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. 

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.