The Case Against Events and Positive Economic Activity

I have posted quite often on the dubious claims of proponents of stadium development and their hosted events that their existence will bring forth an outpouring of dollars for the local economy (as seen here, here, here and here). The Olympics and the hosting of the two major party's conventions, give number crunchers a unique opportunity to examine these claims, and as is almost always the case, the truth falls far away from the projected.

The Wall Street Journal compares the actual economic numbers for the Olympics and conventions  with the tangibles and sees a huge gap in costs, budgets and benefits.
Time Magazine joins the discussion on the Olympics, with a focus on the cost overruns experienced each and every time by the host city. An interesting correlation that I think is widely ignored is the cost of the Athens games in relation to the country's debt problems.

The Charlotte Observer analyzes cost and revenue projections of the Democratic National Convention in determining that proponents economic activity claims may not be worth the price of admission.

Bottom line, while these aren't purely stadium-related numbers, their claims are one and the same. I wish this was a wake-up call that cities should stop pursuing the big events and instead focus on the little, everyday things that make the city unique, and therefore great.

Some of the greatest tourist attractions in this country are great because the locals use it. Locals rarely have need for a convention center or have tickets to the Super Bowl. If you make a city great for the people who live there, it will be great for those visiting. Said another way, if a city is great to live in, people will visit. Chasing tourist dollars is very close to treading water. That money would be better spent if it instead focused on increasing the local's quality of life.

Managing Transit within Individual Fiefdoms

Almost a year ago today, I discussed how some area suburbs were trying to increase transit options in their municipalities that do not currently have service.

In March, Mesquite opened an express route from their downtown connecting to the Lawnview Station on the Green Line.

However, Allen and McKinney have seen nothing concrete from their efforts yet. Monday's Metro section in the Dallas Morning News contained a story about why there has been a delay for those northern suburbs.

The short version is one of my concerns about this piecemeal approach. DART has inhibitions about approving a program that pumps non-service-area riders into the first station of the Red Line, forcing others further in to stand on the Downtown-Dallas-bound trains. Those others are also more likely to reside in a DART service area city and therefore are also more likely to pay the sales tax. As it stands, DART will receive nothing from the two suburbs.

Sadly, in the current system (political, not infrastructural), the only solution I see is an increase in capacity. But again, that has costs associated and who pays what will be at the heart of this matter.

As I mentioned in the previous post, this is one of the many drawbacks with a transit system's service area being decided by individual cities and paid for with their sales tax allocations. Until a fundamental change totally re-designs the way we fund, operate and administer transit service in the region, this will be more common as the region grows outward. More and more outlying suburbs will try to find a way to keep their sales tax and still fund transit and the current payers will look out for their interests first.

In the end, it is the residents who will have the drawbacks.

Why is Rail Different than Highways?

Taken from the transportation blog at the Dallas Morning News, which in turn was taken from the D Magazine blog (will someone take it from this blog?), David Linienger, DART's Chief Financial Officer, is quoted as saying DART may begin to charge people who do not live in the service area an extra charge to use their trains, most likely from a parking fee.

There are several reasons for this. 1) DART is having financial issues. Sales tax is the largest contributor to DART's coffers. When the economy crashes, sales tax follows. 2) Population growth has been slow in the service area, as Allen, Frisco and McKinney have been attracting the people Plano, Richardson and Carrollton used to get. Meanwhile, the system has been expanding. 3) The out-of-service-area residents are using the system, predominantly the end-of-line stations. 4) These residents aren't paying the sales tax where they live.

This is a sticky issue, and one that isn't in DART's full control. I don't like the way that most of American cities fund and build transit. Using DART as an example, the system is set up for cities to decide if they want to be in the system. What if had done that for highways? Suppose three cities in a linear row get to decide. City A and C want the highway but B doesn't. What happens? Well, that is what is going on with transit. Individual cities are deciding regional solutions. This puts DART in a position to ponder whether people who live in the same region, but different cities, pay a different rate.

Suppose the numbers work and it is in DART's best interest to charge non-residents. Surely some of those people who used to ride would now drive. Has anything been accomplished from a regional perspective? A lot of planning is about reducing vehicle use and their negative externalities. In doing what benefits themselves, the folks at DART would be doing the opposite. That's the big issue with a city-by-city approach to transit.

As for the proposal, I have a mixed view. I like that they are trying to recover some costs by folks that aren't paying into the system with their sales tax, but are using the system (though they are paying something, through the farebox). Some say that commuters who use the system to come into the DART service area pay a sales tax at some point, but they would regardless of if they used the system. If thy take the train and go out for lunch, would they not do the same thing if they drove? But the largest portion of income spent that is subject to the sales tax is still spent at home leaving DART out.

Also, if they do implement it through a parking charge, I can support that because parking is not free. In our modern Americam society, it is subsidized to the point of free for the user. But someone still owns the land. If parking more accurately reflected the market, then these would be non-issues. There's also a chance folks would catch a bus to the station. In the end, that reduces car trips too. I just don't know how common that would be.

What I would like to see is a fare based on the distance, similar to Washington D.C.'s system. In essence, this would accomplish the same thing, although folks who lived in Plano and work downtown would pay the same as those who lived outside the service area. There is something similar in place on the TRE. They operate on the honor system just as DART rail does, so it is doable. I just wonder if the political will is there.

As a downtown resident, my most common destination from ST. Paul Station is Cityplace and Mockingbird Station. I pay the same fare for a ride that is two-four stations away as these end-of-line users who pass 13 stations to get to their home station. DART's cost are less to transport me than it is to transport them. So in essence, my fare is subsidizing theirs.

But I don't like the idea from a regional perspective. There's no doubt that this proposal will reduce transit trips and increase car trips. How much remains to be seen. It also will reduce ridership, which is against their primary purpose.

At this stage, I am tentatively for the proposal, with the ability to rescind my support should it not meet the cost-benefit requirements. In America, there is no other case study to judge its merits. Aside from the distance-based fare, this may be the best idea to get revenues in line with costs.

Surveys

My mother-in-law gave me a link to an online survey offered by the NTTA. This is a great example of why survey results need to be taken with a grain of salt.

http://legacy.rsgsurvey.com/northtexas/CGP

I was asked when was the last weekday day, not date, that I had been in a car. That would have been for my sons one-year birthday dinner, three weeks ago. That time should make a big difference in the travel patterns this survey is trying to find.

It then asked many questions related to that trip, however, that was only part of the survey, the other, I presume, is more of a policy guide. Which route would you take: One with no tolls and a lot of time, one with a small amount of tolls and a medium amount of time or one with a lot of tolls and a shorter amount of time. It also used a time frame in there, between 5:30 and 6:30 or outside, showing a bias towards work commute patterns, when that is roughly only a quarter of all metropolitan travel. I also have a fourth option not included, a transit route.

After they asked about the preferences of the respondent, the questions migrated towards the general do you prefer tolls for a faster commute?, how should our roads be paid for? and other toll-related items. This is what I think they really are doing the survey. This seems to have more use as an opinion survey presented to decision makers and legislators than as a trip survey.

A brief decision of how modeling actually works proves that. A metropolitan area is divided into hundreds of zones (In graduate school, the example we worked with was small, at 500 zones). Within these zones, attractions and housing are determined. As an example, downtown with its many jobs, is considered a high attraction (though in reality it is a few zones) while the suburban zones generally have lower housing amounts, there are many of them. Routes are than drawn, based on the regions roads between the zones. Many mathmatical formulas exist to determine the amount of trips on the roads between zones. Many use different things, like number of jobs, houses, retail, recreational activities, density depending on the model used. Then real world measurements are taken of actual traffic counts at these locations. Once those are obtained, the model is calibrated using adjustments and run again until all the numbers are close to the observed totals. Finaly, the calibrated model is run for X number of years in advance using projections into the future of where growth, stagnation and decline are expected to occur.

Obviously, this is much more complicated than asking where your last trip was. That makes me believe this is a device being used to push an agenda. I would hate for this to be put out there that this is being used for a road building agenda. I hope this is purely being used as a road financing tool. Instead, if its being used for the generic term of transportation, then its is skewed and not worth the paper it is printed on, and since it is an internet survey, that is saying something.