As we report in our article As Houston's Light Rail Project Nears Finish, Major Vote Looms Nov. 4th, Houston's Metropolitan Transit Authority (Metro) is currently proposing a 22-year, $7.5-billion-dollar mobility plan, including expansion of bus and rail transit, HOV lanes, and other improvements, called Metro Solutions, for consideration by voters in Metro's service area. This vote comes just before Metro is about to open its 7.5-mile Main St. light rail transit (LRT) starter line. As we have also related,

...it's not really that surprising that the Main St. LRT line, even before it's carried a single passenger, has become a target in the steadily escalating battle over the Metro Solutions mobility plan .... A particularly hot issue emerging in the vote war is the systematic deception used by many rail opponents to disparage the Main St. rail line and the Metro Solutions plan.

These factors seemed to be very much in play in a diatribe titled "We don't have to settle for Metro' s bad plan", challenging the Metro Solutions plan, and published as an op-ed in the Houston Chronicle on 12 September 2003, authored by then-mayoral candidate Michael Berry (who has since withdrawn from the mayoral race). As is typical with such polemical tracts attacking major rail transit projects, Berry's commentary draws on arguments aimed not just against the Metro Solutions plan and Metro's Main St. LRT project, but against mass transit and LRT generally – arguments which continually re-emerge as they are recycled in similar struggles in other cities.

We present below some responses to Berry's claims, adapted (with permission) primarily from material published on the Public Transport Progress list. This analysis is followed by the complete text of Berry's tract as it appeared in the Houston Chronicle.

Anti-Rail Claim:

Metro Argument 1: We've got to accommodate two 2 million new residents without traffic gridlock.

Unfortunately, even Metro's own ridership projections show the new rail lines will handle less than 2 percent of current and new trip growth, with no noticeable impact on traffic congestion.

Response:

This is undoubtedly one of the most hackneyed arguments made by critics of mass transit and rail. A good refutation can be found on the website of Denver's Transit Alliance, at:

http://www.transitalliance.org/response_to_critics.htm

Denver Data Show Light Rail's Real impact on Mobility Congestion

http://www.lightrailnow.org/facts/fa_den003.htm

And for a further rebuttal of the "less than 2%" argument, see our own analysis:

Debunking the "Costs Too Much, Does Too Little" Myth

http://www.lightrailnow.org/myths/m_000009.htm

Anti-Rail Claim:

As a matter of fact, the $2.8 billion rail lines will attract so few new riders versus the existing bus system that we could buy each new rider a top-of-the-line Mercedes (at more than $90,000) and still spend less money.

Response:

This "argument" incorporates several major deceptions and fallacies:

(1) The fact that it focuses on new transit riders (mostly attracted from automobiles) is glossed over by its perpetrators. New riders are typically estimated in the ridership forecasting process for a new major transit investment, and in fact this estimate has been exceeded in the actual operating experience of a number of new projects – so it may be a low-end figure. in any case, it's typically a smaller figure than total ridership (which includes both previous transit users as well as new riders) – a distinction often deliberately omitted by rail opponents, thus willfully confusing the public.

(2) What would be the benefit of buying an expensive new car for new transit riders already attracted from their own cars because of their desire to avoid the hassles of traffic congestion and scarce, expensive parking?

(3) The cost of a car is only a relatively small part of the total expense of adding a vehicle to the already-congested roadway system. To this must be added major additional capital costs such those for roadway lanes and parking spaces to accommodate these additional vehicles. And then there are the ongoing costs of operation, incremental roadway maintenance and management, etc. Incurred in the use of the new luxury car – costs ignored by the perpetrators of this argument.

(4) Automobile use – including use of the new luxury car postulated in this argument – incurs a host of external costs – accidents, air pollution, undesirable land-use impacts, noise, stormwater runoff problems, etc. – also not addressed in this argument.

(5) The "buy 'em a Mercedes" argument proposes buying a car for each rider – i.e., promoting 1.0 vehicle occupancy, a traffic policy which runs counter even to the nominal policies of highway proponents and planning and development agencies, which are struggling to increase vehicle occupancy. How does flooding the roadway system with (typically) thousands of luxury automobiles (hypothetically each driven by a transit "new rider" wooed back to the automobile) provide any relief for highway congestion?

Anti-Rail Claim:

Sure, it's tempting to think everyone else will ride the rails so the freeway will be clear for the rest of us, but that has not happened in any other city, no matter how much rail they have built.

Response:

Another "straw" argument: No serious rail transit proponent claims that "everyone else will ride the rails" and clear the roads. it can be demonstrated, however, that rail transit does divert trips that would otherwise clog the roads, thus making congestion significantly less than it would otherwise be.

Anti-Rail Claim:

in fact, studies have shown that Houston has one of the lowest rates of congestion growth of any major American city – far lower than those cities that have implemented light rail.

Response:

In fact, the evidence suggests that rail transit may have a significant effect in slowing the growth of congestion. One analysis of reliable data indicates that, in large and very large urban areas, urban areas with rail transit in major traffic corridors have a lower rate of congestion growth than do similarly sized urban areas (like Houston) without rail. See:

Study: Rail Transit May Slow Growth in Traffic Congestion

http://www.lightrailnow.org/facts/fa_00017.htm

Anti-Rail Claim:

Metro Argument 2: Rail will generate wonderful mixed-use, transit-oriented development that will attract creative young professionals to Houston.

Yes, this has happened to a limited extent in some cities, but typically only along the first rail line built, as the demand for this urban lifestyle is quickly satisfied. Subsequent lines generate little economic development, with studies showing that the development would have happened somewhere else in the city anyway.

Response:

Subsequent rail transit lines have, in many cases, developed at least as much and even more transit-oriented development (TOD) than the initial "new start" line. This is evident in the expansion of both rapid rail (e.g., Washington Metro and San Francisco-Bay Area's BART) and LRT (e.g., San Diego, Portland, Dallas, Denver, St. Louis, etc.). in Dallas, for example, every extension of DART's LRT system is attracting some form of new TOD.

Anti-Rail Claim:

Without a public vote of support, Metro built its first 7.5-mile line opening soon along Main Street from downtown to the Astrodome. This line is almost as long as the island of Manhattan, and should accommodate Houston's demand for urban lifestyle for a long time.

Response:

Houston Metro, of course, did not need a public vote of support since none was required by law, and the agency had sufficient funds in hand to construct the line. Highway departments (like TxDOT) routinely build huge transportation projects without a public vote – it's implicit in their mandate.

To compare central Houston and its single LRT line starter line to Manhattan (served by 5 heavy-capacity rapid rail lines and a multitude of regional rail lines), and imply a similarity in "urban lifestyle", seems patently absurd.

Anti-Rail Claim:

Metro Argument 3: We need rail to build our image as a world-class city.

Does it help our image when high rail costs force us to beg for federal bailout subsidies, like Dallas DART?

Response:

Like virtually every major transit agency, DART has been encountering budget woes from the current sour economy – but it's addressing these problems with incremental fare increases, relatively minor service reductions, and slowing the pace of some expansion projects. it's certainly not "begging" for "federal bailout subsidies", and besides, there aren't any such "bailout" funds available.

What seems to be the basis for Houston rail opponents' claims about a "bailout" of DART is the agency's routine request for $18 million in federal maintenance funds – commonly available grant money routinely used by DART, Houston Metro, and other transit agencies to extend the life of their buses.
[Source: Houston Chronicle, 12 Oct. 2003]

And it is a peculiar tactic of rail initiative opponents, here and elsewhere, to attack and disparage highly successful new rail systems – in effect, trying to turn the prince back into a frog. As we note in our recent report on Houston's LRT startup and transit initiative,

ironically, while Houston has writhed in controversy, Dallas has been chalking up stellar success after success with an LRT system that has brought down unit operating costs and steadily attracted more and more riders to the point that it barely has enough railcars to handle the demand (and for a short period even had to turn back busloads of riders from outside the service area). More and more suburban communities have been clamoring for DART to extend the system out to them, and bonds to accelerate the pace of construction passed overwhelmingly in the summer of 2000. And just last month (September 2003), several major towns in Denton County voted themselves an extra half-cent sales tax to fund construction of their own much-coveted rail connection with DART.

Anti-Rail Claim:

Or when we have to raise taxes or slash service, like San Jose, Calif.?

Response:

Budget problems are not unique to San Jose, and certainly not to its transit system. As is now widely realized, all of California is in a massive budget crisis, engulfing all public services, from education to highways – a result of a Depression-era economic downturn. Virtually all major transit agencies are impacted, including Oakland's huge AC Transit all-bus system, which is also grappling with a budget crisis, and planning fare increases and service cuts.

Anti-Rail Claim:

Or if we become a laughingstock when it costs $1.36 to collect a $1 rail fare, like in New Jersey?

Response:

This is a misrepresentation, apparently based on a "worst-case scenario" speculated by a newspaper reporter in regard to the Southern New Jersey light (diesel-electric) regional rail project, of what might happen under certain rather unlikely conditions. The rail service is not yet in operation.

Anti-Rail Claim:

Or when some of our most disadvantaged citizens, the transit-dependent, form a Bus Riders Union and sue Metro to stop bus service from being sacrificed for rail, as in Los Angeles?

Response:

This also is a misrepresentation. The early-1990s lawsuit by the Los Angeles-based Bus Riders Union (BRU, a coalition of some disgruntled riders, leftist activists, and far-right rail transit opponents) focused on reducing bus overcrowding and extending a temporary, voter-mandated fare reduction. The basic effect has been to limit the LA County MTA's ability to respond flexibly to fluctuating bus ridership and capacity needs. Some BRU members attempted to demand that funds mandated for rail development by LA voters be redirected into bus service; this effort was unsuccessful.

Anti-Rail Claim:

A recent study in the Journal of the American Planning Association concluded that U.S. rail projects have gone 41 percent over budget on average.

Response:

This study, by a rail opponent, is refuted by a number of other studies and data. See, for example:

Most Light Rail Projects Within Budget, on Time

http://www.lightrailnow.org/myths/m_lrt009.htm

Federal GAO Report Shows: it's BRT (and Heavy Rail) With the Big Cost Overruns, Not Light Rail!

http://www.lightrailnow.org/facts/fa_00018.htm

Anti-Rail Claim:

Across the country, rail has resulted in longer commutes as transit agencies eliminate formerly continuous bus routes and force riders to transfer to inconvenient rail lines. (Metro itself has estimates that up to 90 percent of proposed Main Street rail line riders were already riding mass transit: the bus.)

If commutes by new rail systems are so much longer, why has ridership on almost all new-start rail services skyrocketed? Several new systems almost have more new riders than they can handle. See, for example:

Light Rail's Besieged With Riders! This is a Problem?

http://www.lightrailnow.org/news/n_den002.htm

Many rail riders are indeed former bus riders in the corridor, but their trips typically become faster, not slower, with the new rail service. While the restructuring of bus routes has added a transfer for some riders in a small number of cases, these new routes have often opened up new crosstown corridors which have provided additional. connective services, including suburb-to-suburb, for many more people in the transit service area.

Anti-Rail Claim:

These bus-to-rail transfers inflate poor rail ridership numbers while, ironically, the added inconvenience causes overall system ridership numbers to drop and, therefore, traffic to increase.

Response:

Even with more transfers (due to greater system accessibility, connectivity, and usage from rail service), actual ridership (i.e., usage by individual passengers) has increased. This is substantiated by the significant increase in passenger-mileage, which is not "inflated" by transfer boardings. Of the total 16% increase in'transit passenger-mileage between 1990-2000, 84% can be credited to rail transit.

See:

Rail Transit Accounted for 84% of US Transit Passenger-Mile Growth, 1990-2000. Any Questions?

http://www.lightrailnow.org/facts/fa_lrt013.htm

Anti-Rail Claim:

We don't have to settle for a bad plan, just to have a plan. There are alternatives. Let's start by implementing the following two solutions today:

Get more from high-occupancy vehicle lanes. Our current HOV lanes run more than half empty during peak periods and have the potential to move two to three times as many people per hour. This is a waste of much-needed capacity.

Response:

HOV lanes can provide net benefits in some situations, but the assessment of their overall value for mobility and urban livability is mixed. There is some evidence that HOV lanes attract passengers from bus transit – a deleterious impact. They may also encourage car commutes which add to downstream congestion and parking demand – additional adverse impacts.

In any case, while incremental increases in HOV use may be possible, there is a limit to their potential. Furthermore, trips on HOV lanes are no substitute for trips on rail, which immediately unburden the area's roadway system and most stressed parking resources.

Anti-Rail Claim:

We should expand and upgrade our HOV network with clean-air buses, interchanges, two-way service and, importantly, the ability for a single-occupant vehicle to use the network by paying a variable toll calculated to keep HOV lanes filled at full speed. Single-occupant cars (the vast majority of drivers) can choose to pay to drive the HOV by paying a toll, and the resulting funds can expand and improve the system. HOV bus and vanpool services can also provide express 60-mph service to all of Houston's job clusters, not just downtown, which the rail serves.

First, what "clean-air" buses? Except for electric trolley buses, the buses currently available for long-haul and commuter-type service ("express 60-mph service") all use internal combustion engines and produce some level of vehicular exhaust pollution – even disel-electric "hybrids". Certainly, buses reduce pollution by diverting some motorists to transit, but to imply that they are totally "clean-air" is a misrepresentation.

High-Occupancy/Toll (HOT) lanes may offer both benefits and disadvantages. Properly used, with toll revenues applied to the support of public transportation, the net benefit for public transport may offset the serious drawback of encouraging and expediting the use of single-occupancy vehicles, which worsen traffic congestion and introduce a multitude of additional, adverse impacts in urban areas.

Anti-Rail Claim:

Better bus service. Put clean-air buses along Metro's proposed rail routes at much lower cost. Scrapping just one light-rail line would pay for all the buses needed to run at proposed rail frequencies on 25 to 50 bus routes. No waiting until 2012 or even 2008 – this service can be implemented now without a decade of busted streets, frustrated drivers and bankrupted businesses along the rail construction route.

Response:

The ongoing experience of LRT operations in the USA suggests that investment in LRT may actually help to reduce ongoing unit operating costs compared with bus service. Metro's MIS/Environmental Assessment determined that LRT would have a lower incremental operating and maintenance cost per new boarding than alternative enhanced bus service in the Main St. corridor. Also see:

How Light Rail Saves Operating Cost Dollars Compared With Buses

http://www.lightrailnow.org/facts/fa_lrt02.htm

There are some additional problems with this bus "alternative" proposal. The number of buses required to "run at proposed rail frequencies on 25 to 50 bus routes" – and provide equivalent capacity to rail – would be staggering. You don't just procure such a vast fleet from your "local bus dealer" overnight – you must order them from the manufacturer (after a bidding process) years in advance. So much for a "service [that] can be implemented now" without a wait.

Then there's the problem of the facilities needed to support all that bus service – waiting shelters, transfer terminals, park & rides, etc. Those would require not just federal grants, but years of preparatory studies required for such a project to qualify for federal grants. And then more years to build and deploy those facilities.

Then there's the issue of whether downtown Houston and other "job clusters" have adequate street capacity to accommodate additional battalions of buses without conflicting with current traffic flows. Will special additional transit-only lanes be required? if so, add in more years of study for federal grants, and more years to create these special lanes.

Finally, there's a very basic question: For the most part, Metro's proposed rail lines would replace existing bus routes with new rail service – bus routes which have helped build up corridor transit ridership, but have largely exhausted the capability of buses to attract and satisfy ridership within the constraints of relatively lower-cost bus technology. So ... why propose bus routes to replace rail routes which are replacing bus routes?

Anti-Rail Claim:

Let's not commit billions of dollars based on slick commercials or the belief that everyone will trade their car keys for rail.

Response:

Yet another misrepresentation. No serious rail transit supporter would make the ridiculous argument that "everyone will trade their car keys for rail."

Anti-Rail Claim:

Let's be bold enough to ask the tough questions, crunch the hard numbers and not give up until we get the real answers.

Response:

Well, here are a couple of tough questions for starters. Why do rail transit opponents consistently feel compelled to brandish phony "facts", and to resort to misrepresentation, distortion, deception, and diversionary "straw man" arguments to try to advance their case? To "crunch the hard numbers" is a nice goal, but are flaky and dubious numbers from rail critics, and the deceptive use of half-truths, truly a productive means to arrive at "real answers"?

Anti-Rail Claim:

Houston is not only a world-class city, it's our home. We made that choice. Now we have another choice, and we must get it right. We must all work together to solve our transportation challenges with a realistic, affordable plan that actually moves people and reduces congestion.

Response:

The evidence is overwhelming (see various foregoing citations) that rail transit, as part of a comprehensive mobility plan with high-quality bus service and other elements, is, for Houston and many other urban areas, the key to "a realistic, affordable plan that actually moves people and reduces [mobility] congestion."

The following is Michael Berry's original op-ed from the Houston Chronicle.

Houston Chronicle
Sept. 12, 2003

Viewpoints

We don't have to settle for Metro' s bad plan

By Michael Berry

Houston is being taken for a ride, and all Houstonians should be seriously concerned about where this train is headed. The Metropolitan Transit Authority has proposed a problematic multibillion dollar transit solution to be voted on in November, with most of the money to be spent on new light-rail lines. Let's take a look at some of the arguments in support of rail pitched by Metro and its lobbyists:

· Metro Argument 1: We've got to accommodate two 2 million new residents without traffic gridlock.

Unfortunately, even Metro's own ridership projections show the new rail lines will handle less than 2 percent of current and new trip growth, with no noticeable impact on traffic congestion. As a matter of fact, the $2.8 billion rail lines will attract so few new riders versus the existing bus system that we could buy each new rider a top-of-the-line Mercedes (at more than $90,000) and still spend less money. Sure, it's tempting to think everyone else will ride the rails so the freeway will be clear for the rest of us, but that has not happened in any other city, no matter how much rail they have built. In fact, studies have shown that Houston has one of the lowest rates of congestion growth of any major American city – far lower than those cities that have implemented light rail.

· Metro Argument 2: Rail will generate wonderful mixed-use, transit-oriented development that will attract creative young professionals to Houston.

Yes, this has happened to a limited extent in some cities, but typically only along the first rail line built, as the demand for this urban lifestyle is quickly satisfied. Subsequent lines generate little economic development, with studies showing that the development would have happened somewhere else in the city anyway.

Without a public vote of support, Metro built its first 7.5-mile line opening soon along Main Street from downtown to the Astrodome. This line is almost as long as the island of Manhattan, and should accommodate Houston's demand for urban lifestyle for a long time.

· Metro Argument 3: We need rail to build our image as a world-class city.

Does it help our image when high rail costs force us to beg for federal bailout subsidies, like Dallas DART? Or when we have to raise taxes or slash service, like San Jose, Calif.? Or if we become a laughingstock when it costs $1.36 to collect a $1 rail fare, like in New Jersey? Or when some of our most disadvantaged citizens, the transit-dependent, form a Bus Riders Union and sue Metro to stop bus service from being sacrificed for rail, as in Los Angeles?

A recent study in the Journal of the American Planning Association concluded that U.S. rail projects have gone 41 percent over budget on average. Across the country, rail has resulted in longer commutes as transit agencies eliminate formerly continuous bus routes and force riders to transfer to inconvenient rail lines. (Metro itself has estimates that up to 90 percent of proposed Main Street rail line riders were already riding mass transit: the bus.) These bus-to-rail transfers inflate poor rail ridership numbers while, ironically, the added inconvenience causes overall system ridership numbers to drop and, therefore, traffic to increase.

We don't have to settle for a bad plan, just to have a plan. There are alternatives. Let's start by implementing the following two solutions today:

· Get more from high-occupancy vehicle lanes. Our current HOV lanes run more than half empty during peak periods and have the potential to move two to three times as many people per hour. This is a waste of much-needed capacity.

We should expand and upgrade our HOV network with clean-air buses, interchanges, two-way service and, importantly, the ability for a single-occupant vehicle to use the network by paying a variable toll calculated to keep HOV lanes filled at full speed. Single-occupant cars (the vast majority of drivers) can choose to pay to drive the HOV by paying a toll, and the resulting funds can expand and improve the system. HOV bus and vanpool services can also provide express 60-mph service to all of Houston's job clusters, not just downtown, which the rail serves.

· Better bus service. Put clean-air buses along Metro's proposed rail routes at much lower cost. Scrapping just one light-rail line would pay for all the buses needed to run at proposed rail frequencies on 25 to 50 bus routes. No waiting until 2012 or even 2008 – this service can be implemented now without a decade of busted streets, frustrated drivers and bankrupted businesses along the rail construction route.

Let's not commit billions of dollars based on slick commercials or the belief that everyone will trade their car keys for rail. Let's be bold enough to ask the tough questions, crunch the hard numbers and not give up until we get the real answers.

Houston is not only a world-class city, it's our home. We made that choice. Now we have another choice, and we must get it right. We must all work together to solve our transportation challenges with a realistic, affordable plan that actually moves people and reduces congestion.

Berry, a first-term at-large Houston City Council member, is a candidate for mayor.