The final accounting for the Sprinter rail project is in. The final federally approved budget was $484.1 million dollars, and the project is now closed out. The final tab was $477.628 million.
The Sprinter opened for service to the public in March of 2008, was the lowest cost per mile rail project in the U.S.A., moves a lot more people than the bus routes it replaced using fewer employees, and has an excellent on-time performance record.
On another, somewhat unrelated note, the Board of the North County Transit District voted on September 16th to reduce fares to the riding public on a promotional basis for the year 2011. It’s nice to have a public agency reduce fares instead of increasing them!
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As I recall, the Sprinter was quite a bit over budget (Correct me if I am wrong here). While the “Final” budget might be more than the actual tab, when you keep adjusting figures up and up, of course the Sprinter will look like a financial boom.
But let’s look at the original price tab and then compare it to the final tab and then ask yourself if it was really worth it.
The projected Sprinter ridership was 12,000 — I believe it is running at under 7,000. Over 3/4 of the ridership are former bus riders, and does not have the flexibility of bus transportation.
The Sprinter backs up traffic as it crosses various roads. That wastes time, and increases auto fuel consumption.
So why spend almost half a billion dollars to get maybe sixteen hundred car riders off the road per day? That’s less than the typical one year increase in Hwy 78 traffic.
Of course, the sadly humorous part is this puff piece touting the efficiency of the Sprinter. It gives the absurd impression that this train construction actually came in slightly UNDER budget. Au contraire!
When the Sprinter was first envisioned 20 years ago, the projected cost was around $50 million. When construction grew closer, it was more like $160 million. It came in at just under $500 million.
Stocks talks about the purported low cost of operation — but ignores the sky high capital cost, with no sinking fund for equipment replacement. The nuttiness of the Sprinter becomes apparent when comparing the total taxpayer per passenger mile cost of the Sprinter with the cost of subsidizing bus transportation — including the amortized capital costs of both modes.
I must apologize for my first post. I think I misrepresented the effect of the Sprinter.
I said that the Sprinter would remove “maybe sixteen hundred car riders off the road per day.” I now realize that could be interpreted as 1,600 cars off the roads. OOPS!
Assuming people using the Sprinter (or driving) are doing round trips, that’s only 800 cars a day removed from the North County roads. And in turn that 800 figure is too high because it assumes that there’s only one person per car. The average is a bit over 1.2 persons per car.
Again, my apologies for my sloppy implication concerning the benefit (albeit limited) of the Sprinter train service.
With all due respect to Mr. Richard Rider, the passenger count is just the start of the trouble. As the Sprinter went into service, three bus routes (302, 318, and 320 express) were reconfigured or eliminated to force 8,000 existing passengers onto the Sprinter.
With only 7,000 weekday boardings (estimated, NCTD won’t release ridership figures for 2010 even after repeated email requests to Mr. Wiggins in their public relations department), it is reasonable to presume that the train has caused those thousand people to drive.
That’s an extra 500 cars on the road. The Sprinter has made congestion worse, not better. Couple that with drastic reductions in service over the last few years and you’ve got a system on the verge of failure.
More Details in “Sprinter: A solution seeking a problem: (June 13, 2007) http://www.nctimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/article_bf1efbd5-c098-5a2a-baf0-19c8aee319af.html
I stand corrected. By someone who follows the story better than I.
At first the NCTD was quite forthcoming with passenger counts — blithely assuming that a steady upward trend would quickly become apparent — and wanting to publicize same.
I suspect that when it became apparent that no such trend was anywhere to be seen, then the district went dark. Or maybe they simply stopped keeping count (economy move!).
Ouch. Union stooge Jerome Stocks got schooled.
More at the Leucadia Blog:
http://www.theleucadiablog.com/2010/09/sprinter-update.html