D.C. Metro: Silver Line Slump

For years, Randal O ’Toolehas warned governments that urban rail systems usually make no economic or practical sense. They are more expensive and less flexible than bus systems. But cities keep making wildly optimistic assumptions about rail costs and ridership, and new lines keep getting built. It is a triumph of politics over experience.The other day, theWashington Postreported ridership data on phase 1 of D.C. Metro ’s Silver Line:But of the five stations that opened in July  2014, only the end-of-line Wiehle-Reston station has come close to projected ridership. At three stops in Tysons — McLean, Greensboro and Spring Hill — ridership is a mere fraction of what planners projected in a 2004 environmental impact report. In May of this year, for example, average daily weekday ridership was 1,618 at the McLean station, slightly below the 1,634 in May 2015 and well below the 3,803 the Silver Line was projected to serve in its first year of operation, according to the 2004 report.So actual ridership on some parts of this Northern Virginia line are less than half of the original estimate. By the way, the cost of the project ended upalmost doubling from what the planners and politicians had promised. Federal taxpayers picked up part of the tab.Phase 2 of the project is under construction, and it will extend the Silver Line to Dulles Airport, 28 miles from D.C. The project never made sense to me. The airport already has the dedicated and congestion-free Dulles Access Road ...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - Category: American Health Authors: Source Type: blogs