The trend for mass transit is to remove options from travelers, thus making itself less useful to us. As such, it's hardly worth funding. [1]
That's not to say that it must be inherently so. Just that, so long as these projects are typical government projects that are expected to go over-budget and over-deadline with no repercussions, they will be used as a tool for political favors and cronyism, at our expense.
The old-style public transit system used cheap, flexible buses whose routes could be altered overnight to take people from where they were to where they wanted to go. When Denver first built rail, it substituted expensive but glamorous trains for inexpensive buses, but still allowed people to go from where they were–provided they were willing to drive to a park-and-ride station–to where they wanted to go–provided they wanted to go downtown. ...
This has been tried before, of course, most notably in Portland. How well did it work there? In 1980, under the old bus-transit model, transit carried 9.8 percent of Portland-area commuters to work. By 2010, with seven different rail lines and scores of transit-oriented developments, transit carried just 7.1 percent of the region’s commuters to work.
The Portland numbers are pretty much irrelevant without accompanying context. e.g. population growth, sprawl, rail expansion vs average commute distances, funding, etc.
As for the linked arugment: seriously?
People are honestly arguing that Denver should allow the problems of rail in America[1] to be exacerbated rather than addressed [2]???
Should we have built highways that went from suburban stables to urban stables because people liked their horses, owned horses and horses can go more places than cars (absent further roads)?
What kind of logical argument is that?
[1] the old "you can take the train downtown, but then you still need a car to get anywhere".
[2] say, by ensuring there are useful destinations at the other end of the rail line.
Portland's transit problems stem from the fact that most of the region's job growth over the past 20 years has taken place away from downtown. On a given morning, there are almost as many commuters driving to jobs in the west suburbs as driving to jobs in the city. Of course, the light rail doesn't go to where the jobs are in the suburbs. Not without the need to walk considerable distances or transfer to a bus.
most of the region's job growth over the past 20 years has taken place away from downtown
I think that's central to the point of my linked citation.
People stubbornly insist on buying homes where they want to live, rather than where bureaucrats claim they should. For a transit strategy to have any success, it needs to address what people are actually going to do -- or at least not pretend that it is doing so.
I live in Portland and use public transit every day. On every article about Trimet on OregonLive, there are people that cite the same numbers you do, that say that these services are useless and that nobody uses them.
Until you do use them, and you realize that every bus is full, every Max car is standing room only and for as slow as the streetcar is, it is still packed every time. Considering the growth rate in this city, it isn't surprising that numbers look like they're going down.
I complain about the continuously, almost monthly, rising costs of a Trimet pass every month, but $100/mo compared to the $600+ I was paying for insurance and car payments (and not even including maintenance) has allowed me to live a more comfortable lifestyle. Forcing me to get a bike and living in a city that embraces its bicyclists has even made it a more healthy lifestyle as well.
Of course, the die was cast in the 40s, 50s, and 60s for the automobile. It's impossible to build effective mass transit to serve a low density population. But the argument should not be whether or not to build ineffective mass transit layered on top of low density sprawling metro areas, but instead about what are our nation's transit and residential goals in the long term, like next sixty years -- because you eventually have to fix the mess we've made.
Sure, I'm not arguing against the idea itself. My concern is how to approach it without it continuing to fester as a slush bucket for cronyism.
Today, the actual effect is not addressing actual "transit and residential goals". It's to funnel tax dollars to entities favored by the bureaucrats -- return the favor for campaign donations and so on (how else to explain that they've universally cost so much more than we agree to pay, yet they fail so dismally at attracting riders?).
So I believe that we need to find out how the system continues to be corrupted, so that we can go forward with a plan that can be reasonably expected to be successful. Following this pattern just digs us a deeper fiscal hole, without doing very much to address the real goal.
That's not to say that it must be inherently so. Just that, so long as these projects are typical government projects that are expected to go over-budget and over-deadline with no repercussions, they will be used as a tool for political favors and cronyism, at our expense.
[1] http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/denver-fools-the-wall-street-... Quote:
The old-style public transit system used cheap, flexible buses whose routes could be altered overnight to take people from where they were to where they wanted to go. When Denver first built rail, it substituted expensive but glamorous trains for inexpensive buses, but still allowed people to go from where they were–provided they were willing to drive to a park-and-ride station–to where they wanted to go–provided they wanted to go downtown. ...
This has been tried before, of course, most notably in Portland. How well did it work there? In 1980, under the old bus-transit model, transit carried 9.8 percent of Portland-area commuters to work. By 2010, with seven different rail lines and scores of transit-oriented developments, transit carried just 7.1 percent of the region’s commuters to work.