We hinted that the state’s performance audit of Metro showed a very unhealthy transit agency. Today Rad Sallee provides some details:
Comparing Metro’s numbers for fiscal years 2001 and 2004, the audit shows a 29 percent rise in operating costs, to $304 million, and a 36 percent increase per passenger boarding. On the income side, Metro’s annual report shows fare revenue has hovered around $46 million a year since 1995.
“Metro’s fare recovery ratio has been declining, and at 15 percent is low for the transit industry,” the audit report says. Rates of 25 percent or more are common among big transit systems, it says.
The report says ridership slipped 5 percent in the three years, from 100 million yearly boardings to 95 million, despite a one-year bump in 2004 when 5 million boardings on the new MetroRail line offset the loss of 3 million on buses. Most of the loss was on local and express routes, with Park & Ride numbers holding steady.
Tom Kirkendall provides further context and thoughts that should be required reading for all Houston-area officials.
Here’s how Kirkendall sums it up:
Metro’s rail system is a bad virus that has infected Houston, and the cost of treating this civic virus is growing larger each month. Without periodic and independent re-examination of Metro’s light rail plan, the increasing costs of this plan risks turning this currently manageable problem into a major civic fiscal crisis that could negatively affect the Houston area’s growth and prosperity. Real leadership involves recognizing that risk and addressing it, not indulging it.
Sadly, the one person who can address the crisis has chosen, instead, to indulge Metro.
And Kevin Whited adds a comment to Kirkendall’s post that rounds out the problems Metro is facing. What a mess Metro has created!
Also, don’t miss Sallee’s Move It! column today, where he chastises Metro for its lack of public transparency.
Sallee is on a roll.
*Title borrowed from Tom Kirkendall.
