Yesterday I posted cost per rider. This of course is biased against long trips, since one of the things a transit service does is move people distances. Moving longer distances may be more valuable (on the other hand, we don’t want to subsidize longer trips). Another simple calculation is presented, this time, dividing cost by daily passenger miles. Since I don’t know the trip lengths on the various modes (even if I had the forecast models, I doubt it), I use the APTA Fact Book, which gives what I think are reasonable estimates. I made up the Red Line number, since they didn’t have Commuter Bus, but otherwise these seem plausible. [If someone has actual data on this, please chime up, I will gladly update the spreadsheet]. Notably, (and not surprisingly) the rankings change slightly (SWLRT comes out worse than Northstar and the Red Line by this metric). The general conclusion does not (arterial BRT is still more cost effective). Sources of data are given in yesterday’s post, or are wikipedia.

Another criticism is that the cost are more than just required for transit, and include things like park and ride and roadway reconstruction. I agree. Blame the funders, I am using their data to describe the project.

A third criticism is that ridership will go up over time. This may or may not occur, but if you believe it will, you can adjust accordingly.

More importantly these critiques apply to all of these projects to a greater or lesser extent, and might bend the numbers, but don’t change the fundamentals.

Trip Length estimates from:
APTA Fact Book Table 7