Nashville also has a commuter train that it claims is "the most cost efficient" in the country -- but hardly anyone is riding it. It cost about a quarter as much to start up as TriMet's WES -- but carries only about 250 round-trips a day.

The capital cost plus the $3.5 million annual operating subsidy is enough to buy a brand-new Prius for each of those 250 commuters every year for the next 30 years. Alternatively, they could have purchased enough luxury, long-distance buses to carry those commuters for well under $5 million (and probably would have come close to breaking even on the operating costs).

Naturally, Nashville's Regional Transportation Authority hopes to parlay the "success" of this line into building six more, and cities throughout the area, including Louisville and Indianapolis want to build one just like it. Just shows what great PR does for transit boondoggles. (It also shows that transit planners don't know the meaning of the term "cost efficient.")

It doesn't help that slimeballs like Bow Tie Earl have made Federal funding for these boondogles possible.

Nashville also has a commuter train that it claims is "the most cost efficient" in the country -- but hardly anyone is riding it. It cost about a quarter as much to start up as TriMet's WES -- but carries only about 250 round-trips a day.

Interesting... Taking a look at the Wikipedia entry:

32 miles long, six stations.
$41 million capital cost, $1.3 million/mile.
Served by three ex-Amtrak F40PH locomotives and seven former Chicago Metra bi-level coaches.
Typical train is one locomotive and two coaches.
Ridership (per Wikipedia) is about 900 passengers per day.
Estimated metro population is 1.5 million.

TriMet WES:

14.7 miles, five stations
$166 million capital cost, $11.3 million/mile
Served by four Colorado Railcar DMUs (at an huge price tag), and two ex-Alaska Railroad Budd RDCs as back-up vehicles.
Typical train is one car (no locomotive).
Ridership is about 1,200 passengers per day.
Estimated metro population is 2.6 million.

The only thing I can really give credit to TriMet for is that the DMU is more fuel efficient, despite requiring three diesel engines in one car versus a huge 3,000 horsepower prime mover for Nashville's tiny two-car trains. (In Amtrak service, the same locomotive was rated at five loaded bi-level cars, but that locomotive also had to go faster - 79 MPH - on mainline railroad routes over further distances.)

Nashville's train cost less, goes further, and the ridership on a population basis is about the same as WES. On a per-passenger cost, the annual subsidy is higher, but Portland's WES system is still wildly expensive - ten times that of TriMet's "so expensive we have to cut" bus service.

Don't remind me. Dallas is finally getting its new convention center hotel paid for with city funds, and the "Dallas Morning News" is continuing to gush about how this will somehow revitalize downtown. Of course, the fact that the land for the hotel belonged to the "Boring Snooze"'s parent company before the city bought it might have something to do with that, because if we don't build the hotel, Belo might have to buy the land back.

If only there was a way to advertise our "vibrant, urban environment" that extends from Memorial Coliseum, down to the Convention Center, over to the State Office Building and back to the Lloyd Center/13th MAX station and then to Lloyd Center.