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An article in the News Tribune gives some insight into Sound Transit’s plans for mass transit after the failure of Prop. 1 three months ago. This might be a good time for me to express a few of my concerns about mass transit and why it does or doesn’t work in Tacoma.

Since rail is being emphasized (light rail and commuter rail), it pays to take a look at exactly what it will accomplish.

Rail has some major shortcomings that I want to focus on:

• Rail runs between points that are literally set in concrete (and steel). Passenger rail is ideally suited for transporting people from one center of activity to another. Those centers maybe be cities for longer runs, or they may be residential, industrial or commercial centers for short runs.
• Rail is expensive to implement. If you’re confused on this, just look at the costs of light rail in Seattle and at the cost of building Sounder’s train stations. Not only are the direct costs high, but the indirect cost in the destruction of businesses and even residences that are unlucky enough to be in the path of the upcoming rail line are also high.
• It needs it’s own roadway (tracks) which is difficult to use by any other means of transportation when the train doesn’t happen to be right there. For that matter, it requires complete, unobstructed use of it’s roadway. Nothing else can use that same space for anything except to cross it (when the trains aren’t near).
• Significant ridership is required to offset the costs. For 2008 the cost of riding Sounder Commuter Rail from Tacoma to Seattle is estimated to be $15.20 per rider per trip, most of which is paid for by the taxpayer who isn’t actually riding the train. Sound Transit buses operate on roughly the same route for about 40% of that cost. However, if ridership were to increase significantly (I don’t know the exact number) the cost per boarding for rail would be lower than the cost per boarding for buses. The reason for the difference is that the train can add more capacity for less cost than buses. But until that magic number is reached, buses are cheaper.

That being said, let’s look at some of the things Sound Transit is thinking of doing, particularly in Tacoma.

“Sound Transit might ask voters to pay to extend the Tacoma Link light-rail line from downtown west to Tacoma Community College and east to Fife.”

Why, exactly, would we want that?

First of all, there are numerous buses that run from downtown to TCC. So why spend millions of dollars for a new way to do what’s already being done adequately? Maybe those millions would be better spent on tax breaks, such as the local business tax or even lowering the local portion of the sales tax just a little.

Also, look at the difficulty Sound Transit is having just trying to cross Pacific Ave. with commuter rail. How much trouble do you think they’ll have crossing all the streets between downtown and TCC?

Second, why run a passenger train from downtown Tacoma to Fife? Where would this train stop? If you’re familiar with Fife you’ll know that it’s a sprawling industrial/transportation/off-ramp area that has no central hub of activity. So exactly which part of Fife would benefit from this light rail extension? Auto row? Poodle dog? The Port? All of them (which would increase the costs and slow scheduled times)?

“It also might ask voters to expand commuter rail and bus service to Seattle.”

“The options unveiled Thursday also included adding more Sounder commuter rail trips between Tacoma and Seattle and expanding commuter bus service and transit parking throughout the region.”

How about looking at ways to increase ridership so that expanding makes sense? Amazon.com used to be mocked with the saying, “we’re losing money on every book we sell, so the solution is to sell more books.” And to a certain extent, the mocking was deserved. But what they meant was that they could bring the average cost per book down if they sold more books because they would better utilize the costly overhead.

Assuming that the original light rail was planned to be in the place that would bring maximum utilization, any other locations would have less utilization. So if we’re subsidizing every rider of the current link light rail, won’t we just be subsidizing at a higher cost with the new locations?

“Supporters see light rail as a way to take cars off Interstate 5 and ease the often-brutal commute to Seattle.”

Opponents don’t see that happening. Right now rail is available and it’s not relieving congestion. As a businessman I would like to see the existing rail system become self-sustaining before expanding it. Or in this case they’re talking about replacing commuter rail with light rail, which is expensive. My point is, if commuter rail and buses aren’t attractive enough to get people out of their cars on their trips from Tacoma to Seattle, then why would anyone in their right mind think that light rail would be any different?

“…the Sound Transit staff on Thursday unveiled a list of projects that could be done quickly and on a smaller budget.”

And they didn’t offer that list to the voters last year because…?

“The [downtown Tacoma to] TCC light-rail segment is in the agency’s long-term plan but was not included in the 2007 ballot measure.”

So that massive list of projects and expansions in Prop. 1 was only part of the picture?

Finally, I have to ask a few questions. As for Tacoma, isn’t there a lot of talk about rebuilding downtown as a center for… something… anything? Why build and operate more expensive rail lines into a place that so few people want to go? Why replace less expensive buses (based on current limited ridership projections) with more expensive rail solutions?

And believe me, these aren’t my only concerns about rail in the Pacific Northwest. But it’s a place to start.

This entry was posted on Friday, February 1st, 2008 at 6:00 pm and is filed under Tacoma, Transportation. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.