4.3. SR 06-16-2003 - Laserfiche WebLink

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Review of the Anton, Lubov Benefit-Cost Analysis of Northstar Commuter Rail by Randal O'Toole (rot~ti.org) The Thoreau Institute (ti.org) How do I critique thee? Let me count the ways. The "benefits and costs, of Northstar commuter rail" computed by Anton, Lubov & Associates contains sO many flaws that it is hard to know where to begin. In brief, the analysis exaggerates the benefits of commuter rail, ignores many of the costs of commuter rail, and inflates the costs of alternatives. Northstar commuter rail is a proposal to operate commuter trains from Minneapolis to Rice, 82 miles away. The Minnesota Department of Transportation (MnDOT) estimates that running eighteen trains per day along this route will attract about 9,600 passengers per day, or about 533 per train. Since most passengers presumably travel round trip, this means that the commuter rail line would serve about 4,800 people. All previous analyses of this project indicated that its costs would exceed its benefits. However, Anton, Lubov managed to conclude that its benefits would be about 15 percent greater than its costs. It reached this conclusion by relying on highly erroneous data supplied to it by MnDC)T and then compounding those errors with highly suspicious changes in assumptions about the project. This critique of Anton, Lubov's analysis will cover flaws in four areas: · Overestimated benefits of commuter rail; · Underestimated costs of commuter rail; · Overestimated costs and underestimated benefits of alternatives to commuter rail; · Other flaws in Anton, Lubov's calculations. While not all of the flaws can be quantified, taking into account those that can be reduces the benefit-cost ratio from Anton, Lubov's 1.15 to 0.48. Even this is probably too high considering other flaws that cannot be quantified. Overestimates in Benefits of Commuter Rail The Anton, Lubov analysis includes six benefits of commuter rail: · Time savings to commuters; · Vehicle operating cost savings; · Vehicle accident cost savings; · Pollution cost savings;