Bacon's Rebellion

Democracy Thrives in Sunlight

The Most Senseless Transportation Project Ever?

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James A. Bacon
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by James A. Bacon

There is an interesting back story to the General Assembly deliberations over subsidies to the Rail-to-Dulles project (see previous post). Engaging in a form of informational guerilla warfare, a hardy band of skeptics in Northern Virginia has managed to inject a critical new issue into the debate: How much traffic will higher tolls on the Dulles Toll Road divert to other streets and roads?

Here’s the problem: Rates for the Dulles Toll Road are not being set by a determination of what it costs to maintain and upgrade the toll road. Rates are not set by a calculation of what drivers are willing to pay. Rates are driven by how much money it takes to build Phase 2 of the Rail-to-Dulles heavy rail project.

That project is estimated to cost $2.7 billion. Under the current funding agreement, 75% of the sum will be extracted from drivers on the toll road. Unless the General Assembly coughs up new subsidies, tolls for traveling the full length of the toll road will reach $4.50 by 2013 and escalate steadily to $10.75 by 2028.

“That’s going to drive a large portion of toll-road traffic to local roads, and the local roads are already crowded. The congestion will be that much worse, Terry Maynard, a board member of the Reston 2020 Committee and co-author of “The Dulles Corridor Transportation Planning Fail,” said last week.

Metrorail has been touted as a way to relieve overloaded Northern Virginia roads. In an irony of ironies, Maynard and his buddies contend, more drivers will be diverted to local roads than will be added to the Metrorail ridership! If it’s any consolation, the toll road itself will be a lot less crowded.

Think of that. If Maynard & company are right, Virginia will have spent $5-6 billion on a rail project that will make traffic congestion worse than it was before!

Let me repeat that in capital letters so you don’t miss the point: VIRGINIA WILL HAVE SPENT $5-6 BILLION ON A RAIL PROJECT THAT WILL MAKE TRAFFIC CONGESTION WORSE THAN IT WAS BEFORE!

That’s a truly breathtaking level of incompetence.

The Reston 2020 Committee findings are based in part upon numbers provided by a CDM Smith March 2012 forecast and the Federal Transit Administration’s (FTA’s) annual progress report on the construction of Phase 1 of the Silver Line. Thirty-five thousand fewer vehicles will use the toll road daily in 2013 if the tolls are doubled as forecast; 46,000 fewer vehicles will use the toll road daily by 2028.

The analysis was reported by both by the Reston patch and the Washington Post.

As Northern Virginians were absorbing the prospect of worse traffic congestion, people drew two different types of conclusions. One group argued that Phase 2 was a boondoggle and that Fairfax and Loudoun counties, both junior funding partners, should scuttle it altogether. The other group argued that the General Assembly should step in, contributing up to $450 million ($150 million already agreed upon, plus $300 million in dispute) to help pay down the interest on the project debt in order to reduce the impact on Dulles Toll Road users.

Either way, the project is a disaster. Either Metro never gets extended to Dulles airport, as was the idea all along, or Virginia’s taxpayers will get dunned for hundreds of millions of dollars for a project that was structured to enrich well-connected property owners in Tysons Corner. But, hey, what else is new? Virginia used General Funds to pay off an unfunded portion of the Rt. 288 boondoggle outside Richmond several years back (which wasn’t even tolled), and Hampton Roads politicians are clamoring for special consideration for the Midtown-Downtown tunnel.

The old firewalls of fiscal constraint have broken down. This is what we get from abandoning user-pays logic for transportation funding. It’s all about politics and perception now. Taxpayers beware. You will be fleeced.

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  1. TMT Avatar
    TMT

    A little more history. Rail to Dulles was always contemplated. A wide median was left in the middle of the Airport Access Road (AAR) to accommodate rail. The original plan was to build rail solely in that median, with various stops along the way, including one at Tysons. There was concern the area to be served by rail was not dense enough to support heavy rail. To address that issue and also to enrich Tysons landowners, the plan was modified to run rail through Tysons with three stations being built. (Then chairman of the Fairfax County BoS and SAIC employee, Gerry Connolly, had the plan modified to add a 4th station stop in front of SAIC’s Tysons building.)
    Also, Frank Wolf proposed an alternative whereby Bus Rapid Transit would be built in the AAR median, with the feds paying 90% of the costs. Eventually, as the area grew, BRT could be replaced by rail. BRT was not sexy enough and does not justify as much density under standard land use planning principles. Wolf’s plan was rejected locally.
    Fairfax County formed a Task Force in the 1990s to plan an urban Tysons. The plan called for increasing density to c. 74 msf, with rail (3 stations) and many of the road improvements now set forth in Table 7 to the new Comp Plan. The old Comp Plan, aka the 94 Plan, was later adjusted upward to 78 msf to reflect the fourth station.
    The FTA adopted new and stricter funding standards. Dulles Rail could not pass. Senator John Warner obtained a legislative waiver for Dulles Rail to be held to the older, weaker funding standards. However, it became clear that Phase I of the project would not pass the old standards either. The benefits, new transit trips, were too costly. One of the realities of Dulles Rail is that many of the new riders are not abandoning their cars, but are already taking transit. Many Silver Line riders take express buses or the Orange Line train. All hell broke loose among the rent seekers and politicians. A considerable, bi-partisan lobbying effort occurred. And the Bush administration surrendered, agreeing to a full funding agreement ($900 M) for Phase I.
    Down in Richmond, Tim Kaine had the CTB approve a plan wherein the Feds paid $900 M, Fairfax County (the special tax district) paid $450 M, the state paid $50 M; and contributed the rest in tolls from the DTR. Everybody jumped for joy. MWAA developed an internal plan and considered the impact of loss of drivers from the DTR because of toll increases. MWAA, realizing that some drivers would leave right after the toll increases, but would come back, calculated its plan based on long-term elasticity. In late August 2009, Jim Bennett, then MWAA president, said informally that MWAA believed it could ultimately raise tolls to $7 and change before toll increases would stop providing revenue increases.
    Most recently, the Reston Citizens Association estimated the DTR would ultimately lose 30,000 drivers per day because of the level of tolls.
    We have a mess on our hands.

  2. Too Conservative - Bacon Asks And Answers An Important Question

    […] if Metro to Dulles is “The Most Senseless Transportation Project Ever?“  The post and the first comment from TMT provide the increasingly obvious answer – of […]

  3. DJRippert Avatar
    DJRippert

    Jim Bacon comes from a city that can’t manage to keep a Tripe A baseball team in town. The Richmond MSA has over 1.5M people. There are Triple A teams in Durham and Norfolk (with roughly the same population in their MSAs).

    In 1950, the city of Richmond had 230,000 people – today it has 204,000.

    In contrast, the city of Virginia Beach had 42,277 people in 1950 and 437,944 today.

    Fairfax County had 98.557 people in 1950 and 1.1M today.

    Loudoun County had 21,147 people in 1950 and 312,311 today.

    Of course you people from Richmond can’t fathom why we need mass transit in NoVa. You can’t fathom much of anything regarding the future. You sit around and daydream about the past.

    Hell’s bells – it wasn’t until 1986 that Richmond settled its final school desegregation case. 1986!

    Richmond once was a premier southern city. But it has lost out to Miami, Jacksonville, Tampa, Atlanta, Charlotte and RTP (NC).

    The banking industry once in Richmond has fled to Charlotte.

    Seriously Jim – what gives you people the right to tell anybody in Virginia how to live? Go solve your own problems and leave us alone – in NoVa, in Tidewater, in Charlottesville.

    Richmond is the problem.

    Clean up your own house.

    Maybe start by trying to woo a Triple A baseball team back to town.

    1. James A. Bacon Avatar
      James A. Bacon

      When you have no defense, go on the attack!

      What, Don, you have nothing to say about TMT’s chronology? TMT is not from Richmond.

      You have nothing to say about the Reston 2020 Committee’s findings? The authors are not from Richmond.

      Hah!

  4. James A. Bacon Avatar
    James A. Bacon

    Wow, Don, so much distracting invective in such a short comment! PeterG must have the day off!

    For the purposes of argument, let’s grant the premise that Richmond is a loser and a mess. Does that really disqualify me as an individual from commenting upon other regions of the state? If so, it must disqualify me from commenting on anything at all. Richmond sucks. Jim Bacon lives in Richmond. Ergo Jim Bacon sucks. Let’s turn the logic around. Don Rippert has the logic of a loon. Don Rippert lives in Northern Virginia. Therefore, all Northern Virginians have the logic of loons.

    Next point, I don’t “tell” anyone in Virginia how to live — unless you include “don’t plunder your neighbor” as telling the rapacious, politically connected elements of society how to live.

    More illogic: “In 1950, the city of Richmond had 230,000 people – today it has 204,000. In contrast, the city of Virginia Beach had 42,277 people in 1950 and 437,944 today.”

    That’s comparing apples and oranges. The “city” of Virginia Beach was created from a merger of the former City of Virginia Beach (the resort area) with Princess Anne County. It’s the equivalent of the City of Richmond consolidating with Henrico County. You’d have to add the population of Henrico and Richmond together to get a valid comparison. For a better comparison, try Norfolk and Richmond.

    Richmond lost its banks to North Carolina. Yeah, it did. Virginia was a step behind North Carolina in deregulating its banking industry. Of course, it was a step ahead of Maryland and D.C. in deregulationg its banking industry, which is why Virginia banks swallowed up the big Maryland and D.C. banks before getting swallowed up by the N.C. banks. As it turns out, the N.C. banks were the very first in the country to deregulate. Virginia was right behind and ahead of most other states.

    The City of Richmond can’t keep a AAA ball team. You’ve got me there. It can’t. I’m weeping. I’m sobbing. Oh, I think I’m over it now. I could care less. Either could most Richmonders. We have great museums and cultural institutions we’d rather patronize.

    One last point: You can rate the economic vitality of a region by the growth of its population but I don’t. I prefer to measure it by standard of living — average income adjusted by cost of living, with adjustments for access to important amenities like health care, clean environment, cultural activities, etc. By those measures, I find Richmond to be a great place to live. The region falls down in two ways. First, as I have frequently lamented on this blog, is its failure to create a vibrant entrepreneurial economy with many fast-growth companies. Second, it epitomizes surburban sprawl and dysfunctional human settlement patterns.

  5. TaxPig Avatar
    TaxPig

    Let’s Build a Train to Dulles…Past is Prologue

    http://www.burtfolsom.com/?p=53

    Why Did the National Road Fail?
    by Burt on March 16, 2009

    “Let’s build a national road across the country!” many Americans cried in the early 1800s. The idea of a “national road” was appealing because it would encourage settlement by connecting the east coast with the interior of the recent Louisiana Purchase.
    So popular was the idea of a national highway that in 1806 Congress voted to fund such a road, and Thomas Jefferson signed the bill. Constitutional arguments were important in this debate and those who favored the road argued that it was a “post road” for mail delivery, and thus was consistent with Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution.
    But would the National Road—which would eventually stretch from Cumberland, Maryland to Vandalia, Illinois—be economically sound? Put another way, just because a national road is a good idea, is government funding the best means to achieve this end? After over 700 miles and $7 million in construction costs, we can answer these two questions. No, the National Road was not built economically, nor was it particularly helpful to westward settlement. By 1850, it was little used and soon after that it was almost abandoned. What went wrong and why?
    Three problems inherent in government funding help explain why the National Road was largely a failure.

    1. When government money is used to build a road, political decisions, not economic ones, will dictate where that road is built.
    2. When the government builds a road, it will cost more than if entrepreneurs build the road.
    3. Because no one owned the National Road, no one had a strong stake in building it well or preserving it once it was finished. ”

    DC Metro is also chronically underfunded, maybe because at some level even government knows a loser when it hits them in the head….over and over and over.

  6. TaxPig Avatar
    TaxPig

    The Most Senseless Transportation Project Ever? Yes.

    Lucrative real estate deal? Very.

    Tax Pig sez: “Need les visun…mor analisis…mor acountabilitee.”

  7. DJRippert Avatar
    DJRippert

    Jim Bacon:

    You spent years extolling the virtues of human settlement reformation. You led the cheers for population density in alpha communities where people can live, work and play. You followed Ed Risse in believing that undeveloped land inside the clear edge should be heavily taxed while developed land outside the clear edge should be heavily taxed.

    Then, along comes a plan to actually create mixed use communities in Tyson’s and Reston and you “get all Richmond on us”. Instead of saying, “Well, at least their doing something” you revert to staring out of your rear view mirror and longing for some mythological time when government didn’t build infrastructure. Jim – government has been building infrastructure since the Appian Way.

    I can only assume that you are one of those tragic Baby Boomers who was all too happy to use the infrastructure bought with the sweat of your parents and grandparents but can’t fathom how it might be fair to provide some of the same for future generations.

    As for Richmond – do something! If you don’t like the suburban sprawl – fix it. Charlotte has a subway system, why not Richmond? Oh right, you guys are busy sitting on your front porches like some Gone With the Wind characters reminiscing about the good days before the War of Northern Aggression.

    http://www.lynxcharlotte.org/

    The other cities in the South like Charlotte are lapping you Jim. It’s not just bank deregulation. It’s a lack of leadership.

    Richmond all but invented mass transit. It had the first viable public trolley system in the US.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richmond_Union_Passenger_Railway

    Why did you people give up? What happened?

    “Richmond’s electric trolley service ended on November 25, 1949.”.

    Jim – that wasn’t the day you were born was it? Maybe some kind of retrograde demon spawn thing?

  8. Restonian Avatar
    Restonian

    Great reporting Jim.

    Imagine how folks in Henrico and Chesterfield counties would react if they were told that tolls of $10+ each way would be set on I-95, north and south of the Richmond City limits, so that state workers and others could ride a subsidized trolley line to and from downtown Richmond. Moreover, these tolls would be set after I-95 users had already paid over $1 billion in tolls with after tax money. The Commonwealth declines to disclose what it has done with the $600+ million surplus in taxpayers toll revenue above the $300+ total in capital, financing and operating costs in the last 27 years.

    The Governor and his Secretary of Transportation refuse to look at alternatives to the $10+ tolls and say “sorry, our hands are tied” because a previous governor gave away the right of way to an unelected authority, most of whose members live outside the Commonwealth, to build the project. The authority, controlled by Democrats, makes most of its decisions about the trolley project in Executive Session, claims it is exempt from Virginia disclosure laws or audits and refuses to provide any evidence of economic and financially feasibility of the project.

    Still worse, the transit entity that will operate the trolley is controlled by labor unions and also has a board of Democrat politicians, unaccountable to anybody. The transit provider has refused to raise fares sufficiently on its existing routes to cover projected replacement costs on its 35 year old system. It claims instead that it will seek federal and state funds to pay for the estimated $13.3 billion needed in capital replacement costs over the next decade.

    About now, you may be asking: “Who got us into this mess?” Primary responsibility rests with former Governors Mark Warner and Tim Kaine but plenty of Republicans assisted, including former US Senators John Warner and George Allen, Congressmen Frank Wolf and General Assembly members in 2006 who should have blown the whistle when the “giveaway” was announced by Governor Kaine but instead, they sat on their hands.

    A couple of clarifications. The transit system which will operate the Silver Line is the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority. The original 103 mile Metrorail system was built between the 1970s and 2001 at a cost over over $10 billion, 75% to 90% paid by federal government grants. Most of the existing Metrorail system operates inside the Capital Beltway where population densities range from 7,000 to over 10,000 per square mile. By contrast, Dulles Rail is being built in suburban areas where lower zoning densities prevail and population density ranges from 1,500 to 4,000 per square mile, normally considered appropriate for bus transit.

    The Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority, which is building Dulles Rail, was established in 1987 by an act of Congress: “Pursuant to Section 6007(b) of the Metropolitan Washington Airports Act of 1986, the Authority is established solely to operate and improve both metropolitan Washington airports as primary airports serving the metropolitan Washington area and shall be independent of the Commonwealth and its local political subdivisions, the District of Columbia and the federal government in the performance and exercise of the airport-related duties and powers enumerated in subdivisions 1 through 16 of subsection A of this section.” No mention is made of Congressional authority to build a rail project, particularly through Tysons Corner.

    As to the need for transit, the present Metrorail system is an essential service for many working in downtown Washington and inner suburbs. In outer suburbs, where most residential and commercial development growth has occurred during the last 40 years, bus transit expansion will be far more cost effective than rail. Contrary to the claims of “smart growth” advocates, most future residential and commercial growth in the Washington Metro area will continue outside the Capital Beltway.

    Arlington County has achieved successful “transit oriented development” communities along the Orange Line between Rosslyn and Ballston since Metrorail arrived in 1979. The US Census reports 2010 population there at 207,627, up 55,028 since 1980, an average growth rate of under 2,000 persons annually. By contrast, overall DC Metro area population increased by over 2.1 million between 1980 and 2010, more than 70,000 persons annually.

    Transit serves 15% of overall commuter needs, but in terms of distance traveled by transit, the transit share is about 5%.

  9. DJRippert Avatar
    DJRippert

    Restonian defines the problem and then promptly ignores it. Low population densities and high population densities both work pretty efficiently. The problem comes when so-called sprawl creates densities that are neither high nor low. Communities in that situation need to make a decision – live with increasing transportation chaos, eliminate further development through zoning or move to a higher density supported by mass transit. The decision to move to higher densities with mass transit has been made dozens of times in dozens of cities around the world. From London to Charlotte to Chicago to Oslo.

    I also love these pronouncements on population density and the usefulness of rail. No sources, no comparisons.

    The City of Charlotte has a population density of 732,000 and a density of 2,457 per sq mi. The County of Fairfax has a population of 1.1M and a density of 2,738. Apparently, Charlotte hasn’t gotten Restonian’s e-mail about population density and rail since they are building light rail with planned commuter rail.

    I also love the random observations about ridership. WMATA has a higher weekday ridership than any subway system in the United States except New York. Higher than Chicago, Boston, San Francisco or any other system outside of NY. San Francisco’s BART system is two miles shorter than Metro but carries less than half the weekday passengers.

    One thing I will have to credit to Restonian is his very accurate portrayal of the Virginia state and federal representatives’ broad based decision to give responsibility for RTD to MWAA. The simple fact is that our elected officials didn’t have the stones for the job and MWAA did. In fact, the process of our gutless politicians washing their hands of the matter was conducted in a fairly broad based bidding effort with MWAA ultimately being given the work. I don’t remember Jim Bacon howling on this blog while the process was unfolding. It’s possible I just don’t remember his righteous outrage at the time the decision was being made.

  10. Restonian Avatar
    Restonian

    Mr. Rippert:
    There is much wrong with your analysis of events leading to the giving away of the Dulles Toll Road to MWAA in return for their “commitment” to build Dulles Rail.
    I challenge you to cite any study demonstrating that Dulles Rail is remotely feasible. The costs of infrastructure needed around Silver Line rail transit stations will run into the $$ billions – none of which has been budgeted or approved yet by either state or local governments.
    Historically, development and permitted densities in western Fairfax and most of Loudoun County were constrained by limited central water and sewer system service areas.
    In 2002, the Piedmont Environmental Council was among groups opposed to a regional sales tax referendum to help pay for Dulles Rail and other transportation improvements, fearing that westward sprawl would lead to excessive development impinging on roads leading to bucolic estates in the Middleburg area. At that time, some 6,000 housing units per year were being built in Loudoun County. Now thanks to changed market conditions and “hook up” fees close to $50,000 per home, only 2,000 homes per year are being completed.
    I agree that most politicians are gutless. Politicians, Tysons landowners and transit advocates expect that somebody other than the transit riders pay for their projects. Those benefiting should pay most of the costs of transit. Yesterday, Fairfax County Supervisors demonstrated their lack of prudence by approving funding for the County’s estimated $500 million Phase 2 million capital cost share without knowing most of the downstream costs related to transit operations and ignoring the costs and consequences to taxpayers and Dulles Toll Road users of an infeasible rail project. . Federal workers, who account for over 40% of peak period Metrorail ridership. Most Metrorail riders refuse to pay higher fares for peak hour rides and contribute funds to reserves for the $13.3 billion in unfunded capital replacement costs. WMATA Board members instead expect that the federal, state and local taxpayers will bail them out. So far, the public has not demanded accountability from the WMATA Board and their federal and state subsidy partners.
    As experts such as Randal O’Toole and Wendell Cox have shown, many politicians are obsessed with rail transit, often because of deals made with landowners to increase development densities around stations in return for campaign contributions. Tysons Corner is a classic example of “pay to play” with many politicians involved up to their necks.
    In 2002, the Federal Transit Administration rejected funding of Dulles Rail between Reston and the Ashburn terminus in Loudoun County because of low ridership forecasts. At double the costs, and likely lower ridership than forecast a decade ago, Phase 2 makes no sense. More tomorrow.

  11. Restonian Avatar
    Restonian

    Mr. Rippert:

    What do you deem to be “low densities” and “high densities” for population and what is the reason for your apparent aversion to “medium densities?”

    Most would view Manhattan, for which wikipedia notes population density at 70,951 per square mile, as a high density urban area. Washington, DC has a population density of 10,065 per square mile. Do you regard that to be high or medium density?

    You asked for a source to show population density appropriate for rail transit versus bus transit.

    The Virginia Transit Service Design Guidelines were published by Department of Rail and Public Transportation in November 2008.
    http://www.drpt.virginia.gov/activities/files/Transit_Service_Design_Guidelines_FINAL.pdf

    See page 12 for following tables:
    Development Levels Supportive of Fixed Route Bus
    Population densities (persons per square mile) 2,500 – 4,000
    Development Levels Supportive of Rail
    Population densities (persons per square mile) 6,667 – 15,000.

    As to the City of Charlotte and its light rail system Lynx, several articles seem to indicate major problems there:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lynx_Rapid_Transit_Services

    http://clclt.com/gyrobase/taken-for-a-ride/Content?oid=2350454&showFullText=true

    http://ti.org/antiplanner/?p=3371

    Charlotte Light Rail a Big Flop
    posted in Transportation, Urban areas |

    Let’s see: 100 percent cost overrun? Check.

    Anemic ridership? Check.

    Requires tax breaks, tax-increment financing, and other “public investments” to stimulate transit-oriented development? Check.

    Declared a great success by the transit agency desperate for tax increases to fund further rail projects? Check.

    Must be light rail.

    As Wikipedia points out, when planned in 2000, Charlotte’s light-rail line was supposed to cost $225 million. The final cost turned out to be $467 million. Even after adjusting for inflation, that’s close to a 100 percent cost overrun. (Actually, considering inflation from 2000 to 2007, that’s about a 75 percent cost overrun.)

    In 2008, the Charlotte Area Transit System (CATS) reported less than 12,000 average weekday trips on its light-rail line. The Houston and Hudson-Bergen light-rail lines, both about the same length, each carried more than 40,000 weekday riders (and can hardly be considered successes).

    Given the high capital costs plus nearly $10 million in annual operating costs, the annualized cost of Charlotte’s light-rail works out to more than $3.60 per passenger mile (compared with less than $1 for a typical bus and less than $0.25 for driving, including highway subsidies which, in North Carolina, average less than half a penny per passenger mile). Of course, most of that $3.60 is subsidized; transit users paid an average of just $0.12 per passenger mile to ride it, leaving a subsidy of nearly $3.50 per passenger mile. That also works out to a subsidy of more than $20 per ride, making Charlotte more expensive than almost any light-rail system outside of Buffalo and San Jose.

    Tax-increment financing was only legalized in North Carolina in 2005, but Charlotte is using it to the hilt, expecting it to help pay for both future rail lines as well as transit-oriented developments. The city has also waived property taxes on some residences in these development for 5 or more years.

    Despite the high costs and trivial ridership, CATS wants more rail — but doesn’t have any money to pay for it. So it has rolled out a campaign of declaring the light rail a great success, especially in the field of economic development. Of course, in most cases it was the subsidies, not the rail, that stimulated the development, and most likely the development would have taken place somewhere in the region anyway, though perhaps not in that corridor.

    So the taxpayers are out $467 million in construction costs, millions more to operate the thing, and millions more to support development that would have taken place anyway. What a great success!

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