a BMW 740i.” – Wendell Cox, 2000

“This one is a real howler. To put it into perspective, a new BMW 740i goes for $62,900. APTA estimates that approximately 13,000,000 people use transit on a typical weekday. 13,000,000 times $62,900 would be $817.7 billion – almost half of the annual federal budget.” Paul M. Wyerich and William S. Lind

This response is extremely disquieting – while the difference between “cost per passenger” and “cost per new passenger” may not be readily apparent to lay persons, for people who are set forward by the primary public transit industry association in the U.S. to not understand the distinction is somewhat akin to listening to a sermon by a priest who has never heard of the Ten Commandments.

And then for that industry association to actually publish this comment under its own name, …

The State of the Art in Transportation Modeling

Not good.

Following are from a presentation the 2004 Transportation Research Board Annual Meeting, by James Ryan, FTA Deputy Associate Administrator for Planning, who is, in essence, the FTA “chief modeling techie.”

Results from the 1990 Assessment of Ridership Forecasts

15% 17%26% 29% 32% 34% 37% 41% 46%

72%

0%

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160%

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ay B

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* Data for Atlanta is for System-w ide Impact of Rail Service

Results from the Updated Assessment of Ridership Forecasts

0%

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Forecast error well over 20%

Forecast error close to 20%

Forecast error < 20%

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rkin

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ay R

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DEIS/EIR 6/83FSEIS/SEIR 9/89

MTA 4/99Actual 7/99-4/00

MTA 3/00MTA 5/00

"Actual" 7/00-1/01"Actual" FY02

Actual FY03

Projection Source/Date

376.0

260+38=298

80+45=125

59.8

60+40=10060+20=80

116.8132.4

95.1

Ridership Projections All/Segs 1 & 2Ridership Projections Segment 3

Actual Segments 1 & 2 Ridership

SCRTD/MTA RED LINERidership Projections/Actual Ridership

3/00 Projection assumed that Valley Express Bus Lines wouldNOT be cancelled, 5/00 Projection was made AFTER theselines were cancelled. Actual 7/00-1/01 was adjusted upward5,000 for MTA Sep/Oct Strike. "Actual" FY02 utilized the

now-discredited "old" MTA ridership counting methodology,Actual FY03 utilized the "new" methodology.

Other Problems with Plans

Case Study – Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority Bus Rapid Transit “Orange Line”

The entire “transportation” reason for a $325+ Million, 13-mile Guideway Bus Rapid Transit, instead of Rapid Bus – which does not have any exclusive/ semi exclusive guideway and would have cost <$500,000 per mile– was to save run time.

Or was it?

L.A. County MTA - San Fernando ValleyOrange Line BRT vs. Rapid Bus Run Times

North Hollywood - Warner Center

28.8 28.8 28.8 28.8 28.8

42

44

28.8

40 40 40 40

42

44

50 50

41.7 41.7

34.4

50 50

45.6 45.6

38.7

25

30

35

40

45

50

55

DEIS/EIR FEIR DSEIR FSEIR Errata Schedule Actual

MTA Document

Min

ute

s

BRT Low BRT High Rapid Bus Low Rapid Bus High

Problems with Construction Cost Projections

There have been many cases of very significant cost overruns on transit guideway projects.

While, in recent years, the cost increases following the execution of a “Full Funding Grant Agreement” between the Federal government and the grantee, have been moderated greatly (but not completely), there have still been major problems with increases between the first and most important decision point – which is usually when the voters are asked to approve a tax for transit facility construction – and the ultimate construction cost.

The following page shows one of the most massive such cost increases for a transit guideway.

$0

$200

$400

$600

$800

$1,000

$1,200

Millio

ns o

f D

ollars

'81-Informal'81-Caltrans'82 -Parson-Brinkerhoff

'83-LACTC5/84-EIR11/84-LACTC CEO

6/85-LACTC7/86-LACTC O/S

89-LACTC Budget

Actual Cost

Time/Source

$125$146.6$194

$350-400

$393-561$500-600$595

$770

$877.4

$1,000+

Low Range High Range (if applicable)

LONG BEACH-LOS ANGELES BLUE LINEConstruction Cost Estimates

Source: J. Richmond, "Transportof Delight," pp. 64-65

What are the Costs – and Impacts – of Attempting to Increase Transit Ridership by

Alternative Means?

Over the past 25 years, Los Angeles has been a huge case study re the impact of radically different transit investment programs.

From FY82-FY85, a program of rolling back the then 85¢ cash fare to 50¢ produced a 40+% ridership increase in three years, by far the most successful such demonstration in modern American transit history.

Over the next 11 years, to FY96, the fare were increased back to 85¢, then to $1.10, and finally to $1.35, as over 60% of the MTA transit subsidies went for rail construction and operations – and ridership fell.

What are the Costs – and Impacts – of Attempting to Increase Transit Ridership by

Alternative Means (concluded)?

At the end of December, 1996, MTA entered into a Consent Decree to settle a Federal Title VI (discrimination in the utilization of Federal Funds) lawsuit, requiring it to drop the price of monthly passes back to $42, add bus service to relieve the most overcrowded buses of any major U.S. city, and add new routes. Ridership rose quickly and substantially, despite MTA efforts to fight the implementation of what it had agreed to do all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court – and losing in every one of the seven decisions along the way.

-20

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Passen

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Pre-CD, FY85-FY96 Post-CD, FY96-FY02

Period

(14.6)

6.9

1.7 2.30.7

4.5

(12.1)

13.6

Motor Bus Light Rail Heavy Rail Total

LA Co. METRO TRANSPORTATION AUTHORITYAVE. ANNUAL UPT CHANGE, PRE/POST-CD

The “Efficient Frontier”

Before beginning a search for new solutions, first see how your are doing now.

The following graph shows subsidy per passenger and subsidy per passenger-mile for the 24 largest bus operators in the U.S.

The next one shows the cost per new boarding (not rider) for the main MTA guideway transit lines and for bus.

$0.50

$1.00

$1.50

$2.00

$2.50

$3.00

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Subsidy/Passenger

$0.20 $0.40 $0.60 $0.80 $1.00 $1.20Subsidy/Passenger-Mile

NYCTA

M TA

M TA- HC

KCDot

TRI - M ET

M BTANYCDot

SEPTA

PAT

WM ATA

M - M TA

M DT

G CRTA

M T

CTA

D- DO T

DART

BI - STRTD

VTA

ACT

M UNI

The E fficient Fr ontier Weighted and S im ple Aver ages

FTA "TOP 24" BUS OPERATORS 2002Subsidy/Passenger and Passenger-Mile

M ARTA

NJ T C

Weig h ted Av era g e

S imp le Av era g e

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Blue Gold Green Red Ave. RailCD Bus

Mode

$11.90/$10.70

$47.81/$46.61

$23.90/$22.70$25.29/$24.09$21.18/$21.14

$1.63/$1.04

Capital Subsidy/New Rider Operating Subsidy/New RiderOperating Revenue/New Rider

LA Co. METRO TRANSPORTATION AUTHORITYCOST/SUBSIDY PER NEW BOARDING (FY06)

How Much Should Light Rail Cost?

“In most cases, Light Rail should not cost more than $20 million per mile.”

Weyrich/Lind, page 42

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Project

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28.530.1

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37.340.0

41.442.8

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U.S. Light Rail Project ProposalsFrom 2002 Annual Report on New Starts

Weyrich/Lind $20 Million

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Project

58.2 60.3 62.3 73.1 82.398.3 103.3 110.8

124.3 128.7154.5

207.7238.3 243.7

515.4

62.981.9

U.S. Light Rail Project Proposals IIFrom 2002 Annual Report on New Starts

Weyrich/Lind $20 Million Cost/Mile

How About Operating Costs?

“The Critics also claim that buses cost less than rail. This is true of capital costs, but not of operating costs”

Weyrich/Lind, page 18

If one examines national statistics, or those for bus and rail for most transit operators, one will generally find that the average bus cost and subsidy per passenger and per passenger-mile are slightly higher than those for rail.

However, the main reason for this is that the capital costs for rail are so large that no one but a fool would ever build a new rail transit line anywhere but on a heavily utilized transit corridor.

How About Operating Costs (continued)?

If one compares comparable types of transit service in comparable transit corridors – for example, if light rail is presented as a grade-separated guideway with one station per mile, consider the same type of bus service – one generally finds that bus is, at worst, extremely competitive and, very often, will have a huge operating cost/subsidy advantage.

And this is only on the operating side – it is almost impossible to come up with any type of bus transit guideway that costs even half the cost of a rail line with comparable service characteristics.

And there is the “mean is the median” factoid.

How About Operating Costs (concluded)?The following slide shows the cost per passenger for every

bus line the Los Angeles MTA operated. As might be expected, it costs more to carry passengers on some lines than others.

Note that the mean, the overall average, is $1.76 per passenger – but this is the 69th percentile cost, which means that over two-thirds of the rides cost less.

The median – the ride in the middle – cost $1.62, far less.

Move important, the 30th percentile ride cost $1.41, the 20th percentile ride cost $1.22, and the 10th percentile ride cost $1.10 – and this is not as low as bus can go.

When you properly compare rail to highly productive bus lines, rail is rarely less expensive to operate.

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$1.50

$2.00

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$3.00

Subsidy/Passenger

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%Percentile

$1.10$1.22

$1.41$1.55 $1.62 $1.67

$1.77$1.90

$2.42

$18.91

LA CO. METRO TRANSPORTATION AUTHORITYCOST/PASSENGER BY LINE FAMILY

Mean: $1.76 - 69st Percentile

How Bad Are Commutes – Really?We all hear about how overcrowded our roads are getting

and how trips are taking longer.

The following slide shows the home-to-work trip lengths for greater LA, the poster child for traffic congestion, from 1967 to 2003 – over this 36 year period, the average increased 5.1 minutes – 21%, from 24.0 to 29.1 minutes.

Human beings are outstanding at adjusting to changes. As their travel situation changes, they change – new routes, move closer to work, new job closer to home, employer moves to where there are more workers, etc.

There is, most certainly, a road capacity problem in this nation – but home-to-work commute times are not increasing significantly.

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Avera

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om

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ime (

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'67-LA Co. Comm. Survey'76-LA Co. Comm. Survey

'80-Census

'85-Am. Housing Survey'90-NPTS

'95-NPTS

'00-ACS'01-ACS

'02-ACS

'03-ACS

Year/Source

24.0 24.4 24.322.8

26.0 25.0

29.427.9 27.8

29.1

Census

LOS ANGELES AREAAverage Commuting Times, 1967-1995

Updated from Gordon/Richardson,"The Facts About 'Gridlock' in

Southern California"

23.8

28.0

References – I

(To receive this Microsoft™ PowerPoint™ document electronically, or for any other purpose, contact the author at tarubin@earthlink.net.)

Opening Slide: 1955 City and County of San Francisco Freeway Plan (not entirely implemented).

Freeway Level of Service Criteria from Transportation Research Board, Highway Capacity Manual 1997, Table 3-1, “LOS Criteria for Basic Freeway Sections,” page 3-11. Note that the “Maximum Service Flow Rate” is expressed in terms of “passenger cars per hour per lane,” where “passenger cars” means passenger car equivalents, which are adjusted for factors such as type of vehicle and roadway conditions. For example, a truck or bus on a straight and level section of freeway has a “pc” factor of 1.5, meaning it is counted as 1.5 cars for purposes of service flow rate, but for a 6% grade (the maximum allowed on Interstate Highways) over one mile long, the factor is 15.

All other flow rates in this paper are given in terms of “real” vehicle counts, where one car = one truck = one bus.

Measurement Metrics: For more detail, see Vukan R. Vuchic, Urban Public Transportation Systems and Technology, Prentice-Hall, 1981, Chapter 7, “Transit System Performance: Capacity, Productivity, Efficiency, and Utilization.”

Bay Bridge operation statistics are an approximation from data formerly on Bay Bridge web site. Speed is author’s approximation – on a good day.

BART operating data are from a recent e-mail exchange with Paul Forbes, Bay Area Rapid Transit District, Fleet and Capacity Planning.

Cynthia Sullivan: Ms. Sullivan was the then the Chair of the Oversight Committee for the Central Link light rail system being constructed by the Central Puget Sound Regional Transit Authority (dba “Sound Transit”) in the greater Seattle Area. Central Link is proposed to operate more-or-less North-South along the Eastern side of Puget Sound, including through the Seattle Central Business District. I-5 is the primary North-South freeway through this corridor. The quotation is from a radio talk show interview, KIRO-AM, the Dave Ross Show, on March 12, 2003. (Northgate, the proposed North terminus of Central Link, is located North of the Seattle CBD. “SeaTac” is the Seattle-Tacoma area regional airport and is located South of the Seattle CBD and is near the proposed Southern terminus of Central Link.)

References – IICenter for Transportation Excellence: The full citation can be found at: http://www.cfte.org/critics/what.asp#3: “This argument inaccurately

compares the capacity of highways and rail transit to move passengers.  A look at any transportation engineering manual will tell otherwise.  According to the Highway Capacity Manual, highway operations are described as Level of Service (LOS), ranging from LOS A to LOS F.  Peak highway capacity is typically regarded as LOS E (2,000 passenger cars per hour per lane).  If you multiply that number by the Average Vehicle Occupancy (AVO) which averages 1.25 persons, you get 2,500 persons per lane per hour on a highway.  For transit, a typical 6 car train can carry 750 passengers.  Running at 20 trains per hour, per direction, that equates to 30,000 passengers.  It would take a twelve lane freeway going in one direction to equate the same amount of capacity of one light railline.” The above comparison utilizes “passengers past a point” only, not transportation work, thus ignoring speed. The HCM statistics, which in the reasonable range, are, by my taste, a bit on the high side. The light rail service that they discuss is far in excess of that operated by any single light rail line in the U.S. in all particulars, although there are heavy rail lines that do have this capacity. It is also rare for transit loadings to be equal in both directions during peak periods. Finally, the last sentence is comparing a light rail line operating in two directions with a freeway operating in one direction.

I-5 vs. Light Rail: James MacIsaac, a local P.E., complied this comparison of I-5 utilization in 2000 by taking the roadway utilization and on-off’s by ramp from WA-DOT data and the projected on-offs from the Environmental Impact Statement for the Central Link project for 2020. (I will take credit for suggesting the display format.)

“Real World” Freeway Lanes Levels of Service “E” and “F” – representative values taken from the Highway Capacity Manual (1997), Transportation Research Board, as selected by author.

Los Angeles Blue Line data: Schedule, train consists, speed, and occupancy from MTA web site and on-board surveys and author’s observations.

El Monte Busway data: Average of a series of point checks over a period of years performed by Caltrans District 7 (Los Angeles/Ventura Counties).

Port Authority Bus Terminal access data: Leroy M. Demery, Jr., Peak-Period Vehicle Occupancy Statistics for U.S. and Canadian Rapid Bus and Rapid Rail Services, Monograph 02-01, Final Report, updated April 18,2005, available at www.publictransit.us.

Federal Transit Administration (FTA) Financial Capacity Analysis: FTA Circular C 7800.1A, 01-30-02, “Financial Capacity Policy, http://www.fta.dot.gov/legal/guidance/circulars/7000/424_1081_ENG_HTML.htm.

References – IIIFor full FTA “New Starts” guidance, see, “New Starts Program Planning and Development: http://www.fta.dot.gov/16277_ENG_HTML.htm.

The “older” guidance is more useful in some ways: Reporting Instructions for the Section 5309 New Starts Criteria: http://www.fta.dot.gov/grant_programs/transportation_planning/major_investment/reporting_instructions/2002/9956_ENG_HTML.htm.

For the specifics on the financial tests, see Chapter 3.4, “Cost Effectiveness:”

http://www.fta.dot.gov/grant_programs/transportation_planning/major_investment/reporting_instructions/2002/9957_10743_ENG_HTML.htm.

For a introduction to transportation modeling for these purposes, see Edward A. Beimborn, Center for Urban Transportation Studies, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, A Transportation Modeling Primer, May 1995: http://www.uwm.edu/Dept/CUTS/primer.htm.

The Wendell Cox “BMW” citation is from “Coping with Traffic Congestion,” in A Guide to Smart Growth: Shattering Myths, Providing Solutions, The Heritage Foundation, 2000, page 46, and is quoted in the Weyrich/Lind citation following.

The Weyrich/Lind response is from Twelve Anti-Transit Myths: A Conservative Critique, by the Free Congress Foundation for the American Public Transit Association, July 2001, page 36.

Although the Cox quote very clearly is discussing “new” passengers, Weyrich/Lind completely missed the vital distinction between passengers and new passengers – and the American Public Transportation Association, the primary transit industry professional and lobbying association, which commissioned this piece, somehow also failed to notice this incredible error.

The history of the end-to-end travel time projections for the Bus Rapid Transit line now known as the Orange Line, which serves the San Fernando Valley in Southern California is most interesting. Supposedly, there were two options, plus the “no-build,” reviewed as part of the environmental clearance process, one being “Bus Rapid Transit” (BRT), which would operate with a semi-exclusive right-of-way on a former freight railroad alignment that the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority had originally purchased in the early 1990’s to build a subway under. The proposed BRT line would, however, have over 30 at-grade crossings. The other option was “Rapid Bus,” which would operate on city streets, but with only approximately one stop per mile, limited traffic signal preference, and other low-cost speed enhancements. The terminuses for the BRT line were the North Hollywood Red Line Station in the East Center of the Valley and Warner Center, a major commercial/retail development in the Southwest of the Valley.

MTA Red Line ridership projections from Draft EIS/EIR, 1983 and Final EIS/EIR, 1989. The 1983 document was utilized to actually “sell” the line and obtain the funding, the 1989 document is for the line as was actually built. Actual ridership from MTA web site monthly reports for the periods indicated.

References – IVThe Draft Environmental Impact Statement/Draft Environmental Impact Report (DEIS/DEIR), May 2001, showed a 28.8 minute travel time for

BRT between the end points and 50 minutes for Rapid Bus. In studying this document, I decided that the BRT time was far too low, requiring a bus operating on the surface through many traffic signal to be as fast as the Red Line subway system, which has had a top speed of 75 mph, vs. 55 mph for the BRT buses. The Rapid Bus time, conversely, appeared far too high, being, in fact, the travel time required for “regular,” non-Rapid Bus service between these points. Further investigation showed that MTA had never actually investigated or timed Rapid Bus between the two end stations – as the DEIS/DEIR clearly stated – but instead substituted the travel time for the pre-existing Rapid Bus line between Universal City and Warner Center, a mile+ longer distance on a street with a slower speed limit and far more traffic and traffic signals – and the MTA schedule for this route showed a 45 minute peak travel time.

After appropriate comments required an MTA response, the Final EIR (February 2002) admitted that the Rapid Bus route was completely different from what the DEIS/DEIR said it was, but kept the 50 minute travel time, although it did correctly state where the bus was going. During this period, the City of Los Angeles Department of Transportation was finally able to force MTA to admit that LA-DOT had not only never promised the total signal preemption for BRT buses that MTA had utilized in its 28.8 minute run time calculation (actually, there was a major change from the assumptions utilized in this calculation that made 28.8 minutes impossible to achieve), but had always been firm that this would NEVER be granted. The MTA response was to change the BRT run time to a range of 28.8 to 40 minutes, the 40 minutes based on the limited traffic signal preference that LA-DOT was willing to provide, while the 28.8 minutes was under the assumption that the BRT line would, someday, be granted such preference.

After a challenge to the FEIR was successful, MTA was forced to prepare a Revised EIR – and to actually study a Rapid Bus line on Ventura Boulevard, the logical route between Warner Center and North Hollywood. The Revised DEIR, released October 2004, kept the 28.8-40 minute range for BRT, but now had a 41.7-45.6 minute range for the Rapid Bus option. A review of MTA’s methodology, however, showed a number of interesting assumptions and designs for Rapid Bus that appeared to lengthen its travel time, such as routing it West out of Warner Center – away from North Hollywood – for no evident reason. MTA acknowledged the comments in the Revised FEIR, released December 2004, but made no changes to the Rapid Bus travel time range in the Revised DEIR.

Late on the day on the Friday before the Monday morning MTA Special Board Meeting when the RFEIR was formally adopted, MTA placed on its web site an “Errata” to the RFEIR where it changed the Rapid Bus end-to-end run time to 34.4-38.7 minutes – which was actually faster than the 40 minute projection for BRT.

The actual public schedule for the Orange Line shows 42 minutes. This slower speed appears to be due to MTA specifying a very futuristic bus, both in appearance and in being an articulated (60-foot) CNG vehicle, one of the first in the world. Unfortunately, the bus is far slower than the assumptions utilized in the 28.8 and 40 minute projections, being spec’ed at zero-55 in 85 seconds and requiring just under 5,000 feet, which eliminated the planned 55 mph operating speed, as only one station pair is over a mile apart (in fact, some of the vehicles do not appear capable of reaching 55 mph in any case).

References – VFinally, and unfortunately, the repeated warnings that operating buses at 45 mph through signalized intersections, many with poor or even non-

existent sight lines, proved valid, and the Orange Line had two injury collisions on the same day within a few days of the grand opening. (There has been only one other busway of this type ever operated in the U.S., in Miami. The safety record of that line had been so poor, with so many collisions, injuries, and fatalities, that the agency management changed the operating rules from going to intersections at 45 mph to all buses making a complete stop at all intersections, even when the bus had the “green.”) Although MTA had refused to accept the offer of the parties that had challenged the original FEIR to remove their opposition to the line in return for certain concessions, the most important being slowing buses to 15 mph through intersections, MTA responded to the situation by slowing the Orange Line buses to 10 mph through intersections – which appears to have added an additional two minutes to the end-to-end travel time, to a total of 44 minutes.

The Blue Line costs projections are, as shown on the graphic, all from Richmond, except for the first and the last. The original $125 million projection was internal and was never publicized, but was provided to the Federal government in an attempt to use it as part of grant funding package for what became the Los Angeles Red Line Subway, as told me to by a Federal official who attended a meeting on the subject. The final cost projection is mine, done in my role as Chief Financial Officer of the Southern California Rapid Transit District, the operator, although not the designer or building, of the Blue Line.

MTA ridership data from National Transit Database for years shown.

Graphs comparing transit operators, data from National Transit Database, calculations by author.

MTA Mode Cost/Subsidy from MTA Budget, FY05, calculations by author. Note that statistics are per new unlinked passenger trips, not per linked trip, as is the FTA “new starts” calculation. Assumption is that one-half of total rail trips are “new,” which is likely a high estimate.

Data for light rail costs per mile from U.S. DOT/FTA, Annual Report on New Starts – Proposed Allocations of Funds for Fiscal Year 2002, which was the current report as of the release of the Wyrich/Lind report, calculations by author.

MTA bus operating costs per passenger from MTA, Quarterly Line Performance Trends Report, December 1997.