Central Corridor light rail gets support from — Albert Lea?
Posted on July 10th, 2009 – 1:44 PMBy Roadguy
For a city of its size, Albert Lea pops up in my writing more than you might think. (This post and this story, for example.) Today I got an e-mail calling my attention to this editorial in the Albert Lea Tribune. The headline is “Central Corridor good for Minnesota.” For me, the most intriguing sentence was in a paragraph praising the Hiawatha Line:
The line paid for itself in two years.
I’ve been trying to do some mathematical gymnastics to figure out how this could be the case, given that fares don’t even cover operating expenses (though they cover a greater percentage than bus fares do). Light rail can bring numerous quantifiable and qualitative benefits, but are there numbers showing $800 million in benefits in the first two years of Hiawatha operations? If you’ve got a theory, share it below.
8 Responses to "Central Corridor light rail gets support from — Albert Lea?"
I’m not sure what that statement means either. Strictly going by cost of project and revenue from project, NO transportation project pays for itself. And that’s fine because these are public investments. They’re part of the common good. The value of these things goes beyond the dollars and cents figures.
Now, it’s true that across the country, LRT projects have spurred economic development valued far greater than the cost of the project. The return on investment in terms of economic development is fantastic on rail projects. But I highly doubt we’re there with Hiawatha quite yet. Lots of housing has been built but I don’t think it’s $800 million worth.
Another curious statement is that “It’s a money maker for Metro Transit”. Not quite, but then it was never meant to be.
To me, the “paid for itself” line was as much hypothetical as anything, as they were touting the many benefits of LRT.
That said, I don’t think there is any question that it WILL eventually recoup its cost via higher tax bases from urban renewal and less wear and tear from fewer vehicles on the road.
I’m all for the Central(and Southwest, etc.) line(s), but I’m just afraid of what traffic will be like on University once it’s up and running, if the traffic conditions on Hiawatha are any indication of what’s to come. Two hours to drive from one end to the other?
I think the traffic will be a little better. The way the signals are timed with the Hiawatha line (btw, learned this from one of the designers, and from observations waiting at lights) is that they’re designed to clear the cross street before the train arrives. There’s a signal on the tracks a ways away from the cross streets. When the train hits those signals, it trips the lights so Hiawatha stops, and the cross streets go. This is to ensure that nobody is stuck on the tracks. Around the time the train gets into the station, Hiawatha is allowed to go again.
Believe it or not, this is the very debate that led to two drunk guys I just met telling me to ask out their friend (who eventually became my wife).
This isn’t all that hard actually. Major infrastructre projects like this have all sorts of spill-over benefits for people who get the benefit for free. It’s why the state could pay millions of dollars in early completion bonuses for the bridge.
Look at it like this - there are times when I would be willing to a little bit of money if fewer people were on the road. Even, say $.01/car. I could spend a couple of bucks, have less traffic (and thus get there faster and for less gas), and be done with the annoyance. Of course, I could never negotiate that (since the cost of trying to would be more hassle than what it’s worth - or, in economic speak, “transaction costs.”)
The LRT does it for me. Everyone in the train is one less car (or bus) on the road. So I get the benefit, but I don’t pay for it. Now multiply that by all the others like me. My LRT subsidy is just another way for me to pay all those $.01 for fewer cars.
Another example is my going to the airport this Wednesday. Now, I could drive and park (and spend something like $50+ for the few days I’m gone). I’d actually be willing to spend up to pretty close to that same amount as a ticket fare because (due to where I live) driving and the LRT are closely to perfectly interchangeable for me. Well, I’m going to get it for $3.50 (there and back). That saves me $40+ that I will never pay, yet is a real benefit to me. In that way, I owe the LRT a few hundred bucks already.
Let me add one more thing - just because something has some benefit doesn’t mean it’s going to pay for itself.
We could have taken that $800 million and invested it in something else or not borrowed it. If those paid more (or if we don’t have benefits > the financing costs), then it was a bad deal.
It’s like this - if you borrow $1 million at 8%, you must make $80,000 to just break even, much more to get a return that makes it worth it. Likewise, if you have $1 million sitting on the side and you invest it at 6%, but could of invested at 8%, you aren’t making $60,000/yr, you’re losing the $20,000 that you left on the table.
I knew about the hows and whys of the Hiawatha signal system, I just never understood it. So, we totally screw up the traffic flow on a major artery–Hiawatha–because some idiot may have parked on the tracks. Makes more sense to set it up so that when the cross street traffic signal turns yellow, the cross arms lower to prevent anyone from driving onto the tracks during the red cycle. Makes a helluva lot more sense than constantly bringing Hiawatha to a halt.
What would’ve made more sense would’ve been adding another overpass or two. At least one at 46th in particular…on a related note, an LRT underpass at 46th was part of the original late-80s LRT plan.
I don’t have a theory purporting to show $800 million in benefits from the Hiawatha line in two years, but I do have one regarding why Albert Lea is (publicly) supporting more spending on rail transit. It is simply because they are angling to get a high-speed rail link built to or through their town some time in the near future, and figure that logrolling is their best chance to achieve this.
The line paid for itself in two years.
Funny, but not really. This is what happens when you relax standards for math and science in high school.
