Bicycle Austin forum

Darron

Member

Registered: 2014-05-22

Posts: 131

Forbes: "Austin's Commuter Rail Is A Monument To Government Waste"

The author contends that compared to express bus service MetroRail is an inefficient use of transit resources and actually hurts other forms of transit by reducing the amount of money available.

He estimated it costs $24.62 per ride on MetroRail, CapMetro responded the average daily ridership on MetroRail is 2,774 passengers at a cost of $18.91 per passenger per ride.  Compared to MetroRapid bus service at $5.15 per passenger per ride or local service that's $4.94 per passenger per ride.

The author is a self described "fiscal conservative" writing a book on market urbanism so he does have an agenda to promote his book and ideas but I do agree with him that MetroRail is not a transportation success story by any means.

Full article here:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/scottbeyer/ … 6999a94310

KVUE story with CapMetro response here:
http://www.kvue.com/news/local/forbes-a … /286344159

RedFalcon

Member

Registered: 2013-10-10

Posts: 233

Re: Forbes: "Austin's Commuter Rail Is A Monument To Government Waste"

I agree that this rail system has huge problems.  I will say this for it, though.  It has been a big help to me at times.  I won't have a car, so getting downtown relatively quickly from Parmer/Mopac area can be a problem.  I can ride it, but that takes an hour one way with the traffic (cars slow me down by getting in my way and needing to have lots of traffic lights).  If I am taking time off work to run an errand or go to my doctor it would take me half a day all told.

I could take a bus, but I often need my bike for that last mile or so.  And if I took the bus I would be stressed about being late because the bike rack might very well be full.  If I rode one of those express buses (the fancy ones the Leander residents get to ride -- not the 1M with crazy people drooling/peeing on the seats) I have to slide my bike in on its side into the underbelly of the bus.  I don't want to do that to it.

Except during the worst of peak times, I can expect to roll my bike onto the train with no problems.  But yeah, in the bigger picture it is a waste of money.