Three
years ago, TriMet began operating its first heavy rail line, the
Westside Express Service (WES). This line runs from Beaverton to
Wilsonville during commuting hours on weekdays.WES was trumpeted as the “next big thing,” but opening year ridership averaged only 1,156 boardings per day, less than half the 2,500 predicted by TriMet. The agency lost nearly $24 on each trip.
TriMet just finished its third full year of operation for WES. Average daily ridership is up to 1,571 boardings, but each trip still requires a subsidy of $18. This is eight times higher than the subsidy needed for the average TriMet trip and costs taxpayers $7.4 million each year.
WES turned out to be a disaster, but no one at TriMet is accepting responsibility. Agency management simply plans to raise passenger fares again, and they also will be raising taxes on businesses.
TriMet board members are not elected, so we cannot demand a management change at the ballot box. But the board is appointed by the Governor, who is elected. It’s time for the Governor to demand better performance from his political appointees.
http://tinyurl.com/6t76d5o
2 comments:
Other commuter rail agencies have per passenger costs of less than $10, so another example of how TriMet is hardly the leader in the nation.
It also is nowhere near as environmentally efficient - its' fuel economy is actually LESS than a bus (because it only gets a mile per gallon, and it requires three diesel engines to do the work of two buses). Rail only achieves its efficiencies when you have quantity - a single EMD F59PHI locomotive can haul six or seven bi-level cars, each holding 150 passengers - that's a whopping 900 riders, with just one locomotive (3.5 hp per rider, compared to about 10 hp per rider for an average bus) and just two crew members (engineer and conductor).
But WES, as small as it is, can never achieve the economies of scale of commuter rail. It is designed to be small. And rail is not effective, or efficient, small. Each WES train is exactly twice the capacity of a bus. Each WES train requires two staff members - the exact amount needed for two buses. But WES requires three engines - two for propulsion and one for onboard electric generation, and gets 1 MPG - compared to about 4-5 for the bus. And the train requires massive infrastructure costs that can't be apportioned out with anyone - especially since TriMet has accepted full responsibility for the maintenance of the track, and P&W gets a "permanent freight easement" - P&W's freight trains gets a free ride at TriMet's expense - and gets the contract from TriMet to run the WES trains. Whereas, buses used shared infrastructure used by thousands of taxpaying cars and trucks each day.
I'm all for commuter rail - when it makes sense. Los Angeles, San Francisco, even Seattle - prove that it can be done right. Even at $8/boarding ride, because there is a benefit to those trains over longer distances. But WES...it's just hard to see who is benefitting, except Portland & Western. Surely not TriMet, yet for some insane reason TriMet keeps defending it while lambasting buses that cost a tiny fraction of WES and actually moves more people (which is ultimately TriMet's base success factor - moving people. Passenger counts are even higher than farebox revenue, and yet with an insanely cheap ride on WES TriMet still can't attract enough riders.)
What say you Mr. McHuff? Surely you won't attempt to defend the bloated, inefficient beast that is WES? Trimet will try and experiment with anything (commuter rail, streetcar, aerial tram) as long as it's not with buses (bus rapid transit, trolley buses, etc). The underlying fear and m.o. seems to be that any success with bus innovation would make the public more scrutinizing of current and future rail expansion.
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