[sustran] Re: More on Denver thread

[Todd Litman]

Neither costs per line-mile nor costs per passenger-mile are appropriate
units of comparision between highway and rail project. (This is similar to
comparing housing investments based only on land costs while ignoring
differences in construction, utility and tax costs.) A better unit is cost
per passenger trip, which includes additional costs such as parking and
vehicle expenses. The best unit is a comparision between the incremental
benefits and incremental costs of each project (i.e., Net Present Value). 

Both urban highway and urban transit projects are expensive. Delucci made
the mistake of comparing average transit costs with average highway costs,
rather than under urban conditions, which is where major transit
investments make sense. 

For discussion see the "Comprehensive Transportation Evaluaton", "Measuring
Transportation" and "Least Cost Planning" chapters of our Encyclopedia
(http://www.vtpi.org/tdm).



At 03:30 PM 10/25/01 -0500, you wrote:
>You get the last word Eric.
>
>Dont have the time to go further into it at this time, except to say that
>after having challenged people on a couple of lists to come up with a single
>highway project that is more expensive than a competing rail project on a
>cost per pkm basis, there have been no valid takers. A few people have
>provided examples, but always fall into the logical error of comparing cost
>per mile rather than cost per pkm. I know that there are all sorts of ways
>to distort economics to come to such conclusions, but, as many know here,
>even Mark Delucci of UCBerkeley, no highway advocate, found total  costs
>(direct and external) of transit to be higher than that of highways.
>
>
>DEMOGRAPHIA & THE PUBLIC PURPOSE (Wendell Cox Consultancy)
>http://www.demographia.com (Demographics & Land Use)
>http://www.publicpurpose.com (Public Policy & Transport))
>Telephone: +1.618.632.8507 - Facsimile: +1.810.821.8134
>PO Box 841 - Belleville, IL 62222 USA
>----- Original Message -----
>From: <BruunB at aol.com>
>To: <sustran-discuss at jca.ax.apc.org>
>Sent: Thursday, 25 October, 2001 16:22
>Subject: [sustran] Re: More on Denver thread
>
>
>>
>>
>> I guess I don't want Wendell to have the last word. I would like to
>elaborate
>> on these points a little further.
>>
>> In a message dated 10/25/01 2:34:34 PM Eastern Daylight Time,
>> wcox at publicpurpose.com writes:
>>
>> << With respect to new rail systems, it can generally be posited that the
>>  subsidy of trips that are all or part on rail will be more highly
>subsidized
>>  than those on buses, due to the very high capital subsidy for rail. US
>>  transit agencies treat capital as manna from on high --- something free
>that
>>  does not have to be accounted for.
>>
>> We all agree that the rail capital investment can be quite high. I also
>agree
>> that public transport agencies can often view these investments as "free
>> money", but it is not only the public transport agency's viewpoint that
>> counts here. These investments can also be justified as alternatives to
>> highway projects that are also expensive and have higher social and
>> environmental costs.
>>
>> << Whatever one can do with feeder buses to rail can also be done with
>feeder
>>  buses to trunk line buses. One of the more intractible  problems in the
>US
>>  has been the bias of transport planners in comparing modes.
>>   >>
>>
>> Trunk bus systems can work fine too, but they also need some investment in
>> separation from general traffic and traffic signal pre-emption if they are
>to
>> work reliably and with attractive speed. But they do not work as well as
>rail
>> systems when demand is quite high and the number of buses required becomes
>> very large. But the real operating performance difference comes in systems
>> with highly peaked demand.
>> Rail consists can have additional cars added at low marginal cost to
>increase
>> peak capacity, whereas every unit of bus capacity costs equally much as
>the
>> last.
>>
>> Eric
>
>
>
>

Sincerely,

Todd Litman, Director
Victoria Transport Policy Institute
"Efficiency - Equity - Clarity"
1250 Rudlin Street
Victoria, BC, V8V 3R7, Canada
Phone & Fax: 250-360-1560
E-mail:  litman at vtpi.org
Website: http://www.vtpi.org