The new Sound Transit commuter train from Everett to Seattle is a good deal for somebody, but not for the taxpayers, today's Seattle Times reports: Sounder train is low on riders, high on cost:
Adults pay $3 for each one-way trip on the train. At current ridership levels, that amounts to a taxpayer subsidy of more than $35 for each passenger.That alone would make the Sounder one of the most expensive commuter trains in the country, but the total cost is even more extreme than the figure of "$35 per one-way trip" suggests.
The current subsidy is just for operating costs such as train crews, equipment maintenance and insurance. It doesn't include any part of the line's estimated $393 million capital cost through 2009.When you add in the capital cost amortized over, say 20 years, and then use the the Times estimate of 314 round-trip passengers per day, it comes out that the annual cost per Sounder commuter is $75,500, of which about $74,000 is pure subsidy. As a comparison, this estimate calculates that the average annual subsidy per automobile commuter (15 mile one-way commute) is $2,809. The distance between Everett and Seattle is 28 miles, so the annual subsidy for incremental road capacity to serve the same $74,000 train rider is only $5,243.
Another data point is that typical road construction projects in Washington State cost in the range of $1 to $9 million per lane mile (adjusted for 2002). Even at the high end of that range, adding one more lane of road on the 28 mile stretch between Seattle and Everett would cost $252 million, a lot less than the capital cost of the Sounder.
Posted by Stefan Sharkansky at April 01, 2004 04:52 PMStriking figures. I actually saw the Sounder going to Everett yesterday when I was at Carkeek Park in north Seattle, from just behind the fence. It looked about half full, although that was just the lower level and I don't know if the upper level is available to passengers.
Posted by: Greg Piper on April 3, 2004 01:00 PM