AJC: First year of I-85 HOT lane brings drivers but less money than expected (Atlanta: subsidized, maintenance)

[billl]

Article:

First year of I-85 HOT lane brings drivers but less money than... | www.ajc.com

Summary:

$3.05M in revenue for the first 11 months, $3.9M in operating costs. Forecast was for revenue between $3.3M and $6.7M.

The toll revenue from the HOT lane is lower than the state's lowest-case predictions. Shortly after the lanes were first opened, Gov Deal had to "move aggressively" to lower the toll and institute a grace period for toll violators. Yet Deal believes "optional tolling lanes are a viable and necessary option for expanding capacity in our most heavily traveled corridors". And plans are still in place for adding similar lanes to I75/575 in Cobb and I75 in Henry, as well as extending the existing HOT lane to Hamilton Mill.

Somehow failure has become success.

[tonygeorgia]

Smh

[cqholt]

When will the legislatures in the gold dome learn that adding more lanes or converting lanes to HOT will not relieve congestion. What we need to do is use the money allocated for the HOT lanes and implement GDOT's commuter rail plan. Adding road capacity is not the answer, we need more transit in metro Atlanta and commuter rail is the cheapest and most efficient plan.

[tonygeorgia]

So they lost close to $1 million

[gtcorndog]

Originally Posted by cqholt

When will the legislatures in the gold dome learn that adding more lanes or converting lanes to HOT will not relieve congestion. What we need to do is use the money allocated for the HOT lanes and implement GDOT's commuter rail plan. Adding road capacity is not the answer, we need more transit in metro Atlanta and commuter rail is the cheapest and most efficient plan.

Commuter rail bleeds money compared to this. If you want to make a pro commuter rail argument, cost efficiency isn't the route to take.

[MattCW]

Originally Posted by gtcorndog

Commuter rail bleeds money compared to this. If you want to make a pro commuter rail argument, cost efficiency isn't the route to take.

Please give an example of a commuter rail agency operating in this country that bleeds money and please provide solid numbers and factual sources to back up this wild and untrue claim.

Adding new lanes will bleed far more money than commuter rail ever will, and will add far less capacity, and still won't provide people another option for their commute.

[billl]

Originally Posted by tonygeorgia

So they lost close to $1 million

On a $4M budget. Or to put it another way, they only covered 78% of their operating costs.

[gtcorndog]

Originally Posted by MattCW

Please give an example of a commuter rail agency operating in this country that bleeds money and please provide solid numbers and factual sources to back up this wild and untrue claim.

Come on son. If I say it, you can take it to the bank as being true.

NY MTA: Suburban Passengers Get $7 Subsidy Per Ride, Subway Riders, A Buck | Transportation Nation

One trip on the LIRR is subsidized to the tune of $7.34.

Rail never breaks even or even comes close to it. There isn't a transportation agency in the country that comes close to a breakeven point on their fares. Therefore, they beg and plead for taxpayer subsidies.

If you were to build a highway mile in the Atlanta area, it would get much more usage than a mile of commuter rail. On top of it the commuter rail will continue to have operating costs that are much higher per user than the maintenance of a highway. It is just simple economics.

If you want to make a pro-commuter rail case, trying to talk dollars and cents is the wrong path to take because they are money losers.

[gtcorndog]

Originally Posted by billl

On a $4M budget. Or to put it another way, they only covered 78% of their operating costs.

That is pretty bad. This truly was a poorly planned project. It added no capacity and robbed existing capacity. I am in favor of HOT lanes that add new capacity to the road network like the I-75 plan, because otherwise, the needed increase in capacity won't happen.

78% is still better than MARTA's 31.8% fare recovery rate.

[tonygeorgia]

Originally Posted by billl

On a $4M budget. Or to put it another way, they only covered 78% of their operating costs.

Actually they factor in the Ga 400 tolls in that number so they probably only made $500k from the hot lanes and the rest of the money came from the 400 tolls