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Public Transit Ridership in the United States

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[quote user="daveklepper"] Sam, why do automatically assume that they have NOT looked at these costs? I can speak for Jerusalem where the cost of the light rail was far far less than the costs associated with highway and road construction if a majority of car drivers could not be pursuaded to move to public transit, and light DOES have a proven ability to cause drivers to make that choice.   (Trolley buses vs diesel buses also may do so in some situations.) [/quote] I did not assume that transit planners don't look at costs.   I was heavily involved in getting the DART referendum passed in Dallas.  My corporate employer believed it was a good idea and made me available to the team to help get it done. The planners did not ignore the costs. At the time they believed that the light rail system could be built without any federal funds. As it turned out the cost estimates were put together with rose colored glasses. The advocates saw what they wanted to see. This is a human characteristic that is not confined to transit projects. The cost estimates for the DART light rail lines were way short of the mark.  As a result, DART had to turn to the federal government for help.  Heaps of it. DART was building a light rail system for a city that had grown out along highways. It does not have the characteristics of a New York, Chicago, San Francisco.  The highways were already there; it was what the people wanted.   Dallas has 27 employment centers, of which only one is downtown. Most Dallas County commuters don't go downtown; they go cross town. But the DART planners and advocates (me included) had a solution (light rail), and we were determined to make it fit.   As a result, as noted, only three to five per cent of people in the Metroplex use DART. Of the DART modes, the most widely used is the HOV lanes, as per the DART key facts, which can be found on the DART webpage. As I look back I have concluded that DART focused on light rail and ignored other potential solutions. In any case, it has been a costly project.
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