June 23, 2002
Please Save the DSTT
– The Real Cost of Link Lite
By James W. MacIsaac, P.E.
DSTT Passenger Use Forecasts
Sound Transit would like us to believe the DSTT would
provide more capacity with rail use. But that is all in theory for a light
rail system that will likely never exist within the life of the DSTT. No
estimate of rail passengers has ever been produced by Sound Transit or the PSRC
that even begins to approach the passenger moving capacity it could be serving
by 2005.
In 1998 KC Metro counted 148 buses through the DSTT during a
weekday PM peak hour in its spring survey. Those buses carried 8,290
passengers with an average load of 60 passengers on the outbound buses. 75% of
those transit passengers were “regional” trips to/from suburban cities outside
of Seattle (bus routes 100 and upward). In total the DSTT was accommodating
over 46,000 passenger trips per day – more than Link is now estimated to serve
by 2020.
Up to 1998 Metro claimed that the DSTT was operating at only
half of its bus capacity. By simple arithmetic, we can easily allege that under
expanded bus use the DSTT could carry at least 16,600 passengers during
the PM peak hour in both directions combined with bus-only operations.
In fact, with a renewal of tunnel-bus acquisitions, this could happen by 2005
with significant reductions in surface street bus operations.
With the current Sound Transit Link Lite proposal, Link is
estimated to carry 42,500 passengers per day by 2020. Of this estimate,
15% are estimated to merely use Link for intra-CBD (free) rides. During the PM
peak hour by 2020, DSTT passengers to/from locations outside of downtown Seattle
are estimated at 4,400 – only 53% of what buses carried in 1998
at 50% of tunnel bus capacity. And less than 25% of the rail passengers would
be “regional” trips.
The highest passenger forecast ever produced for Link was
for a system that stretched from S.200th to Northgate. It was estimated
to carry a two-way load of 10,700 passengers on rail through the
DSTT during the 2020 PM peak hour. That amounts to only a 29% increase over what
buses carried in 1998. It represents only 64% of what buses could be carrying
through the DSTT by 2005 – if it were to be maintained for “regional” express
bus services only.
I do hope that the Council has begun to realize what an
expensive waste of our public transit funding resources Link has become. And I
do hope that the Council will revisit the pride and effort that has been put
into the DSTT as the flagship element of the regional express bus system that
we have been developing for the past 25 years. Please do not give the Bus
Tunnel and the Metro Busway over to what has become an ineffective rail use
proposal.
The Long-range Cost of Link Lite
Few of us realize just how expensive Link Lite (the latest
Sound Transit 14-mile Initial Segment) will be as a cost to our children and
grandchildren. The original "very conservative” cost estimate of the
21-mile “Phase 1” Link program was $2.4 billion in $YOE to be operational in
2006. The current Link Lite proposal is the least costly portion of the Phase
1 program with the DSTT and Metro Busway being given over nearly free and 50%
of the line being on surface through the Rainier Valley. Even so, this Initial
Segment only is now offered at a capital cost of $2.7 billion (see table) with
earliest operation now projected for 2009. The cost to build Link from S.200th
to Northgate is now estimated at over $7 billion.
Before you commit the future of the DSTT and the Metro
Busway for rail use, we implore you to require a cost estimate from Sound
Transit for a Central Link system stretching from S.200th to Northgate
– and to show a proposed funding program. That was a condition expressed in
the “Tunnel Motion” approved by the Council in 2001.
The following table provides a summary of what Sound Transit
is now asking for commitment to the 14-mile Initial Segment of a light rail
project. It will require almost every penny of the current Sound Move Phase 1
funding resources available to the light rail program for the next 20 years,
with only a 4% contingency between estimated revenues and expenses.
The first column shows the 1997-2009 cost summary that ST
has been making most public. However, it provides a more accurate division of the
South subarea revenues and expenses attributable to the Link program element.
Note that the capital cost of Link (all of Central Link) is now estimated at
$2.7 billion $YOE. Up to 50% of those costs are now expected to be deferred
through bond financing. Total costs through 2009, including operating costs
and debt service costs will be $3.2 billion. Acquisition costs of the DSTT and
Metro Busway per the former agreement are shown as debt service since ST would
acquire ownership for only the remainder of the debt service payments through
2020. By 2009 both North and South will have reached their maximum bonding
capacities.
The 2nd column shows ST’s ongoing revenue and
expense estimates for the next 11 years after Link operations begin. During
this period the full cost of operations kicks in, and we start seeing the huge
effects of debt service. ST is reflecting 30-year bonds with the first five
years of payments for interest only. Then the bonds are amortized over a
25-year period, with cumulative payments reaching maximum in 2015. Link
capital costs will total about 60% of total capital outlays for the three
transit programs in the South KC subarea. Therefore, I have allocated 60% of
the South subarea debt service to the Link project.
During the period from 1997 thru 2021, total expense
of the Link Initial Segment project is estimated at $5.5 billion PLUS another
$2 billion in remaining bond interest costs from 2022 through 2039
(column 3). The margin between estimated revenue and estimated expense for
this entire 25-year period is only 4 percent – a very slim margin.
The remaining three columns in the table show an annual
revenue and expense outline for 2015 when the full effect of debt service is
realized. After 2009 Link will represent one-third of the total costs of the
three transit programs in the South subarea. So I have allocated 33% of the
tax revenues after 2009 to Link. By 2015 Link South will be operating at a
significant deficit. To cover this, ST has allocated a much larger portion of
the debt service costs to the Sounder and Regional Express programs. If total
South revenues become inadequate, South will be borrowing from the cash-rich
East subarea, or floating more bonds from its rising debt limit.
When calculating cost per ride, the transit industry tends
to limit the numerator of the ratio to O&M costs only. Consequently, ST would
likely show a cost per trip on Link in 2015 of $4.69. If reserve costs were
added to the numerator, the cost per trip would calculate at $7.15. If debt
service costs were also added to the numerator, the cost per trip skyrockets
to $19.58 per trip. Of this total, ST estimates the rider fare in 2015
at $1.19 per trip – 6% of the total annual cost per ride of the Link service.
These numbers are not theory. They are from the actual revenue/expense estimates
provided by Sound Transit.
No rail system in the country is anywhere near as heavily
bonded as the Link project will be. Link will provide the most expensive cost
per ride in the nation by a factor of up to three. Unless the taxpayers in
this region are willing to commit a huge increase in ST taxes, Link may never
extend beyond this Initial Segment.
It is most illogical as public stewards that the King County
Council could ever ally with Sound Transit in pursuing such a huge misuse of
public tax dollars. I strongly urge the Council not to approve any use or
transfer agreement with Sound Transit for this rail project.
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