The Site / The Fight by Yonah Freemark
yfreemark (at) thetransportpolitic (dot) com
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 January 15th, 2012 |  
» A new route from London to Birmingham to be opened by 2026, with further extensions planned into 2030s. Project continues to face healthy skepticism.
Whatever the recession’s effects on government budgets, infrastructure development in Europe continues to advance at a steady pace. The United Kingdom government affirmed last week that it would move forward with the construction of a £18.8 billion ($29 billion) high-speed link between London and Birmingham, due for opening in 2026. This in spite of draconian cuts across all sorts of public services, both in Britain and across the continent.
The U.K.’s high-speed effort — it will effectively produce the nation’s first domestic truly high-speed line — follows almost two decades of travel to and from Paris and Brussels via Eurostar trains that operate under the English Chanel. Though those services have only recently met opening-year ridership expectations, Eurostar holds the large majority of the air-rail market share to these continental capitals, especially since following improvements completed in 2007 London finds itself within about two hours of its mainland peers. The popularity of that service surely had something to do with the government’s decision to move forward on a second line.
HS2 will bring measurable benefits: London to Birmingham in just 45 minutes, compared to 1h20 today, and eventually an hour off of trips to Manchester or Leeds, once extensions north to those cities are opened in 2032 at a cumulative cost of £36 billion. Direct trips between northern cities and Heathrow Airport and even the continent via the Channel Tunnel Rail Link will be put into place. London’s aging Euston terminal will be significantly spruced up. The biggest improvement, perhaps, will be the practical doubling of capacity between the capital and the Midlands by providing a release valve for the West Coast Main Line, which recently went through its own upgrading project but which is predicted to reach capacity with a dozen years. (It already handles more than 40% of the country’s freight and 75 million annual passenger journeys.)
Yet the enormous cost of the link up to Birmingham has been put in question repeatedly not only by those who worry about increasing public debt but also those who question the need for the new rail link — especially along the chosen alignment.
The questions vary, depending on the critique: Is it worth spending this much money, primarily to reduce travel times by half an hour on trips between London and northern cities? Is the West Coast Main Line actually at capacity, or can it easily be expanded? Will UK travel patterns change to a significant enough extent to justify more transportation connections?
Much of the criticism of the project has focused on the line’s segment through the Cotswolds northwest of London, a pristine section of Britain that also happens to hold the residences of some of the nation’s most wealthy. But project planners seem to be unable to find an alternative to that alignment; it has remained the same even after the political transition between Labour and the Conservatives after the 2010 elections. That opposition, however, comes across as nimbyism, especially since its prime backers call from the affected area.
But the complaint that there is not enough of an economic rationale for the project is more compelling. The government’s own study of the project suggests that the first section would have a shaky benefits-cost ratio of just 1.6. This means that each pound of investment in the project would lead to £1.6 in economic benefits (in today’s discounted currency). Public works projects should be considered in comparison with one another to prioritize investments, and this rating is low.* The government’s own study of the 51M alternative, produced by project opponents as a suggestion to expand capacity on the West Coast Main Line, suggested a benefits-cost ratio of five or six for that less costly scheme.
Up in the air is the issue of whether the system will ever be extended north of Birmingham, to Manchester and Leeds as suggested by current planning, and then further north to Scotland. Of course, the financing to make those expansions possible is lacking, despite the fact that they would improve the benefits-cost ratio of the program to between 1.8 and 2.5, a far better result.
Meanwhile, the delayed completion of the line (it will not enter the construction stage until 2018) forces us to ask whether governmental action today is “final.” The justification of the wait has been that the government wants to first complete the equally huge Crossrail urban rail project for London. But who knows what priorities the government of 2018 will have. Will the high-speed rail project by then have lost political support?
A low cost-benefit ratio, however, does not necessarily mean the project shouldn’t be built.** The 51M scheme would be fine, but according to the government, it would fail to provide the capacity expansions to the rail network the country necessitates. It would force increasing freight shipments onto congested roadways. As the U.K. plans for its future, it has a choice: Allow its existing infrastructure to become paralyzed by disinvestment and a lack of capacity, or invest to expand it. The latter choice will allow for expanded travel and trade, the former will not.
These issues plague the development of many similar infrastructure investment projects. The California High-Speed Rail project, which continues to attract significant criticism from across the country and which lacks the national commitment devoted to Britain’s program, nonetheless represents a fundamental choice about the future of that state. Will it invest in its mobility systems to guarantee that its future inhabitants have access to travel options? Or will it overwhelm its existing infrastructure with the pains of growth? It’s an expensive choice.
* The government’s insistence that the project will create a large number of jobs (and therefore that it is good) improves the benefits-cost ratio only to the extent that external (non-construction) employment growth occurs because of the rail project and wouldn’t otherwise. After all, construction jobs, if that were the priority, could come cheaper: We could pay people to dig holes.
** As long as the ratio is over 1. Otherwise, the project would then produce more costs than benefits…
Image above: Rendering of British High-Speed Rail, from HS2
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January 8th, 2012 | 
» A private push to build a short line down Woodward may find itself in official plans once again.
Just three weeks after Detroit leaders announced that they had abandoned efforts to build a 9.3-mile light rail line down Woodward Avenue, the city’s central strip, Mayor Dave Bing revealed on Friday that he would allow a shorter link funded by a private group to move forward if it submitted an acceptable business plan within 90 days.
The project will have to be built right: Even at just 3.4 miles, the line could serve as a quick, reliable connector between the waterfront and the New Center, via Midtown, but that will only be possible if trains run in their own lanes, if they run frequently, and if they are funded with no negative effect on the city’s already under-financed bus system. There is evidence that those conditions will not be met. Yet the project’s design has yet to be completed — Detroit transportation advocates could successfully fight for the appropriate implementation of this first stage of Woodward Light Rail.
But the circumstances in which the project’s reactivation has occurred speak to a continued dysfunction not only in the City of Detroit but in American transportation politics in general.
The rail project was put on hold last month because of the sense that the City of Detroit — already mired in debt — would be unable to afford the operations costs of the corridor (estimated at $10 million a year) without sacrificing bus service. Repeated plans for a regional transportation authority, and associated funding, have been in the air for decades. Only a plan that served the suburbs well would be acceptable, since they would have to agree to increasing financing for transit, and so Governor Rick Snyder, Mayor Bing, and U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood agreed to refocus efforts and money on city-suburban improvements to the bus network.
The latest move is backtracking at its best. Seemingly overwhelmed by calls from influential congressmen and the executives of downtown businesses like Quicken, Penske, and Compuware, who have already lined up $80 million for a $125 million short version of the line (which they call M1-Rail and which was actually proposed in advance of the longer corridor), the deal from last month will be amended. That is, if business leaders are able to find an effective way to cover the remainder of the capital costs and provide for the continued operations of the line, which they have said they could pay for through a tax-increment financing (TIF) district. They also want to take back the $25 million TIGER grant promised by LaHood in early 2010, then pulled back in December.
Why the sudden change in prospects for the line? Why weren’t these investors — willing to put up a surprising amount of money — consulted before their project was abandoned? What assurances do we have from the mayor and governor that suburban interests won’t be yet again frustrated by the fact that Detroit gets rail and they get rapid buses — and veto a regional transit authority? Where is the communication and where is the consistency in policymaking?
Just as we have seen with the Obama Administration’s high speed rail program, or New Jersey’s ARC rail tunnel, or a variety of maglev projects, this country specializes in spending years studying projects, then partially funding them, then effectively abandoning them. This results in years of delays and extra spending. I have been clear in the past that the Woodward rail line is a questionable priority for the region, but the move back and forth on decisions helps no one. Downtown Detroit’s leaders have been waiting patiently for the rail line, planning ahead around its development; were they forced to reconsider their options last month? Now what do they do?
There is nothing clear, after all, about the future of this project.
Nonetheless, the line does show some promise, because if Detroit is going to grow at all (it lost more than 230,000 people between 2000 and 2010), it will be in the small area bordered by the Chrysler and Lodge Freeways on the east and west, by Grand Boulevard and the waterfront on the north and south — and that’s exactly the neighborhood the short light rail line is supposed to serve. In that area, within 1/2 a mile of the Woodward corridor, are already 123,000 jobs (map of employment density in corridor) and about 20,000 residents, according to the U.S. Census. Most of the city’s major cultural institutions, including Wayne State University, the sports stadiums, and several casinos, are within walking distance. Connections will be possible not only with the existing bus lines and Amtrak but also with the new BRT services proposed by Governor Rick Snyder last month, meant to link Detroit with the suburbs and the airport, via Michigan, Woodward, and Gratiot Avenues.
As I referenced at the start of the article, however, a light rail line within this area could be an appropriate addition to the transportation landscape of the city — or it could be the second coming of the much-maligned People Mover, which makes a quarter-mile-radius circle in one direction downtown. That system attracts few riders. But the Woodward corridor, serving real trip needs, could work — under certain conditions.
Light rail vehicles must be designed to run in their own lanes and be able to take advantage of traffic signal prioritization to ensure that they make the journey between destinations quickly. But the M1 group has been adamant that trains run next to the sidewalk in shared lanes to “boost tourism and redevelopment.” I was not informed that tourists and developers were particularly enamored of slow trains that have the propensity of being stuck in traffic.
Meanwhile, such a short corridor must feature trains running very frequently. While many of the riders will be residents commuting to and from work, a significant share is likely to be made up of people transferring from other transit modes and of people who drove into work and need a downtown circulator. For the latter groups, waiting more than five minutes for a train in the middle of the day would represent a significant impediment to using the system, as they have other options, such as walking or buses. But the tenuous nature of financing for transit in metropolitan Detroit suggests that it will not be easy to fund such services, even if a TIF district is established. Once it becomes clear that the light rail line hasn’t solved the city’s woes, can we be sure that the business lobby won’t switch its interests to funding parks or other amenities?
For the sake of the city’s bus system and its future BRT network, operations funding for the light rail project cannot be derived from expenditures meant to be devoted elsewhere, such as from the proposed regional transit authority, as Mayor Bing and Governor Snyder have already made clear. Making it over this hurdle will be difficult.
Within ninety days, the city should make a very clear, final decision about its interests in the future of the Woodward Corridor, giving the M1 group a definitive answer about the future of the light rail line. The rail project should be built only if it can be funded without affecting bus financing and provide excellent transit service downtown. No more dilly-dallying.
Image above: Detroit’s Campus Martius, adjacent to Woodward Avenue where rail line will run, from Flickr user jodelli (cc)
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January 2nd, 2012 | 
» Many new streetcar lines expected to begin construction last year are scheduled for this year instead; BRT projects advance all over the map.
The uncertainty in Congress over the future of funding for the nation’s transportation programs has not yet hit local transit authorities, which will collectively spend billions of dollars this year on enhancements to their local public transportation networks. At least 33 metropolitan areas in the U.S. — and five in Canada — are planning to invest in new BRT, streetcar, light rail, metro rail, or commuter rail projects in 2012. Virtually every American project listed here is being at least partially funded through federal capital grants.
The Obama Administration’s zeal for the distribution of small grants for bus rapid transit and streetcar projects through the TIGER and Urban Circulator programs will play out this year more than ever. Seven cities will begin construction on new streetcar lines (most were supposed to begin last year), and Portland and New Orleans plan to open extensions of their existing networks to the public. At least a dozen cities will either have a new bus rapid transit line under construction or completed by the end of 2012.
Meanwhile, the nation’s largest metropolitan areas have not forgotten their interest in more expensive light and heavy rail lines: Dallas, Denver, Los Angeles, Salt Lake, and Seattle continue to expand their light and commuter rail networks at a breathtaking pace thanks to strong local funding support. New York, perennially the country’s transit leader, will join D.C., Miami, the San Francisco Bay Area, Toronto, and Vancouver in expanding its metro rail system.
The map above summarizes the planned improvements for the next year. Below is a comprehensive list of the major transit capital projects either under construction already, entering construction this year, or opening for service over the next twelve months. There is a lot to look forward to.
New Transit Capital Projects Opening in 2012
Opening in 2012
- Boston Fitchburg Line Extension to Wachusett (4.5-mile commuter rail), opening in the Spring and funded by a TIGER grant
- Calgary Northeast Line Extension (1.8-mile light rail), opening in the Fall from McKnight-Westwinds to Saddletowne Circle
- Chicago Jeffery Corridor (BRT), opening in the Fall from 67th to 83rd Streets
- Dallas Blue Line Extension (4.5-mile light rail), opening in December from Downtown Garland to Downtown Rowlett
- Dallas Orange Line Phase 1 (5.4-mile light rail), opening July 30 from Bachmann Station to Irving Convention Center Station; Phase II (3.9-mile light rail), opening December 3 from Irving Convention Center Station to Belt Line Station
- Gatineau Rapibus (7.5-mile BRT), from Alexandre-Taché to Lorrain
- Las Vegas Sahara Avenue Corridor (12-mile BRT), opening in February from Red Rock Casino to Boulder Highway
- Los Angeles Orange Line Extension (4 mile busway), opening in Summer from Canoga to Chatsworth
- Los Angeles Expo Line Phase I (6.5-mile light rail), opening in the Spring from downtown L.A. to Culver City
- Los Angeles El Monte Transit Center (new bus terminal), opening in July as the largest bus-only station west of Chicago
- Miami Airport Link (2.4-mile metro rail), opening in the Spring from Earlington Heights Station to Miami Intermodal Center Station
- Monterey Jazz (6.75-mile BRT), opening in the Fall from Sand City to downtown Monterey
- Montréal Train de l’Est (32-mile commuter rail), opening in December from Downtown Montréal to Mascouche
- New Orleans UPT/Loyola Avenue Corridor (1-mile streetcar), opening in June from Union Passenger Terminal to Canal Street
- New York Nostrand/Rogers Avenues BRT (9.3-mile BRT), opening in Summer from Williamsburg Bridge to Sheepshead Bay
- Pittsburgh North Shore Connector (1.2-mile light rail), opening in March from Gateway Center to Allegheny Station
- Portland Eastside Streetcar Loop (3.3-mile streetcar), opening 21 September from Pearl District to Riverfront District, via Lloyd Center and Burnside
- Providence Rail to Wickford Junction (commuter rail), from Warwick to Wickford Junction
- Sacramento Green Line to the River District (1-mile light rail), opening in the Spring from downtown into the River District
- San Antonio Via Primo (BRT), running on Fredricksburg Road from downtown to South Texas Medical Center
- Seattle Sounder Lakewood Extension (8-mile commuter rail), opening in the Spring from Tacoma Dome to Lakewood Station
- Seattle RapidRide C Line (BRT), opening in the fall from downtown to West Seattle
- Seattle RapidRide D Line (BRT), opening in the fall from downtown to Crown Hill, via Ballard
- Stockton Joaquin Hammer Lane Corridor (6.3-mile BRT), connecting Interstate 5 and State Route 99
- Toronto Mississauga MiWay (BRT), from Mississauga City Centre to Renforth
- Twin Cities Cedar Avenue BRT (16-mile bus rapid transit), running from 28th Avenue Station and Mall of America in Bloomington to 215th Street in Lakeville, via Eagan and Apple Valley
- Winnipeg Southwest Corridor (2.2-mile BRT), opening in April from downtown to Fort Rouge
New Construction Starts for 2012
- Atlanta Downtown Streetcar (2.6-mile streetcar), opening in 2013 from Martin Luther King, Jr. National Historic Site to Centennial Olympic Park
- Cincinnati Downtown Streetcar (2-mile streetcar), opening in 2013 from Over-the-Rhine to Riverfront
- Denver Northwest Rail Segment (2-mile electric commuter rail), opening in 2016 from Pecos St Station to South Westminster, part of Denver’s FasTracks program
- Fort Collins Mason Corridor (BRT), opening in 2014 from South Transit Center to Downtown Transit Center
- Jacksonville North Corridor (9.3-mile BRT), opening in 2014 from Downtown to Armsdale Road
- Los Angeles Crenshaw Corridor (8.5-mile light rail), opening in 2018 from Exposition Boulevard to LAX/Aviation Station
- Milwaukee Streetcar (streetcar), opening in 2014 from Milwaukee Intermodal Station to Central Business District
- New Britain-Hartford Busway (9.4-mile busway), opening in 2014 from Hartford to New Britain
- New Orleans French Quarter Expansion Project (2.5-mile streetcar), opening in 2013 from Canal Street to Esplanade Avenue
- Orlando SunRail Line (31-mile commuter rail), opening in 2014 from DeLand to DeBary. Phase II will extend project by an additional 30 miles
- Roaring Fork Valley VelociRFTA (BRT), opening in 2013 from Aspen to South Glenwood
- St. Louis Loop Trolley (streetcar), opening in 2014 from Missouri History Museum to University Gate
- Salt Lake City Sugar House Streetcar (2-mile streetcar), opening in 2014
- San Bernardino sbX (15.7-mile BRT), opening in 2014 from downtown to Cal State San Bernardino
- San Francisco Bay Area BART to Silicon Valley Phase I (10-mile metro rail), opening in 2018 from Warm Springs to Berryessa in San Jose
- San Francisco Bay Area East Bay BRT (BRT), opening in 2015 from San Leandro to Berkeley
- San Francisco Bay Area Santa Clara-Alum Rock (7.4-mile BRT), opening in 2014 from Eastridge Transit Center to HP Pavilion
- Seattle First Hill Streetcar (2.2-mile streetcar), opening in 2013 from Capitol Hill to King Street Station, via Broadway
- Seattle North Link (4.3-mile light rail), opening in 2021 from Brooklyn to Northgate
- Seattle South Link (1.6-mile light rail), opening in 2016 from SeaTac Airport to South 200th Street
- Seattle RapidRide E Line (BRT), opening in 2013 from downtown to Shoreline
- Seattle RapidRide F Line (BRT), opening in 2013 between Burien and Renton, via Tukwila International Boulevard
- Sonoma-Marin SMART Train (commuter rail), opening in 2014 from Railroad Square in Santa Rosa to downtown San Rafael
- Tampa MetroRapid North-South (17.5-mile BRT), opening in 2013 from downtown to Temple Terrace Park and Ride, via Nebraska and Fletcher Avenues
- Tucson Modern Streetcar (3.9-mile streetcar), opening in 2013 from University of Arizona to Downtown Tucson
- Vancouver Evergreen Line (metro rail), opening in 2016 from Lougheed Town Centre to Douglas College
- Washington, DC Dulles Metrorail Extension Phase 2, opening in 2016 from Wiehle Avenue to Route 772, via Dulles Airport
Already Under Construction, Opening After 2012
Opening in 2013
- Austin Capital MetroRapid (BRT), running along Lamar, South Congress, and Burnet
- Boston Fairmount Line Improvements, adding four new stations to Fairmount Commuter Rail Line
- Calgary West Line (5.2-mile light rail), from Sunalta to 69 Street Station with four intermediate stops
- Denver West Line (12-mile light rail), part of Denver’s FasTracks program
- Denver Union Station, redevelopment of city’s major transit hub, part of Denver’s FasTracks program
- Miami Central Station, new interchange between commuter rail, metro, and AirportLink
- New York City 7 Line Extension (1.3-mile metro rail)
- Salt Lake Airport TRAX (6 mile light rail), from Downtown Salt Lake City to Salt Lake International Airport, part of Salt Lake FrontLines 2015 program
- Washington, DC Dulles Metrorail Extension Phase 1 (11.6-mile metro rail), from East Falls Church to Wiehle Avenue
- Washington, DC Anacostia and H Street Streetcars (6.2-mile streetcar)
Opening in 2014
Opening in 2015
Opening in 2016
Opening in 2018
- Honolulu Rail Transit (20-mile metro rail), from Ala Moana Center to Kapolei, via Airport; opening in phases with full completion in 2018
- San Francisco Transbay Transit Center, downtown’s planned major bus and rail terminus
Opening in 2019
- San Francisco Central Subway (1.7-mile light rail subway), from 4th and Brennan Station to Chinatown
Opening in 2020
- Toronto Eglinton Crosstown (15.5-mile metro rail), from Keele Street to Scarborough Town Centre
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December 28th, 2011 | » Less wealthy regions may be more likely to spend less on transit, leaving the poor there with higher transportation expenses.
One of the unique features of the American transit funding system is that the federal government chips in significant sums each year for capital expenses, such as for the purchase of new buses or the construction of new rail lines, but the law forbids significant involvement in subsidizing operating expenses. This means that local and state governments must find the means to pay for service day-in and day-out.
This could offer the benefit of a considerable range of local political decision-making: Some cities may choose to prioritize transit, while others don’t — people can choose to move between cities based on whether or not they want to take advantage of such transportation offerings. Yet the provision of transit for impoverished people is a redistributive service, and there is considerable theoretical support for the argument that redistributive public functions should not be funded by local governments. Cities that choose to aid their poor, scholars like Paul Peterson have argued, will simply attract more of the needy into their city limits; other municipalities without such aid will be able to escape with lower taxes and no aid to the poor.
A review of evidence from American cities on transit operations funding suggests that neither of these arguments is substantiated. Rather, the current funding system results in highly inequitable results that result in worse transit service in places with higher poverty rates and lower median household incomes. Differences in metropolitan wealth are highly positively correlated with levels of funding for transit service. In other words, the places where residents need transit service most are those that are providing the least of it. Median household incomes, at least based on the regions reviewed here, are prime determinants for the level of public services offered.
To conduct this quick study, I considered data from 15 American cities. I selected all central cities with populations of between 600,000 and 1,000,000 in the 2010 U.S. Census, producing a broad sample of cities throughout the country with varying demographic profiles.* I assembled data at the metropolitan (MSA) level (from 800,000 to 5.6 million in population) from local transit systems (for operating funding data), the Brookings Institution (for 0-vehicle households, metropolitan area poverty rates and median household income), the American Public Transportation Association (for ridership in July 2011), and the U.S. Census (for central city population, poverty rates, and median incomes).
Comparing statistics across this group of cities indicates that by requiring operating funding to be assembled at the local level, people living in poorer metropolitan areas are likely to be denied the quantity of transit services that their peers in wealthier regions are offered. This will only increase the transportation costs faced by people living there. This indicates that there is a strong equity argument to shift operating funding of transit services away from the local level and towards the federal government, which would be more likely to spread resources equally across metropolitan areas, regardless of local incomes.
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The most devastating data, as shown in the charts above, demonstrate that metropolitan areas with higher poverty rates and lower median incomes are likely to spend less on operating their public transportation networks than peer cities with lower poverty rates and higher median incomes (R-squared correlations of positive 0.72 and negative 0.49, respectively). A 50% increase in the poverty rate is associated with a 49% decline in per-person transit operations funding. The differences in transit funding are even more significant when compared with differences in income. The regression shows that a 50% increase in regional median income is associated with a 220% increase in per-person transit funding.
This suggests not only that less-wealthy metropolitan areas do not have the funding capacity to ensure good transit for their populations, but that they are providing disproportionally less public transit than their wealthier peers.** Local funding results in considerably varied service provision, based almost directly on the wealth of each respective region.
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This is not to suggest that people in poor areas are not able to get around at all. The evidence in the chart above shows that there is no correlation between the poverty of metropolitan areas and the rate of zero-household vehicles (R-squared correlation of 0.07). People who live in areas with poor transit offerings will simply find the means to drive. This comes with a grave consequence: Driving costs the average person more than using transit, so impoverished people in transit-poor areas are in effect forced to spend more for transportation than their peers in transit-rich areas.
On the other hand, there is a strong relationship between the number of zero-vehicle households in a region and the ridership on transit there (R-squared correlation of 0.66). The regression implies that a 50% increase in the rate of zero-vehicle households in a metropolitan area is associated with a more than five-fold increase in transit ridership. This suggests, perhaps unsurprisingly, that people are more likely to abandon their private vehicles when good transit is offered. Giving up on using personal cars lessens personal transportation costs, but ironically the evidence shows that this is more feasible in regions with lower poverty and higher median incomes. Regions that are already well-off are making themselves better off, while those that are poorer are reinforcing their economic problems.
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Nonetheless, the relatively strong correlation between transit operating dollars spent per person in the metropolitan area and voting share in the relevant county for Barack Obama in the 2008 presidential race (see above; R-squared correlation of 0.66) suggests that through political action, people have the ability to alter the level of service offered by transit services in their area. More strongly Democratic-voting populations appear to benefit from better transit offerings.
There is a direct correlation between investing in improved transit and the rate of ridership in the regions evaluated (R-squared correlation of 0.85), suggesting that higher funding for public transportation services is associated with more users. This is hardly a surprising result (one would hope that transit funding is roughly proportional to the number of riders!), but it reinforces the contention that transit ridership levels are not simply a result of socio-economic conditions and land uses, but also a consequence of direct political decision-making about how much to spend on transit.
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I also considered another possibility: That transit funding in regions is to some degree dependent on differences between central city and suburban populations within each metropolitan region. This question seems particularly relevant considering the recent situation in Detroit, in which suburban reluctance may have led at least in part to the canceling of a light rail line down Woodward Avenue. But a comparison between the central city share of zero-vehicle households (when weighed in terms of the city’s share of the metropolitan area population) and transit funding — where a larger share of zero-vehicle households in the city should theoretically indicate less funding — shows a weak positive correlation (R-squared of 0.34), which is unexpected. An increasing divergence between central city and suburban poverty rates and transit funding shows the expected negative correlation (R-squared of 0.33), indicating that a significant difference in poverty rates within the metropolitan area is associated with somewhat of a decline in transit funding, though it cannot account for most of the differences between regions.
This evidence is purely correlative, not causative. This means that I cannot conclusively show from these data that the lower level of transit funding in poorer metropolitan regions results from those regions’ economic difficulties.
Even so, these data suggest strongly that people living in cities with high poverty rates and low median household incomes are likely to suffer from inadequately funded public transportation systems compared to their peers in low poverty rate and high median household income metropolitan areas. This produces an inequitable funding distribution that further disadvantages lower-income households in lower-income regions by forcing them to resort to the use of expensive private automobiles rather than cheaper transit. This certainly should put in question the assumption that it is in the best interests of residents for funding decisions about public services to be made at the local level.
We should reevaluate whether it is reasonable for metropolitan areas to take responsibility for funding transit, or whether such funding concerns would be better placed in the hands of national government decision-makers, who might be more likely to prioritize equal spending on transit across regions.
* This list includes Austin, Boston, Charlotte, Columbus, Denver, Detroit, El Paso, Indianapolis, Jacksonville, Memphis, Nashville, San Francisco, San Jose, Seattle, and Washington. I did not include Baltimore because I could not find funding data for Baltimore’s transit services apart from those of Maryland in general, since the state has a unified transit system. I did not include Fort Worth because it shares its MSA with larger Dallas.
** One could also argue that the lack of transit provision is strongly correlated with a reduced median income in the regions studied.
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Upcoming Transit Line Openings: 2012 Early
- ▶ Sacramento Green Line to the River District LRT
- ▶ Rhode Island Wickford Junction Extension CR
- ▶ Los Angeles Expo Line Phase 1A LRT
February
- ▶ Las Vegas Sahara Corridor BRT
March
- ▶ Pittsburgh North Shore Connector LRT
Spring
- ▶ Boston Fitchburg Line Extension CR
- ▶ Miami Airport Link Metro
- ▶ Seattle Sounder Lakewood Extension CR
June
- ▶ New Orleans Loyola/UPT Streetcar
July
- ▶ Dallas Orange Line Phase II LRT
Summer
- ▶ Los Angeles Orange Line Canoga Extension BRT
- ▶ Los Angeles El Monte Transit Center
- ▶ New York Nostrand/Rogers BRT
- ▶ San Antonio Via Primo BRT
September
- ▶ Portland Streetcar Loop
Fall
- ▶ Calgary Northeast Line Extension LRT
- ▶ Chicago Jeffery Corridor BRT
- ▶ Seattle RapidRide C & D Lines BRT
- ▶ Twin Cities Cedar Avenue BRT
December
- ▶ Dallas Blue Line Extension LRT
- ▶ Dallas Orange Line Phase II LRT
- ▶ Montréal Train de l'Est CR
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By Yonah Freemark on January 15th, 2012 | 
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