If transportation vote fails, is there a plan B? (Atlanta: cost of, buses)

[samiwas1]

Originally Posted by gtcorndog

However, I don't think this expansion will do anything to shrink the gap in the fare return rate of just 32%. 68% of the cost of each ride is subsidized from outside sources, so adding new riders, just means that the amount of money going to subsidize the system increases.

Is this correct? Let's just make up some numbers. Say a train from Doraville to the Airport costs $500 to make one run one way. It doesn't matter if there is one person or one hundred people on that train, the cost to run it is pretty much the the same. So if the fare is $4, a train with one rider is subsidized with $496, while the train with one hundred riders is subsidized $100. Adding more riders would mean LESS subsidizing.

I don't think the amount of money given to the system is per rider. It's from the income of the system as a whole.

Correct?

Either your stat is wrong, or you are deliberately trying to mislead.

[arjay57]

Originally Posted by gtcorndog

I agree to some point. However, spending $900 million or whatever to build the Clifton light rail line which in the next 20 years is projected by MARTA to add just 10,000 new transit riders is an awful ROI.

10,000 riders is a lot of people. Emory has 14,000 students and 3,000 faculty members. I don't know how many other personnel they have but assume you've got around 20,000 altogether. The new line could move half or more of them to the work and school.

That's a pretty big deal!

[gtcorndog]

Originally Posted by arjay57

10,000 riders is a lot of people. Emory has 14,000 students and 3,000 faculty members. I don't know how many other personnel they have but assume you've got around 20,000 altogether. The new line could move half or more of them to the work and school.

That's a pretty big deal!

For $900 million?

Are you serious? 10,000 new riders on a 10 mile light rail track is a good ROI?

You think $900 million investment up front along with the ongoing maintenance expenses (which MARTA already can't pay since they want $600 million for their deferred maintenance) to move 10,000 people daily is a big deal?

Are you a politician, because that is the only group that could rationalize such numbers.

[gtcorndog]

Originally Posted by samiwas1

Is this correct? Let's just make up some numbers. Say a train from Doraville to the Airport costs $500 to make one run one way. It doesn't matter if there is one person or one hundred people on that train, the cost to run it is pretty much the the same. So if the fare is $4, a train with one rider is subsidized with $496, while the train with one hundred riders is subsidized $100. Adding more riders would mean LESS subsidizing.

I don't think the amount of money given to the system is per rider. It's from the income of the system as a whole.

Correct?

Either your stat is wrong, or you are deliberately trying to mislead.

Stat is correct. Look it up.

You are ignoring the face that when you add 10 additional miles of rail to a system and the maintenance and operations costs increase. The addition of 10,000 riders adds some revenue, but you've added a bunch of costs that outpace the revenue growth. You are deeper in the hole than you started.

[BeyondInfinity]

Here is another interesting article that I found to support my reasons for backing the TSPLOST (Now Is the Time to Fix Our Broken Infrastructure).

[arjay57]

Originally Posted by gtcorndog

You think $900 million investment up front along with the ongoing maintenance expenses (which MARTA already can't pay since they want $600 million for their deferred maintenance) to move 10,000 people daily is a big deal?

It's $600 million. That's certainly a lot of dough, but it's only about 7% of the overall budget.

That doesn't seem unreasonable at all to me, since you're connecting Buckhead with Decatur. That's one of the densest areas in metro Atlanta, and it's been notorious for decades for its lack of connections.

I'm not sure how you are calculating ROI but in my opinion this is going to kick back huge returns. Consider, for example, that people will be able to take the North Line from the medical complex on Pill Hill, transfer at Lindbergh and go straight to Emory and CDC. One more stop and you're at DeKalb Medical Center. Go 2 miles west on the Beltline and you're at the Piedmont Hospital complex and the Shepherd Center.

There are immense connections in this area, and that's just the medical stuff. That's the tip of the iceberg. It's hard for me to think of any area that's more suitable for light rail.

[readyset]

Originally Posted by gtcorndog

Who is making that argument? I've been very outspoken against the TSPLOST because the project list contains a lot of fat that should be trimmed and refocused on better projects that will actually be transportation related and not development projects. I certainly think MARTA is an asset to the area and should be expanded. I'd love to see Cobb, Gwinnett and Clayton counties have binding votes to join MARTA so that it can be expanded into areas that need it. However, I don't think a 50-50 split in Transit-Road spending is warranted given that about 5% of the region rides transit. That makes no sense and is the reason this thing will go down in flames.

But that's not fair, for decades, the state has funded road projects over transit, doesn't MARTA only get funding from Fulton, Atlanta and DeKalb? And this isn't even state funding it's regional so my point is even if the TPSLOST was state funded 50% for transit wouldn't even make up for the decades and billions spent solely on roads. In fact I think there is too much road funding. A rail line from Atlanta thru Cobb is so critical, Cobb definitely has the density to warrant it.

[samiwas1]

Originally Posted by gtcorndog

Stat is correct. Look it up.

You are ignoring the face that when you add 10 additional miles of rail to a system and the maintenance and operations costs increase. The addition of 10,000 riders adds some revenue, but you've added a bunch of costs that outpace the revenue growth. You are deeper in the hole than you started.

OK, so you were talking about adding new infrastructure. Adding riders to a system does not increase costs. Adding infrastructure increases costs. But you aren't going to get more riders without new infrastructure, so I guess we're at an impasse.

[cqholt]

MARTA has a backlog of maintenance, but it is non-essential maintenance, like escalators, not track work. WMATA has had more derailments because of their track. MARTA is in the process of replacing all the track, that's why they single-track on the weekends. MARTA's backlog is caused by the states strangle hold on the 50/50 revenue split.
For being the #5 busiest HRT system in America, MARTA does a lot with a little. All the other transit agency get state funding.
10,000 additional riders for the Clifton Corridor, DeKalb's largest employment center is great. Rail transit is the only thing to relieve congestion in that area, roads can't be widened and buses already get caught in the traffic.
Why corndog, are you not attacking the funding for GRTA or GCT? The state funds GCT, CCT, and GRTA, but why not MARTA? Your tax dollars go to those systems, but not the true regional transit agency that operated the #5 most ridden HRT system in America, wtf?

[noah]

For what it is worth, seems that cost is high based on national averages, but of course no where near Seattle's cost where a 10 mile stretch would cost $1.79 Billion. At the avg of $35 per mile it would be $350 million. This seems inline with the cost the downtown streetcar 2.6 mile track.

Light rail - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The cost of light rail construction varies widely, largely depending on the amount of tunneling and elevated structures required. A survey of North American light rail projects[60] shows that costs of most LRT systems range from $15 million per mile to over $100 million per mile. Seattle's new light rail system is by far the most expensive in the U.S. at $179 million per mile, since it includes extensive tunneling in poor soil conditions, elevated sections, and stations as deep as 180 feet (55 m) below ground level.[61] These result in costs more typical of subways or rapid transit systems than light rail. At the other end of the scale, four systems (Baltimore, MD; Camden, NJ; Sacramento, CA; and Salt Lake City, UT) incurred costs of less than $20 million per mile. Over the U.S. as a whole, excluding Seattle, new light rail construction costs average about $35 million per mile.[60]

Originally Posted by gtcorndog

For $900 million?

Are you serious? 10,000 new riders on a 10 mile light rail track is a good ROI?

You think $900 million investment up front along with the ongoing maintenance expenses (which MARTA already can't pay since they want $600 million for their deferred maintenance) to move 10,000 people daily is a big deal?

Are you a politician, because that is the only group that could rationalize such numbers.