He or she is wrong. I have updated the page to add a few items
1. A copy of the FTA report showing exactly the same numbers I show for 2000 (one has to add the bus and rail numbers together). Fact is that even with the new transfers that have been created, ridership is down from 1998. Anyone interested in verifying my numbers from before need only take the trouble to get the data from FTA.
2. The passenger miles numbers. It is true that passenger miles are up from 1995, but still way below 1990. And they are up not nearly so much as correspondent indicates. 2000 was 122m. not 136m. Incidentally, virtually none of the correspondent's numbers track with the data reported by FTA.
3. What we can conclude is that, at best, overall ridership was reduced from before to after light rail, but the ferwer riders took longer trips.
4. I have also added estimated transit market share data (percentage of passenger miles traveled by transit, as opposed to the total, which includes cars and transit). The 2000 number remains well below 1990 and slightly ahead of 1995.
5. As regards cost --- of course bus costs rose --- it appears that most, if not all the ridership was transfered from buses. So clearly, the cost per passenger mile would increase. This is not to say that all light rail riders used to ride buses --- it is rather to suggest that more bus riders left the system than were attracted by light rail. I would expect that longer distance middle income commuters replaced lower income commuters who used to use the bus. Meanwhile costs on both sides (light rail and bus) exclude capital costs, which tend to add no more than 20 percent to bus costs and 100 percent or more to rail costs (capital costs tend to be about one-half or more of overall costs in rail). Imagine how inexpensive it would be to operate a house if one didnt have to pay the mortgage.
Best regards,
Wendell Cox
http://www.publicpurpose.com/ut-slc1980.htm
http://www.publicpurpose.com/uta.pdf
At 07:44 AM 10/25/2002 -0500, you wrote:
Mr. Cox,
The following was posted in response to your article on Salt Lake City's
LRT. I had posted a link to the article at:
http://www.austin360.com/HyperNews/hn/get.cgi/autos/traffic/forums/forum-991
/1247.html?SITE=cim.aus360&?nogifs&message=1
Whose numbers are correct?
Thanks,
Ron Riley
-----------------------------------------
Salt Lake LRT REALLY a success by 750DC
Wendell Cox's data for Salt Lake City's 2000 ridership are in error.
According to the National Transit Database (NTDB) of the Federal Transit
Administration, the ridership on the Utah Transit Administration's Salt Lake
City system in 2000 was 24.6 million, not the 23.9 million Cox reports.
The Salt Lake light rail transit (LRT) system has thus reversed a downward
trend:
Ridership (millions)
1996 - 24.4
1997 - 24.9
1998 - 24.7
1999 - 23.7
2000 - 24.6
Even more dramatic is the change in passenger-miles, the basic measure of
work and effectiveness of any transit system. This is also a measure of the
actual total miles passengers travel, so it accounts for transfer riders,
round trips, and other travel characteristics.
Passenger-miles (millions)
1996 - 115.0
1997 - 113.9
1998 - 112.7
1999 - 107.0
2000 - 136.7
It can be seen that, in the first full year of LRT operation, Salt Lake's
passenger-mileage surged nearly 28% over the previous year, and was up 19%
over 5 years.
LRT has also improved the cost-effectiveness of transporting passengers in
Salt Lake City.
Operating cost/passenger-mile
1996 - Bus $0.51
1997 - Bus $0.58
1998 - Bus $0.61
1999 - Bus $0.75 LRT $0.21
2000 - Bus $1.04 LRT $0.15
It can be seen that, not only has LRT reversed the upward trend in operating
cost, its operating cost trend was downward as the cost of operating buses
continued to increase.
That would seem to be the kind of success that both transit agencies and the
public long for.