While I am certainly not opposed to a light-rail system in Jacksonville and think that it would provide a viable solution to the growing transportation problem in the metro area, I also think that the costs to benefits must be carefully weighed. Light-rail is not the inexpensive solution many people think that it is. Let’s play Devil’s Advocate a bit…
I agree, I would like rail also, but not if it's cost prohibitive and involves potentially raising taxes. Nevertheless, I think the key to what Steve's editorial is the fact that a solution may not have to immediately involve going to full blown light rail.
Take the example of St. Louis, MO. The light rail system built and put into usage there linked the airport to the downtown and the east side of the Mississippi river (granted the East St. Louis stop was put in place primarily to serve the riverboat casino docked there). The St. Louis system used a mixture of existing and new rails both above and below ground, along the I-70 corridor to downtown, then underground through existing tunnels beneath the city along Market St. and across the river. Currently the line extends to Belleville, IL, a suburb about 15 miles from downtown St. Louis.
Capital costs to start the St. Louis system were $464 million with $384 million of that coming from Federal sources and $116 million matched by the Bi-state Development agency mostly in the form of donated rail right-of-ways. An article published by the Federal Reserve Bank (“Light Rail, Boon or Boondoggle?”) heavily criticizes light-rail citing that the return on investment from fares collected results in less than 30% of the line’s annual operating costs. The difference is paid for by tax-payers to the tune of $171 million a year – to restate, this covers operating costs only and does not address annual capital costs. In a study by Stan Winston of the Brookings Institution it is concluded that the social costs of light rail far exceed its benefits (“Brookings Scholar on Rail Transit in America”). Despite the costs, St. Louis’s transit system is considered a success with ridership far exceeding the 12,000 riders a day predicted.
As an opposite to St. Louis' light rail start up costs, Steve's article pointed out the relatively low costs for rail in some other communities ($41 million for Nashville's 32 mile system and $112 million for Austin's 32 mile system). These systems don't involve electrifying track or laying miles of new infrastructure. Instead both (which are forms of commuter rail) involve running passenger rail cars on existing track. That's a completely different animal from what traditional light rail involves and costs. The key is what type of service is best used for certain corridors. If you can get away running passenger rail on existing tracks, than by means you should take advantage of it.
Rail is usually built on lines that serve central transportation corridors and thus, grab the “cream of the crop” ridership in areas that typically have had low mass transit ridership. Thus ridership figures are artificially inflated when compared to other mass transit usage. St. Louis had historically low public transportation usage before the light rail system. The issue that remains is how to disperse riders from the rail line in the downtown area – will riders get off the train and on to a bus to get to their final destinations?
Locally, its no coincidence that our existing rail lines and planned BRT corridors (excluding the I-95 BRT route), due just that. This is because our community grew up around these rail lines and most of the BRT routes just parallel them. Once again, if we can use our existing rail infrastructure in our dense areas as a "trunk lines", we may be able to save hundreds of millions by not acquiring land and building busway infrastructure that parallels them.
[/quote]Rail proponents trumpet development along light rail lines could result in a boom to local business and commercial property markets. As I understand it, the lines that are being proposed would travel along the existing rail lines beside Roosevelt/17 and Phillips highway. Those areas are already developed. Roosevelt/17, it could be argued, is already over-developed while Phillips is seeing a renaissance of sorts with the addition of the Wal-Mart, on the north end and the heavy development near Baymeadows. Other lines to the beaches along JTB also travel areas which are, or soon will be, heavily developed.[/quote]
Rail transit oriented developments typically don't create new growth, they redistribute existing growth patterns and directions. The benefit in redeveloping around stations in corridors, such as Philips and Roosevelt is that older obsolete industrial sites can become positive economic engines in areas where sufficient infrastructure already exists instead of decay and blight, which is what sections of Philips, near Emerson resemble now. Also, by redistributing growth to areas with sufficient infrastructure already in place, it gives the community a chance to finally control the never ending sprawl that only creates more traffic congestion and heartache in the suburbs.
As for the S-Line, through the Northside, it gives us the chance to revive the densest and most pedestrian friendly areas of town. If properly coordinated with the City's planning department, this gives us the opportunity to address many other problems in our community, such as affordable housing, connectivity, crime, economic stagnation, etc.
Don’t get me wrong, I am not against light rail in Jacksonville. In actuality I think that a rail system including express commuter trains, local trolleys, and mid-distance shuttles would be an over-all benefit to the area. What I don’t want to see is a system that serves a limited number of riders and goes no where like the current downtown Skyway. Careful study of population distribution, potential cost versus benefit, and route planning must be completed before a proposal can be made. For a light rail system to succeed it must have riders, provide a transportation alternative at a reasonable price, and get people where they want to go.
I agree 100%
