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TWO YEARS LATER, NORTHSTAR RAIL STILL NOT WORTH IT
By Andy Post | January 22, 2012
Anoka County Watchdog‘s Harold Hamilton and the Freedom Foundation have both recently covered the disappointing numbers for Northstar commuter rail in the northern metro last year and the pattern remains the same. Northstar continues to be defined by low ridership that falls drastically short of original ridership estimates when the line was approved in 2005 and usage that has done very little to reduce commuter traffic in and out of Minneapolis/St. Paul.
Coverage of the adjusted estimates and shortfalls has been minimal by Minnesota’s media sources.
The Freedom Foundation reports:
When the highly touted Northstar commuter rail line debuted with 20 percent fewer riders than supporters promised in its first year of service, transit officials promptly lowered expectations for year two. Metro Transit reduced the projected number of passengers from 897,000 in 2010 to 750,000 in 2011, anticipating about 16 percent fewer riders than predicted for the inaugural year. Based on ridership results obtained by the Freedom Foundation of Minnesota for year two of Northstar service ending in November, 2011, it appears Metro Transit officials did not lower expectations enough. When it comes to overall ridership numbers, the $318 million commuter rail line continues to head in the wrong direction.
The number of passengers taking the commuter rail line through November, 2011 declined by some 18,000 customers over Northstar’s first year in business. (The first full month of Northstar service began in December, 2009.) The final tally came in at 696,790 passengers compared to 714,915 the year before, down about 2.5 percent. The shortfall was more dramatic when compared to ridership goals for the year, falling 53,000 riders and seven percent short of projections for 2011.
and Hamilton writes:
And let’s not forget that tens of thousands of riders on Northstar aren’t rush hour commuters who are freeing up highway lane space by taking the train. No, they’re Twins fans taking a heavily subsidized train ride down to Target Field to watch the Twinkies put in another inept performance despite the fact that the Pohlads told the legislature a sweet new taxpayer-subsidized stadium would mean a competitive team on the field.
On top of all that, Northstar ridership is down at a time when bus usage is UP.
So much for the argument that Northstar is a commuter travel option that will open lane space and mean a better commute.
In the car versus train battle, cars are winning big time. The expansion of Highway 10 between Egret and Hanson did more for commuters in the area than Northstar ever will, and at a fraction of the cost.
Tags: Freedom Foundation of MN, Rail
Topics: Freedom Foundation of MN, Rail | 41 Comments »
41 Responses to “TWO YEARS LATER, NORTHSTAR RAIL STILL NOT WORTH IT”
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January 23rd, 2012 at 2:25 AM
What is it with you guys and rail?
Projections of highway utilization are also off on the downside. Does that mean we should build any roads?
January 23rd, 2012 at 8:06 AM
“Does that mean we should build any roads?”
Yes Jude we should “build any roads”, something people will acutally use andthat will benefit a much larger segment of the poplulation.
January 23rd, 2012 at 11:25 AM
It’s cute the way the left keeps returning to the 19th century to solve 21st century problems: Socialism, tenement housing, warehousing all the “poor folks” into housing next to the railroad tracks, choo-choo trains. I’m waiting for the day they start advocating removal of telephones from “inappropriate” private dwellings to provide the proletariat with jobs as messengers to deliver messages for their “betters”. They be doing Aldous Huxley proud.
January 23rd, 2012 at 3:20 PM
Nice that Gifford’s is finally tossing in the towel, true it is sad, yet the Local Democrats found they could not continue to hide in an campaign cycle the fact that Gifford’s can no longer follow simple cooking directions on a side of a box of Jello, much less make informed votes in Congress.
January 23rd, 2012 at 3:21 PM
Regarding the topic, if like stadiums, this is so good for the developers, then they can fund, build and operate the train. No taxpayer dollars!
January 23rd, 2012 at 11:42 PM
5. Beowulf Says:
January 23rd, 2012 at 3:21 PM
Regarding the topic, if like stadiums, this is so good for the developers, then they can fund, build and operate the train. No taxpayer dollars!
Well said
January 24th, 2012 at 8:58 AM
The question I always have is how will the economics of mass transit look in a world where gas is prohibitively expensive.
January 24th, 2012 at 9:57 AM
7. Hector Says:
January 24th, 2012 at 8:58 AM
The question I always have is how will the economics of mass transit look in a world where gas is prohibitively expensive.
When and if that day comes we’ll find out. As it is now the only thing that would make gasoline prohibitively expensive is government stupidity (somehow that never becomes prohibitively expensive), such as refusing to exploit natural resources available to us because of, well, just because. If mass transit does ever become a necessity, why would any one but an idiot or a democratic, (but, I repeat myself) insist on the least efficient and most expensive and least flexible method: choo-choo trains.
My personal belief is the reason democratics like choo-choos so much is because they afford such vast opportunities for graft. Since it is usually the local government entities spending hundreds of millions (billions?) of dollars with almost no accountability or oversight they can indulge themselves in simple theft, crony capitalism, log rolling, kickbacks, and self aggrandizement.
It’s much more difficult to take all of that out of a simple bus purchase. We’d actually be better off, money-wise, to encourage them to just go ahead and steal a couple of million for each of themselves and be done with it on condition they give up the choo-choo idea.
January 24th, 2012 at 11:15 AM
7) Man made issue. Between Coal, Oil, gas and nuclear we have enough to fuel USA’s energy needs for the next two centuries.
Remove the EPA, problem solved.
January 24th, 2012 at 11:18 AM
Paterno had made a conscience choice, PA college football program or the ruination of children’s lives.
Joe Paterno will be remembered not as the most wins but as a debauched piece of crap child pedophile enabler. Paterno put college football ahead of those young boy’s lives. He destroyed childhoods. His leadership behavior was despicable, if I was out in PA, I would join the line just to piss on his grave.
If this happened at a Catholic school the press would be covering this story on and on and on.
He chose now we can sit and judge.
Enjoy hell Joe…
January 24th, 2012 at 11:18 AM
Wow… Joe Paterno just signed up to vote in Hennepin, Ramsey and St Louis Counties as a Democrat. Just in time for the caucus.
Go figure.
January 24th, 2012 at 11:27 AM
When and if that day comes we’ll find out.
And presumably we will definitively find out if we should have provided mass transit at some prior time.
January 24th, 2012 at 11:32 AM
7)Answered: Hector: Welcome to the 21st Century.
Leading Twin City companies like Tribune, BB, Target, SV, Cargil and a ton of mid size companies… are either currently mobile or going mobile … In fact, my company is going mobile in a couple of months, will be working from home about 40% of the time.
We are consolidating and closing buildings. As virtual office technology continues to improve, virtual office work places will become the future.
Colleges are getting into that too… libraries… there is no longer the need for additional brick and mortar spaces.
Why are Democrats continue to try to push 19th century technology? What solution does 19th century technology offer us?
January 24th, 2012 at 12:19 PM
Hector: I think your argument is Neo-Malthusian.
Don’t forget technology like Maulthus did.
January 24th, 2012 at 1:43 PM
If gas does hits $5.00 you will see mobile concept really take off.
January 24th, 2012 at 2:28 PM
12) It is called a bus… the most efficient form of mass transit.
Use it when you need it, park it when you don’t.
January 25th, 2012 at 2:17 AM
Hector
You are preaching to people who just don’t quite understand.
They see the exploitation of oil and natural gas fields using fraking and fail to realize that it is only the rise of oil prices that have made this economically viable. With its continual high capital costs we will not be seeing any fall in price even as more now exploitable fields come online. This is of course taking place in a period of low demand. Any significant recovery will only put even more upward pressure on prices.
The we see the virtual office touted. But again without the understanding that this is the first step in a massive middle management purge. This is of course the first steps in turn some of the last solid middle class jobs piece rate. This will put even more downward pressure on wages thus increasing the income divide.
We are in the middle of what I call the death of work. What we know as work will in the near term be a thing of the past. How a society adjusts to that will either lead to a much better world or it will lead to some sort of dystopia of oligarchical overlords and a drudge class so beloved of science fiction. Just a point to my argument. Foxconn the giant Asian electronics assembler is looking to replace their million+ work force not with even cheaper labor but with robots. If sweatshop jobs are gone what is left?
I along with most liberals do not see this as some sort of massive plot, but as the natural outgrowth of progress and technology. What we object to is organizing our society in such a way as to accelerate those trends. While at the same time pulling back on the programs that allow our society to adjust over time to the changing world. The current conservative obsession with financialism can only accelerate these trends. The mobility of financial capital will force the more and more rapid shift away from human capital towards machine and virtual. This inevitably leads to more and more societal unrest.
But of course I’m wasting my time here, as everybody here knows it all much better than I. Of course they so they have faith they are correct, never mind any facts to the contrary. After all nailers replaced hammers and heaven forbid you ever use that old hammer even if it is the best tool for the job.
January 25th, 2012 at 8:04 AM
17) Thank you Jude for the uninformed radial left POV.
January 25th, 2012 at 8:06 AM
17) Perhaps you can shill your pablum to the Daily KOS, I hear they are looking for fresh content. LOL
January 26th, 2012 at 12:41 AM
19)
Did I say anything that was wrong?
Is it not apparent that the nature of what we call work is rapidly changing? Is not work central to our self definition? Is not the high price of oil making the use of fraking economically viable?
January 26th, 2012 at 2:54 AM
“Did I say anything that was wrong?”
Yes
“Is not the high price of oil making the use of fraking [sic] economically viable?”
No. You were so wrapped up in your horror story about the hideous! and oh so scary! acceleration of technological innovation, you were oblivious to the fact that fracking technology has also accelerated and bears as little resemblance to fracking done 50 years ago as an IBM mainframe does to an iPad 3. For example, on the Niobara field in Colrado and Nebraska, crude oil is being produced at $14/dollars a barrel, which is lower than the non-cost adjusted price of traditional wells from the same field 20 years ago. Not only that, but the hydraulic and directionally drilled wells are projected to produce 10 TIMES the amount of oil from similar fields which use old-fashioned vertical drilling techniques.
You may not have noticed, but the price of natural gas has plummeted for similar reasons and once Obama and the EPA are out of the way, oil, gas, coal and uranium production will make the US truly energy independent, with dramatically lower prices, and it will happen very quickly, leading to a new economic boom.
January 26th, 2012 at 12:00 PM
Beowulf, I was going to mention all your comment numbers but there are too many.
What do any of them have to do with the subject mentioned?
January 26th, 2012 at 3:16 PM
Jude I hear that the local Buggy Whip Maker is hiring.
January 26th, 2012 at 3:35 PM
20) Not wrong, just full of ideology hype, you pick your convenient facts while ignoring others.
January 26th, 2012 at 4:33 PM
Don’t forget technology like Maulthus did.
This isn’t one of my issues, and it certainly wasn’t my intent to preach on it. I merely raised the question. And it’s with an understanding that urban areas that didn’t create a mass transit infrastructure years ago, have now come to regret it.
I will throw out another observation. I believe technology is vitally important. But I also at least consider the possibility that will be all important going into the future will have to do with reduction of energy consumption, and the more efficient use of the energy we do use. I also suspect there is just as much if not more scope for innovation in the development of mass transit.
January 26th, 2012 at 8:51 PM
21)
I’m not afraid of technology nor do I think it hideous.
$100 – $86 does indeed represent $14 un-cost adjusted. However the costs are higher. EOG has already re-drilled at least one of their 3 initial test wells. That doesn’t account for associated environmental costs also. While we may see enough production to stabilize oil price we may end up paying for that with higher beef prices.
But do not get me wrong I am not saying that it shouldn’t get done. What I am saying is that we have to begin to anticipate the disruptions and work for a smother integration. Work towards including the mitigation at the front end, so we no longer leave that solely to the public after the fact. Privatizing profits while socializing risk leaves us holding the bag. Yes that makes the front end costs more expensive, but at the same time it uses market forces to minimize those costs and so reduces the overall societal burden. Business is happy to assume a boom and bust cycle, society should not accept that. Are we the masters of our creations or the servants.
January 26th, 2012 at 10:24 PM
26. Are we the masters of our creations or the servants.
That’s a very good question. Let’s ask it if the Hennepin County Commissioners who have lately re-branded themselves (note: not that anyone asked us, the citizens of Hennepin County): the Hennepin County Regional Railroad Authority. Do you suppose they have it in mind to build another choo-choo?
A very good question, just who is in charge?
January 27th, 2012 at 9:18 AM
Jude, about 40% of our corn crop is being burned. That is already driving up beef prices, milk prices, cereal prices, soda prices, chicken prices and probably other grain prices.
Burning food for fuel while there is a better alternative doesn’t make economic sense. Burning food for fuel while much of the world starves doesn’t make moral sense either.
January 27th, 2012 at 12:29 PM
28)
Just another example of not considering mitigation at the outset. Actually that isn’t quite true, it was well understood that corn based ethanol would be a price support. However the support is no longer desired so that will go away and the incentive for alternative inputs is enhanced.
Our governing elite both political and corporate have become so dominant that the inherent dynamic nature of change is all but ignored. While the right is more guilty of it then the left, the left cannot be absolved of this either.
January 27th, 2012 at 8:31 PM
“And it’s with an understanding that urban areas that didn’t create a mass transit infrastructure years ago, have now come to regret it.”
With the exception of the NYC Subways, no mass transit project anywhere in the country sustains its self or resolves traffic conjestion. No where else on the East Coast, not Chicago and not in California, Denver, or anywhere else.
Mass transit achieves just two things: 1) Graft; 2) Endless deficits.
January 27th, 2012 at 8:34 PM
“Privatizing profits while socializing risk leaves us holding the bag.”
So stop socializing risk. End of problem.
January 28th, 2012 at 12:14 AM
31)
But isn’t regulation bad? Regulation has been the method used by society to mitigate risk. But Fukushima, BP and the financial meltdown shows just how inadequate that method is when we have regulators uninterested in enforcing even the minimal regulations on the books.
Heck the entire current conservative governing philosophy is basically the socializing of risk.
January 28th, 2012 at 3:27 PM
Are we the masters of our creations or the servants.
How would a victim of a Tsunami or an earthquake answer that question? Here in Minnesota, we do a pretty good job of insulating ourselves from nature, but don’t ever kid yourself. Nature can swat us down in the blink of an eye, if it ever gets it’s act together.
“So stop socializing risk. End of problem.”
Nature has it’s own way of socializing risk. It doesn’t require a go ahead from the federal government.
January 28th, 2012 at 6:09 PM
29)”Our governing elite both political and corporate have become so dominant that the inherent dynamic nature of change is all but ignored. While the right is more guilty of it then the left, the left cannot be absolved of this either.”
31)”Heck the entire current conservative governing philosophy is basically the socializing of risk.”
Is this supposed to be an example of your open-minded-reach-across-the-aisle attempt at a bipartisan understanding? Talk about having matters back-asswards…ever heard of The New Deal, Social Security, Medicare, Obamacare? There is far more institutional control in this country by Leftisits- with monopoly contol in Public Education and Higher Education and in Government Bureaucracies and NGOs, as well as on Wall Street, and even with many multinational corporations like GE and Berkshire Hathaway. Repubs have had a small role of me-too-ism, ie, as in farm subsidies, TARP and Medicare Part D, but that is at the expense of abandoning conservative and free market principles and going over to you and your fellow libs on the Dark Side.
I’m waiting with baited breath for your next critique on Obama Crony Capitalism and Venture Socialism. The last 3 years have been Hell for the free market as Soetor0′s Command Economy Model (which apparently includes ignoring court verdicts against him) has made every effort through Executive Orders and unaccountable Czarist-Fiefdom Regulatory Misappropriation to deem from on high who should be the Winners and who should be the Losers based on which friends need paying off.
January 29th, 2012 at 12:50 AM
While I strive to be open minded, I am in no way seeking any bipartisan understanding. The current conservative movement as far as I am concerned is not only simple minded it is dangerous in it simple mindedness.
I’m sorry Jokin but I haven’t read enough of your stuff to fully get the humor in the rest of your post. Absurdity as humor seems to me to work better live then as text.
January 29th, 2012 at 8:10 PM
“While I strive to be open minded, I am in no way seeking any bipartisan understanding. The current conservative movement as far as I am concerned is not only simple minded it is dangerous in it simple mindedness.
I’m sorry Jokin but I haven’t read enough of your stuff to fully get the humor in the rest of your post. Absurdity as humor seems to me to work better live then as text.”
In other words, you concede defeat when presented with uncomfortable truths (or go right over your head).
January 29th, 2012 at 10:34 PM
36)
Where you actually serious? By what objective standard can you come to the conclusion that the last couple of years have been hell for business due to leftist control? Taxes are lower then they have been in a century. The government has been throwing at the banks. There has been a lower annual number of government regulations then at anytime since WWII. Environmental wavers and federal government permitting is at a modern historical high.
This administration has been “hell for business” in exactly the same way a parent who doesn’t let their first grader eat all the Halloween candy on Halloween night is “hell for kids”.
I happen to like civilization. The New Deal, Social Security, Medicare, Obamacare are the least a rich and prosperous society can do for itself. That the recent economic downturn didn’t shove our elder citizens into poverty is something to celibate not denigrate.
Oh my the world doesn’t actually follow the path you want it to. Oh dear me.
January 29th, 2012 at 10:38 PM
#37
“Where you actually serious?”
LOL
January 30th, 2012 at 2:45 AM
Just two little clips that show America.
The Studley tool chest is a bit of Americana that shows how we kept the old world traditions of craftsmanship and at the same time valued the labor involved.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C9QaFTI2F9c
Boatlift is another inspirational from 9 / 11. Showing the yet again the rush to help others.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MDOrzF7B2Kg
What makes this a reflection on America, is not the craftsmanship (you can find examples from all over the world), it is not the heroism and self sacrifice (again this not unique to America you will find examples from every human society). What makes this a reflection on America is that once in the not too distant past America was dedicated to realizing these basic human values and not merely the search for the next million dollars.
February 3rd, 2012 at 12:15 AM
Reading dim-witted philosophy from left wing extremists is very amusing…..
Seriously, who the hell ties your shoes for you in the morning?
February 3rd, 2012 at 6:01 AM
But isn’t regulation bad?
I came across a piece of Republican legislation the other littered with the use of the word, “substantially”. When legislators use that kind of word, what happens is the department in charge of administering that legislation will issue a regulation telling people in specific terms what the state thinks “substantially” means in that context. When it doesn’t, what you have is confusion and inconsistent policy.
My question is this.
How can you be against regulations, and also in favor of legislation which make regulations necessary?