Read the arguments.

Ten Reasons to Vote Against Light Rail

by Randal O'Toole

This November, Tucson residents will vote on whether they want to pay more sales taxes to build a $455 million, thirteen-mile light-rail line. Proponents say light rail will reduce congestion, promote economic development, and save money.

Experience in my hometown of Portland, Oregon, and other light-rail cities reveals these claims are exaggerated or false. Let's look at the facts.

1. Two tracks of rail will carry fewer people than one freeway lane. While proponents claim rail has the capacity of a 16-lane freeway, capacity is not the issue: Use is the issue. Not one light-rail line in the country carries as many people per day as one freeway lane. Freeways get heavy use because they are fast and convenient. Light rail is lightly used because it averages just 20 miles per hour and doesn't go where you want.

2. Light rail costs far more than freeways. A mile of light rail costs as much as two to eight miles of freeway lanes. Since it carries fewer people than a freeway lane, it obviously costs much more per passenger.

3. Light rail always costs more than claimed. Rail proponents say Tucson light rail will cost $35 million per mile. But light-rail lines now planned or under construction cost an average of more than $50 million a mile. According to a recent study in the Journal of the American Planning Association, American rail projects have gone an average of 41 percent over budget.

4. Light rail has not reduced congestion anywhere in the country. Of the ten U.S. cities with the fastest growing congestion, nine have built or are building rail transit lines. In fact, light rail increases congestion. Light rail uses lanes that could otherwise be used by autos. Plus, it diverts federal transportation funds from projects that really could reduce congestion. 5. Light rail increases pollution. Most pollution today comes from driving in congested, stop-and-go traffic. By increasing congestion, light rail will increase that pollution. The few cars it takes off the road won't make up for the increase in traffic-related pollution.

6. Light rail does not take many cars off the road. Rail proponents claim the St. Louis light rail system is a success, but the 2000 census revealed that St. Louis transit commuting declined by 19 percent after they built light rail. How does that reduce congestion?

7. Light rail does not promote economic development. Transit agencies fabricate this claim to justify their wasteful rail projects. Portland's transit agency claimed light rail led to the construction of a downtown parking garage! If rail is so successful, why did they need more parking? In fact, almost all new private development along Portland's light-rail lines happened only after developers were given hundreds of millions of dollars of added subsidies.

8. Light rail is dangerous. In the past decade, light-rail cars killed three times as many people, per passenger mile carried, as urban interstates. The Los Angeles light-rail line alone has killed more than 100 people.

9. Buses can do anything rail can do at a far lower cost, and they can do it without expensive bus lanes, which are almost as much a boondoggle as light rail. Increasing bus frequencies and speeds (by reducing the number of stops) will attract as many riders as rail for less than 10 to 20 percent of the cost. Light-rail cars last a little longer than buses, but they cost almost ten times as much. Rail proponents never mention that, once you build the rail line, you have to rebuild it, at high cost, every twenty to thirty years.

10. Road improvements are the solution to congestion. Improving roads doesn't always mean lots of new freeways; sometimes, removing highway bottlenecks can reduce congestion at a low cost. While freeway improvements do not lead to more driving, as often claimed, they do lead to more driving on freeways, where driving is safest, instead of on city streets. Even if more roads did lead to more driving, what's wrong with that? Every trip represents someone going somewhere important to them. The same isn't true for light rail. Light-rail cars in New Jersey, San Jose, and other cities run practically empty much of the day. Why is it better to build rail lines that few people use than to build freeways that millions of people use?

Portlanders voted to stop funding light rail in 1998. They learned that, unless you are one of the fortunate few who get limousine-priced rides at everyone else's expense, light rail will cost you a lot of money without providing you any benefits.

Randal O'Toole (rot@ti.org) is director of the American Dream Coalition (americandreamcoalition.org) and author of "The Vanishing Automobile and Other Urban Myths."

Light Rail Bibliography