Just how SMART is Wilsonville, anyway?

TriMet, after two rounds already of budget cuts due to declining revenues caused by the recession (both in terms of tax receipts--higher unemployment means fewer payroll taxes to collect--and ridership--higher unemployment means fewer people riding the bus), is now looking at a third round.

And a few suburban governments, including the city of Wilsonville--which is not even IN the TriMet service district--are ticked about it.

A sharply-worded editorial in the Wilsonville Spokesman suggests that quite a bit of bad blood remains between TriMet and the city of Wilsonville, which withdrew from the TriMet service district in 19801988 to operate their own transit agency, SMART.   Wilsonville, apparently, is upset that TriMet is considering reductions in service to WES, the commuter rail boondoggleline which connect Wilsonville to Beaverton (where one can continue on to Portland or Hillsboro via MAX--without paying any additional fare).   The editorial also expresses dismay that the city of Tualatin, which is still part of TriMet, augments the WES service with a city-provided shuttle service--something which the writer thinks that TriMet ought to provide, instead.

Some critics of the agency have further noted that SMART has a pristine balance sheet, whereas TriMet is hemorrhaging red ink--suggesting that the latter is a victim of its own mismangement.

This is all very interesting.  While this does appear to indeed be a battle over turf--it's also a battle over something more fundamental (and one which has been going on for three decades):  Who gets the bigger piece of the service pie?

A bit of history

TriMet was formed in 1969 when the previously private bus operators in Portland went out of business.  Originally, TriMet's service district included much of southern and eastern Clackamas County, but four cities located wholly or partially within the county later chose to withdraw from TriMet and operate their own intra-city transit agencies:  Canby, Molalla, Sandy, and Wilsonville.  The first three are exurbs which are (and remain) separated from the Portland metro area both geographically and culturally--Molalla, if anything, is more in the orbit of Salem than Portland.  Their withdrawl didn't affect TriMet's finances materially; all of them have economies based on local agriculture or tourism.
Wilsonville was a different matter.  A third-ring suburb of Portland, Wilsonville is only fifteen miles from  downtown, and part of the contiguous (sub)urban area.  It's also a major employment area within the metro area--Xerox, Mentor Graphics, and numerous other high-tech employers are either headquartered there, or have a major presence.  At one point, Wilsonville had the distinction of having more jobs than residents within the city limits; though with many new residential neighborhoods this is no longer true.

What's fair?

Switching gears for a moment--let us consider the question:  The TriMet service district has a population of about 1.5 million, and includes pretty much all of the Portland metro area located within Oregon--except Wilsonville.  The city of Portland itself has a population of about 500 thousand--thus for every Portlander, there are two suburb-dwellers in Oregon.  Many consider the regional nature of TriMet's service district to be a good thing--cities with Balkanized transit service (one agency serving the city center, others serving the outlying communities) often suffer for it, especially if the agencies involved battle over turf or otherwise decline to integrate their operations for the benefit of passengers.

Now take a look at TriMet's frequent service map,  and its overall  system map.  What do you notice?  The highest concentration of services is in Portland, not in the burbs--and much of the suburban service is designed to get you to and from downtown.  There are exceptions, of course, but the bulk of the service is Portland-focused.

Is this state of affairs fair?  Many transit pros will answer yes--Portland is generally where the density is, and TriMet can provide operations within Portland efficiently.  Transit service to suburban sprawl is generally always going to be an inefficient proposition, as a) people are too spread out to serve effectively, and b) most of 'em drive anyway.

This analysis doesn't consider, however, who pays the bills.

Follow the money

TriMet has two main funding sources for its operations:  Fares, and a payroll tax levied within the service district.  Being a payroll tax, the tax is based on where a given employee works--someone who lives in Salem and works in Portland contributes to TriMet's revenue stream; someone who does the reverse, does not.   If someone lives in Beaverton and works in Tualatin, their contribution to TriMet is "booked" as coming from Tualatin.

Were one to compare the percentage of payroll tax revenues coming from a particular jurisdiction, with the level of service provided to that jurisdiction--one could determine whether a given jurisdiction is a net donor or beneficiary to TriMet.  Many of the 'burbs which are bedroom communities are net beneficiaries, according to the accounting--TriMet spends more money on service there than it receives in tax revenues.  But some communities, mainly on the west side of town (where the high tech industry is centered), are net donors--their employment centers subsidize, to some extent, TriMet's operations.  Much of Washington County is in this boat.

And prior to its withdrawl in 1980, so was Wilsonville.  In 1980That year, the city of Wilsonville was a mixture of high-tech campuses, farmland, a mental hospital, and a truck stop on I-5.  It had a very small residential population, and tons of high-tech, high-paying jobs.  It provided a significant part of TriMet's tax revenue, for which it received a handful of lines heading downtown.  In 1980, Wilsonville decided to take the money and run.   To its credit, it launched its own transit service--SMART, which provides circulator service within the city.  SMART also provides connecting service to TriMet in Tualatin and Tigard, and a line into the city of Salem.  Most SMART services are free, and as mentioned above, SMART has a nice, clean balance sheet.

How the pie is really sliced

Which brings us to the political realities of TriMet's service allocations.  It needs to provide a minimum level of service to all parts of its service district, in order to keep the tax revenues funding--there are quite a few lines whose primary justification is preserving the service footprint.  And those suburban communities which are net donors to TriMet, have leverage to insist upon a higher level of service than their land use and development patterns might otherwise merit.  And leaders there are quite happy to let TriMet (and Metro) know this.

It's widely believed that the reason TriMet went ahead with WES, despite quite a bit of institutional doubt about the project (doubts which were proven to be valid), is that Washington County was threatening, behind closed doors, to pull a Wilsonville if it didn't get a bigger piece of the service pie.

If there's a good thing about WES--it's that its existence will likely keep Washington County from any secession threats in the future.  After all, were the county to separate from TriMet, WES would then be their problem.  WES is, in many ways, like an underwater mortgage that keeps a squabbling couple from getting that divorce that might just make one (or both) of them happier.

As a resident of the metro area who is concerned about good transit service for the entire region, it's a shame that things have to end up this way.  As a resident of Washington County, it's a shame that county leaders blew their wad in way that backfired so spectacularly.  But as a resident of the TriMet service district, and as a taxpayer and user of the service, I have little sympathy for residents and leaders of Wilsonville who are upset that WES might not run as frequently as they like.

Is WES overpriced?

In a prior post, we explored the question of whether WES was underpriced--a legitimate concern for a service which financially, is a decent-sized hole below TriMet's waterline.  Not a get-out-the-life-rafts-and-call-the-Coast-Guard hole, but definitely an all-hands-below-decks hole. 

The pricing analysis, on the other hand, was quite simple--compare WES's fares with similar-length trips on other West Coast commuter rail systems.  In all cases, WES was cheaper--often by a significant amount, and your WES ticket is good for a transfer elsewhere in the TriMet system--whereas with the other services, if you wanted to continue on local transit, you needed a separate ticket or pass for that.

Can I take WES to San Jose?

There's a big problem with that analysis though--transit is not fungible.  A ride on WES is not a substitute for a ride on CalTrain--if you want to get from Gilroy to San Jose, WES won't take you there.  Likewise, an 800 square foot apartment in Hoboken or Rockwood is not a substitute for a similar apartment in Manhattan or the Pearl.  (On the other hand, were a car dealer in Portland to start selling cars for half price; you would likely see significant out-of-area orders--automobiles of the same make and model are  fungible, and a car bought in Oregon is just as good as one bought in Utah). 

This suggests that comparing ticket prices between Washington County and the Silicon Valley is perhaps not as informative as we would like.  It's not useless--if you assume similar cost structures, it's not unreasonable to assume that similar fare structures ought to result--it just ignores the realities of the demand side of the market.

And the market suggests, on the other hand, that WES might actually be overpriced.  Think about it--next to nobody rides the thing.  If it were underpriced in a plato-economic sense, then in theory, the trains would be crushloaded and people would be left behind on the platform--at the very least, they would run near capacity.  The fact that demand is low indicates that few people view the service as worth the price.

But herein lies the rub:  If a service is underpriced from a cost point, but overpriced from a demand point--just what does that mean? 

The Worst of Both Worlds

It means the service, as structured, is Probably Not A Good Idea.  Were it a private concern it would be belly-up already.  Something which is not attractive to customers, yet expensive to produce, is not a business you want to be in. 

But just WHY is WES in such dire straits?  Again, let's compare WES to some of its West Coast brethren; the comparison ignores connecting local transit in all cases. (Data from Wikipedia):

• WES:  5 stations, 16 route-miles, one line, 1260 ppd (passengers per day)
• Sounder:  9 stations (3 more under constructoin) , 82 route miles, two lines, 9760 ppd
• CalTrain: 32 stations, 77 route-miles, one line, 39k ppd
• MetroLink: 55 stations, >500 route-miles, 7 linkes, 47k ppd.
• Coaster (San Diego):  8 stations, 41 route miles, 1 line, 6000 ppd.
• FrontRunner:  8 stations, 44 route miles, 1 line, 4800 ppd.

In all five systems (other than WES) listed above, the size of the network (both in terms of destinations served, and distance spanned), is bigger than WES.  Four of the systems mentioned are in urban areas far bigger than Portland, but even FrontRunner, which connects Salt Lake to Ogden, gets four times the ridership (and is still below its projections).  Another important thing to note is that the other systems listed either operate in giant megalopoli, or run between a major city and smaller-but-important exurbs.  WES connects--Beaverton to Wilsonville.  That's it.  No knock on either town, of course, but there's probably not enough commuter rail business in the corridor to really justify that type of service.  WES might be overpriced even if it were free--and if you're using it to hop on MAX and get downtown, or happen to have a TriMet pass for other reasons--it IS free.

But wait... there's more!

All six systems run on active freight lines for at least part of their routes, and thus are subject to FRA regulations concerning things like crew complement, buff strength, etc.--which imposes a cost penatly compared to FRA-exempt services such as light rail.   All of the other five systems (Sounder, CalTrain, MetroLink, Coaster, and FrontRunner) use locomotive-hauled coaches--commodity rolling stock which is available from many different manufacturers (and has an active used market as well).  WES?   It appears TriMet has cornered the market on FRA-compliant, diesel-powered, made-in-USA DMUs.  While locomotives (even small ones) get worse gas mileage than a DMU, if you're hauling hundreds of passengers per train, it doesn't matter.  The use of DMUs isn't unreasonable given projected volumes (and DMUs have the advantage of not needing to turn around)--but the low volume itself is a red flag--and the fact that TriMet was forced to buy its rolling stock from a single vendor (let alone spend millions to keep said vendor out of bankruptcy until the units could be delivered) ought to have been another red flag--what TriMet was doing wasn't novel; it was simply dumb.

The bottom line is--Beaverton to Wilsonville is not a viable corridor for a commuter rail line.  Portland to Salem, with stops along the way at places like Keizer, Woodburn, Canby/Wilsonville, etc.--sure, it probably would have worked (assuming suitable infrastructure and trackage rights).  But the I-5/217 corridr, if it needs any transit beyond local bus service, would be better served by LRT.  (Or BRT if you prefer).  It's a short, intra-urban line, not an inter-urban one--in short, not a good match for commuter rail.

TriMet may well have done the planning profession a valuable service, by providing a case study of What Not To Do. One hopes that the DoT and other DC bureaucracies in charging of giving the states their money back after suitable begging are paying attention, and will start snickering the next time some local politico proposes a similar project. 

That's three posts now I've done this week dragging WES through the mud--I'll leave the poor thing alone now for a while. 

Is WES underpriced?

Over at Al's, commenter Erik H. (a TriMet user and frequent critic of the agency) makes an interesting point--WES may be underpriced.  A ride on WES from Wilsonville to Beaverton costs you $2.30 (less with a pass or a discount fare), and your ticket is a transfer good for the rest of the system.  Erik dug up the prices for similar length trips on other Western commuter railroads:

• Sound Transit, from Seattle to Kent (~16 miles):  $3.50
• CalTrain, from San Francisco to Burlingame (14.9 miles): $4.25
• Metrolink, from LA to Norwalk (16.7 miles): $6.25 weekdays
• Frontrunner (Utah Transit Authority), Salt Lake to Farmington (16.2 miles): $3-$5.

And in many of these cases, the commuter service is separate from local transit; your commuter rail ticket does NOT get you a ride on the local bus or train one you get off the commuter line.  Or vice versa.

Kudos to Erik for digging up these numbers:

It's also useful to compare longer rail trips--in the 30-50 mile range, in some of these metro areas.

• A ride on Sound Transit from Seattle to Tacoma (30 miles) is $4.75, $4.50 from Seattle to Everett.  (The agency doesn't appear to run through trains between Everett and Tacoma).  (See here for details).
• A four-zone pass on CalTrain, which will get you from SF to San Jose, is $7.75. 
• A weekday ticket from LA to Irvine on Metrolink (about 42 miles) is $9.25

And... since Portland doesn't have any long-distance commuter rail to compare these fares to...

• A ride from Portland to Salem on Amtrak Cascades starts at $13.

Interesting. 

Part of the issue with WES, I think, is a bit of role confusion--is it commuter rail, or is it transit?  It tries to act like both; with a fare structure (and a corridor) appropriate for local mass transit, but the equipment and service more appropriate to commuter rail.  Likewise, a CalTrain like service, with CalTrain like prices (and without the long-haul amenities and cost structure of Amtrak) would probably be useful in Oregon.

Happy Birthday, Wes

It wasn't supposed to be this way.

It never is, of course--at least not when things go wrong. But for the past decade, Washington County officials--noting the success of MAX, had dreams of their own rail line whisking commuters and shoppers up and down the busy I-5/OR217 corridor. With no money available to expand the freeway (a project that would generate intense opposition in any case), and no money to build a MAX line--commuter rail seemed like a good idea. The old Oregon Electric right-of-way, while an active freight line, didn't get much traffic, was in relatively good shape, and passed through the cities of Beaverton, Tigard, Tualatin, and Wilsonville--all important employment centers.

But today, the vision has come to fruition, and the dreams which were dreamed ten years ago have turned into nightmares. The Westside Express Service, or WES, for short, has been nothing but a disaster for TriMet. The project had numerous problems during its construction--from a failing rolling stock vendor, to exorbitant fees for parts of the right of way, to the straitjacket of FRA regulations more geared towards long-haul freight--and then the line opened up during the worst recession since at least the early 1980s, if not before. Today's story in the Oregonian goes into many of the dirty details, but some of the more salient bits:

• $50 per vehicle hourtrain-mile to operate.
• $20 cost per boarding ride (passengers pay an all-zone TriMet fare of $2.30 for a ride; assuming they don't have a pass).
• Last month, 1260 passengers per day. That's about half of what an average bus line does--not the system, not the high-volume lines like the #33, but an average line.

Ouch. For those numbers, TriMet could almost--not quite, but almost--replace the service with a fleet of taxicabs, 3 passengers per. Except that as part of the federal funding agreement, the service needs to be in place for 20 years. Washington County, which pushed for the service, is currently contributing part of the funds, but at some point it will be TriMet's baby.

Even the optimistic service projections (which are now being called BS by some), only reach in the low thousands.

Right service, wrong place

When the line was being developed, it was widely touted as the only suburb-to-suburb commuter line in the United States. This was viewed as innovation. Perhaps it should have been a red flag--after all, there is ample evidence (with Wes now added to the exhibit folder) that such services don't work. Commuter lines, when they do work, connect major cities together, or major cities to distant exurbs. Sounder, up in the Seattle area, runs between Tacoma and Everett, a distance of 82 miles, stopping on average once every ten miles. Commuter rail between Portland and Salem (possibly including Vancouver in the mix) would probably be successful--Amtrak Cascades does a lot of commuter business despite a relatively infrequent schedule. But the distance covered by WES is too short; none of the cities involved is driver unfriendly (virtually all Washington County employers have ample free parking), and the connecting transit services are spotty in many cases. Plus, two stops (Hall/Nimbus and Wilsonville) are mainly useful as park-and-rides, and numerous important destinations along the corridor--Washington Square, Bridgeport Village, and Wilsonville Town Center--are quite a bit distant from the nearest stop.

What the corridor needs, is what planners concluded they couldn't afford--true mass transit (running on frequent headways, all day), not peak-hour commuter rail.

The Future?

The Metro High Capacity System plan has some interesting details in it. Of a handful of corridors examined, three were designated as "high priority" corridors, indicated in green on the map. One of them, the Barbur Boulevard corridor, is next in line (after Milwaukie MAX). Another, though, is the WES corridor--Beaverton to Wilsonville. Planners at Metro realize that mass transit is what is needed here.

However, the form of this future transit service is an open question--several notes in the planning document indicate that HCT in this corridor probably won't be LRT or anything else--but more WES, running all day. Which brings up some interesting questons:

• How would the region pay to operate that?
• The P&W railroad seems unwilling to expand WES service hours, as it interferes with their freight operations. Without a change of heart, an alternate ROW for freight, or a severe drop in P&W's shipping business, how would expanded service be accomodated?
• At headways more frequent than 30 minutes, the significant number of single-tracked sections along the line becomes an issue.
  
• 5 stops is probably adequate for commuter rail, but a rapid transit line generally benefits from stop spacings in the 3000-6000 feet range. Are stops going to be added?

At this point, no serious route planning has been done on the corridor (at least none that has been published); and it may be the case that the "expanded WES" claim is there to avoid any Federal objections concerning future cancellation of the service. But a replacement or expansion of service along the corridor, in whatever form, is probably a decade off--and in the meantime, WES trains will rumble along through Washington County every 3045 minutes. Weekday mornings and evenings, that is.

And somehow, tri-county taxpayers will be paying for it.

Happy birthday, Wes.