This sounds Familiar

This sounds familiar.

The other day, in a hip-looking building housing the architectural firm VTBS, former Santa Monica Mayor Denny Zane revved up a small crowd, including two state legislators, developers, and environmental and labor groups, asking them to urge voters to increase the county sales tax next November. The goal: $40 billion for mass transit over the next 30 years.

Comments

[Bill]

The most important take-away from that article:

"Voters might question the scope when they learn that cities with extensive light-rail systems have been unable to take more than 1 to 2 percent of the cars off the road.

In fact, a recent study by Seattle’s Washington Policy Center, of the six West Coast cities that have invested in light rail since 1995 — L.A., Sacramento, San Francisco, San Jose, Portland and Seattle — found it costs a princely $82,000 to $240,000 for each transit rider they have wooed on to their systems."

Mass transit systems are expensive to build, expensive to operate and often fail to achieve minimum ridership goals. Unfortunately, it is difficult to believe that Phoenix's system will be any different. The city is just too spread out for the system to attract the number of riders necessary to either break-even financially or to noticeably reduce congestion on Valley freeways.

One thing is for sure about Phoenix's light rail system: taxpayers will be taken for a ride.

[Name:]

The light rail people prayed for $4 gasoline in time for the opening day. They should have prayed for $20 a gallon.