[sustran] Fwd: Light Rail To The Portland Airport (fwd)

[Marty Bernard]

Author's name, etc. at bottom. What a slam dunk!

---- Begin Forwarded Message



The Portland Business Journal asked for an Op-Ed piece on light rail to
the airport. I sent the following.  

_______________________________________________________________
RAIL TO THE AIRPORT: TAX DOLLARS TAKE FLIGHT

Light rail to the airport (PDXLR) is a wasteful idea with absolutely
nothing factual to support any prospects for benefits to the region. 
Its
object is to substitute a highly subsidized system for  unsubsidized
airport shuttles, limos, taxis and rental cars which provide faster and
more convenient door-to-door service.  
  
No rail systems to airports can be considered successful but the nature
of PDXLR and regional demographics portend even worse results. Only two
US cities have light rail access. The rest use heavy rail (subways)
which travel at faster speeds with fewer stops. Only Washington, D.C.'s
heavy rail system comes close to showing respectable ridership because
National airport is located in the middle of two lines (Blue and
Yellow); is two stops from Pentagon City; three stops from the 
Pentagon;
four stops from HUD, DOT, the Smithsonian and other mammoth work
centers; in a region with 2  BD times this region's population; and
National has the highest percentage of people who leave and return the
same day (no luggage). PDX would be 16 stops and one transfer away from
the nearest and only population concentration.

New York eliminated its "Train to the Plane" subway service after many
years of huge operating losses and low usage..

The preponderance of light rail commuters drive to MAX and park. Tri 
Met
does not allow overnight parking because it needs every park & ride 
spot
for the daily commute. There will be 5,770  park & ride spots after the
west side line is completed. If free long-term parking were permitted,
all of the spots could be filled in two days, leaving no spaces for
daily commuters, the raison d'etre of the system.

Neither buses or light rail are constructed for luggage. Conveyors to
airports need lots of room for luggage at the entries and inside. Tri
Met would have to replace its entire fleet of rail cars and buses to
make it user friendly. Even if it could afford to do so, it would give
up daily commuter seat space.

Light rail to PDX would have a miniscule effect on congestion even if 
it
attracted riders. Airport traffic coalesces on the east side where
airport traffic runs in the contra-flow direction, that is, in the
relatively empty lanes. The tiny number that might use PDXLR instead of
autos would be exceeded by the much larger number that would use autos
to get to the office buildings that have become part of the PDXLR
project.   

Of cities with rail service to airports, Cleveland's subway to Hopkins
Airport comes closest to resembling Portland's demographics. The ride
from downtown Cleveland takes   minutes compared to PDXLR's proposed 33
minute ride, not including the time and inconvenience of transferring 
at
Gateway. After 19 years of hard-selling the service, only 2 % of 
airport
travelers use the subway. 3% use shuttles, 3 % use limos, 5 % use 
taxis,
12 % use rental cars and 72 % use private auto.

Tri Met has been operating a free shuttle service between Gateway and
the airport for he last three Thanksgiving and Christmas periods when
airport traffic was at peak, airport parking lots were filled and
conditions at the airport invited avoidance of driving to the airport.
The Gateway-PDX shuttle traveled the same route as the proposed airport
light rail at a faster speed than light rail with none of the stops. It
left every twenty minutes and, unlike PDXLR, was free. Usage was less
than two riders per bus. More energy was consumed than if the
Gateway-PDX shuttle users had driven alone.

The construction cost is just one of ways in which our scarce resources
will be misused. Overtime, the operating cost of the unused system will
dig more deeply into our pockets.  

The Financing Scam

If the rail line to the airport will do nothing for congestion or for
improving service to airport users, it will do wonders for Bechtel, the
private sector "partner" to Tri Met, the City of Portland and the Port
of Portland. In return for "putting-up" between $25 and $30 million for
undefined "development rights" of airport property, Bechtel will also
get to build the light rail line to the airport without a bid process.
If anyone else wanted "development rights" they would either have to 
buy
a leasehold or buy title to the property. In their frenzy to build
another rail line, none of the public partners  has determined the 
value
of the "development rights" or the no bid design-build construction
(blank-check) agreement.

Tri Met hopes to use the funds put into the project from all sources as 
 
matching funds for obtaining funding for the south/north light rail
system. There may be some hitches due to the federal law that does not
allow federal funds to be used as matching funds for other federal 
funds
and the fact that the projects are clearly separate.

Using land obtained with federal funds to obtain "private sector"
funding as a match smacks of money-laundering.  

The City of Portland obtains transportation funding from two sources  
96
state gas and weight taxes, which are constitutionally forbidden from
use on this project, and from federal funds, which cannot be used as
matching funds. After all of the hoopla about not having sufficient
funding to even fill pot-holes, the number one priority, it makes 
little
sense to use scarce transportation funds anyway.  Hence, any funding
from the City for this dubious project, in order to qualify for 
matching
funds on south/north,  will have to come from general funds at a time
when the city and County are grappling with raising business taxes for
such things as preventing teacher layoffs.

Another Pea in the Shell Game

When the City Council, on December 31, agreed to initial engineering
funding, it was conceded that PDXLR would attract "low ridership."  The
new rationale was the value of PDXLR in attracting office space
development at the airport. That hasn't happened along east side MAX.  

In October 1996, the City Council passed tax abatements for 
construction
along the east side MAX line
because "we have not seen any of the kind of development....that we
would have like to have seen." Those subsidies would, also, apply to
this line.  

When the question of the amount of parking spaces that would be 
provided
with any office space construction was raised, no answers were offered
by Bechtel or its "partners." The addition of parking for offices would
only exacerbate congestion on the roads near the airport.

There may have been worse use of public funds in this state. But one
would be hard-pressed to name any.


--  
Melvin Y. Zucker
Oregon Transportation Institute  <http://www.hevanet.com/oti>
2222 NW Ramsey Drive, Portland, OR 97229-4 5
Tel 503-292-2167 -  Fax 503-292-0361 - E Mail myz at hevanet.com






-- 
Marty Bernard
Oakland, California

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