dispatches from TJICistan

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/14/us/14s…

Downtowns Across the U.S. See Streetcars in Their Future

Of course they do.

They’re expensive, ineffective, and funnel cash and power into the hands of politicians and the politically connected.

Cincinnati officials are assembling financing for a $132 million system that would connect the city’s riverfront stadiums, downtown business district and Uptown neighborhoods, which include six hospitals and the University of Cincinnati, in a six- to eight-mile loop. Depending on the final financing package, fares may be free, 50 cents or $1.

If it’s projected at $132 mill now, it will come in somewhere between two and four times that, or $260-$500 million.

If it’s projected at 6-8 miles, it will come in at 3-5 miles.

In the best possible case, it will cost $52 mill / mile or $1,000 per inch.

In the worst case (at least the worst case contemplated here, but I have faith in government to screw up even beyond that), it will cost $166 mill / mile, or $2,600 k per inch.

Modern streetcars, like those Cincinnati plans to use, cost about $3 million each, run on an overhead electrical wire and carry up to 130 passengers per car

Let’s say that they’ve got 5 trolleys in operation, and that each trolley runs 12 hours a day (but only 8 hours after figuring in breaks for conductors, etc.) at an average speed of 15 miles per hour (because of stops every block or three), we get each trolly doing the loop every 15 minutes, or a trolley every three minutes.

This also gives us a potential of 600 trolley miles per day. We could multiply that by 130 passengers per car, but looking around at local service (like the Burlington “B line”, the Lexington “Lexpress”, etc.), I see usage often at zero point zero, and sometimes as high as 10%. Let’s be wildly generous and give Cincinnati a 15% usage rate, and now we’re getting 11,700 passenger miles per day.

With each ride being 50 cents, we’re taking in revenue of $6k per day, and paying 10 conductors (5 to drive, and 5 spares), and 20 maintenance workers, 20 bureaucrats, an advertising agency, a pension plan, a health plan, and depreciation on 5 $3 million trolleys.

Count the conductors and maintenance workers at $50k salaries, and boost that to $100k each for health, pension, overtime, overhead, etc. Double that for each of the bureaucrats. We’re spending $7k per day on labor.

Depreciation on the trolleys (using a 10 year lifespan) is $6k per day.

Depreciation and materials for repairs on the track and infrastructure might be the same.

If my truck would burn 20 gallons of gas with a day of driving, these trolleys are going to use the equivalent of 50 gallons or so of fuel each day. Call that another $1k in fuel expenses. Per day.

Suddenly we’re at $6k of revenue and $15k of expenses, and we haven’t even put anyone’s mistress on the payroll, sent any of the government officials on fact finding missions to New York or London to see how they do things, had any catered lunches with consultants or community groups, etc.

Boost the ticket price to the upper suggested limit ($1 per trip), and we’re still running $3k in the hole every day.

I don’t know about where you work, but I’ve never been involved in running anything that could survive that for long.

On the other hand, I don’t have the “legal” power to confiscate wealth from anyone I want to fund my losses.

since streetcars can pick up passengers on either side, they can make shorter stops than buses.

So:

a) trolleys are going to stop in traffic and people are going to get on from both sides…including the “in traffic” side?

b) even if we decide that this is a good idea, it’s entirely impossible to engineer a bus that does this, and the only possible way to put a door on both sides of a vehicle is to spend well north of $100 million to rip up 6-8 miles of road and install tracks?

In invoke Coyote’s Law of Mass Transit Bullshit: you could buy every single person who will regularly use this boondoggle their own personal Prius, and you’d not only use less energy, you’d spend a hell of a lot less money doing it.

This entry was posted on Thursday, August 14th, 2008 at 10:20 am and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.