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Center for Transportation Excellence
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Responses to Recent Reports

In addition to helping local groups craft their own responses to critics, the Center has taken the initiative to respond to national reports that inaccurately represent the impact of transit on the communities for which it serves.

February 2006

Responding to O'Toole's "A Desire Named Streetcar"
Randal O’Toole’s latest report, "A Desire Named Streetcar," maintains that federal incentives are causing communities to invest in rail transit projects. Public transportation, he suggests, should be focused primarily on bus service and targeted to inner city and “transit dependent” communities. The report ignores a variety of indicators of the value and demand for expanded transportation choices and misrepresents the federal role in transportation investment.

Victoria Transport Policy Institute's "Responses to 'Desire Named Streetcar'" by Todd Litman

·Ten Ways He Gets It Wrong

O'Toole on NPR

On January 28, NPR's Weekend Edition featured an interview with O'Toole. In response to O'Toole's claims, NPR received numerous letters from listeners. NPR later broadcast repsonses from American Public Transportation Association President Bill Millar and VTPI's Todd Litman:

"In the last three years citizens approved 75% of transit measures on ballots nationwide, voting to tax themselves to invest in public transportation services. Citizens are saying that they want a transportation system that gives people travel options, including buses, light rail and subways."
— Bill Millar, President, APTA

"Randall O’Toole’s report "A Desire Named Streetcar" assumes that the future consists of ever-increasing automobile travel and suburban sprawl, based on extrapolation of past trends. It ignores demographic and market shifts that are increasing demand for high-quality transit service and more transit-oriented community development. We can all benefit from more balanced transportation investments that reduce automobile dependency."
— Todd Litman, Victoria Transport Policy Institute

 

April 20, 2005

Author and public policy analyst Otis White offers his rebuttal of the "Lexus" argument that critics of public transportation often use. White points out that the critics conveniently omit external costs not borne by the driver of the hypothetical "Lexus":

OK, Then, How About a Yugo for Everybody?
Doing the Math on Public Transit
Otis White


You've probably heard someone say, in a debate over rail transit, that these systems are so expensive and poorly patronized, it'd be cheaper to give every passenger a free car instead. Humorist P.J. O'Rourke made that claim recently in a Wall Street Journal column. O'Rourke's target: Minneapolis' new $700 million light-rail line, which he said was so extravagant, the city "could have leased a BMW X-5 SUV for [every] commuter at about the same price."

But is that right? One reader ran the numbers.

Saying that he recognized O'Rourke was trying to be funny, Janek Kozlowski suggested taking O'Rourke's offer at face value. Would taxpayers have been better served by giving every one of Minneapolis' 15,500 transit riders a BMW SUV? Well, said Kozlowski, leases for that many BMWs would cost $44 million a year, with leasers paying another $2,800 a year in gas, maintenance and so on. But, of course, that gets you only a car in the driveway.

To get to work, Kozlowski said, the displaced commuters would have to drive on a highway. Highways cost about $20.6 million per mile to build, with interchanges averaging $100 million apiece. To replace the Minneapolis rail line, then, figure 12 miles of new freeway and two interchanges, which comes out to $440 million, not including annual maintenance, he said. But that's not all.

The commuters need a place to park their Bimmers when they get to work. If all 15,500 could park on cheap surface lots, the lots would cost someone (businesses, the city) another $31 million to build. That's bad, but worse is the impact on the city treasury, since parking lots generate a fraction of the tax revenues of a commercial building ($3 a year per square foot vs., conservatively, $50 for office space). Results of turning over nearly 2 million square feet of downtown land to surface parking: The city would lose $91 million a year in revenues.

So how do the two options compare when all the costs are taken into consideration? Assume that the BMWs, freeway and parking lots would last 50 years each (as rail lines do, on average). Assume, too, that you could amortize their capital costs over that period. Then add in the operating costs for the BMWs and maintenance for the freeway and parking lots (and keep in mind that fares provide nearly $10 million of the $13 million it costs to run Minneapolis' rail line each year). Finally figure everything at present-day costs (not including inflation).

Ka-ching: Transit costs taxpayers a little more than $17 million a year. And what about the Bimmers, highway and parking lots? "Taxpayers would have to dish out $166 million per year," Kozlowski concluded.

Originally published in Governing Magazine, April 8, 2005
Reprinted with permission

May 13, 2004

In a recent “Innovation Brief” titled “Rating and Evaluating ‘New Starts’”, C. Kenneth Orski offers his interpretation of a number of concerns raised by House Transportation Appropriations subcommittee members and others about the New Starts evaluation process, particularly as it relates to selection criteria and cost-effectiveness of the projects that local communities decide will best meet their transportation needs. In addition to overstating the problem, the described solution – more federal government regulation – seems outdated at best and is completely inconsistent with the bipartisan philosophy of local control that serves as the foundation of our Nation’s transportation laws.

CFTE Analysis of Kenneth Orski's 'Rating and Evaluating New Starts' (PDF)

CFTE Press Release (PDF)

View Kenneth Orski's 'Rating and Evaluating "New Starts"' (PDF)

 

March 20, 2004

Wendell Cox and Randall O'Toole recently produced a report titled "The Contribution of Highways and Transit to Congestion Relief: A Realistic View”, which questions the validity of the Texas Transportation Institute’s 2003 Annual Urban Mobility Study. It appears that the authors have made analytical errors regarding demographics and agency spending for public transportation. Furthermore, they use those conclusions to make faulty policy recommendations in terms of highway expansion and privatization.

CFTE Response to Wendell Cox (PDF)

View Cox and O'Toole's "The Contribution of Highways and Transit to Congestion Relief: A Realistic View" (PDF)

 

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