4.3. SR 06-16-2003 - Laserfiche WebLink

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Review of Benefit-Cost Analysis of Northstar Commuter Rail 8 This means the capital cost of new buses and stations alone is only $75 million. These buses could carry passengers at highway speeds along the Northstar route. This would leave more than $200 million of the proposed Northstar capital cost left over for removal of bottlenecks on the highways and other congestion relief. In general, one dollar invested in highways does many times more transportation work than a dollar invested in rail transit. According to the U.S. Department of Transportation, freeways in the Twin Cities carry more than 28,000 passenger miles per lane mile each day.5 Major arterials such as U.S.'i'10 carry around 10,000 passenger miles per lane mile a day.6 By comparison, the Northstar commuter rail is expected to carry less than 2,600 passenger miles per route mile (9,594 daily passengers times 22.1 miles average trip length divided by 82.2 route miles). The Northstar commuter rail line is expected to cost about $3.4 million per route mile, which is more than the cost of a lane-mile of arterial, yet it would carry only about a quarter as many people each day (and virtually no freight). While it would cost a little less than the cost of a lane mile of freeway, it would carry only about 10 percent as many people (and again no freight). Rather than measure daily traffic, the Anton, Lubov analysis compares peak- period capacities. To compare passenger miles, it counts 1.1 passengers per car. While this is a reasonable number for commuter traffic, most of the traffic on the road,, even at rush hour is not commuter traffic. The average occupancy of non- commuter cars is about 1.75, so the average occupancy for all cars on the road at rush hour is around 1.3 to 1.4. Even at the low occupancies assumed by Anton, Lubov, the analysis admits that freeways carry far more people than commuter rail while arterials such as U.S. 10 carry about two-thirds as many people. If peak-period congestion is the problem, there are much better ways of dealing with that problem than opening a commuter rail line. If congestion is caused by a few bottlenecks, one is to fix those bottlenecks. If congestion is more general, another solution is to pay for new lanes of traffic using value-priced tolls-that is, tolls that vary by time of day. In the case of the 82 miles between Minneapolis and Rice, it is likely that a few bottlenecks is a major problem, one that a commuter rail line will not solve. Other Problems with Anton, Lubov's Analysis There are at least two other major problems with Anton, Lubov's analysis. One has to do with the use of discount rates. Another has to do with Anton, Lubov's assessment of "the return to the state of Minnesota."