PUBLIC POLICY PUNDIT BILL KING posted another critique of METRO this week. Here’s the intro:
There could hardly be a more fitting image for the close of the current Metro administration than the recent photographs for a wrecked Metro buses in front of Metro’s headquarters after having been broad-sided by Metro’s Main Street light rail. The last six years are likely to be remembered as the most ruinous time for public transportation in Houston’s history as Metro has pursued a single-minded obsession to build its version of an at-grade rail system regardless of the cost, both in financial terms and in the degradation of the bus system on which over 100,000 Houstonians rely daily.
What follows is a good discussion on how METRO has squandered both the public’s treasure and trust over the last six years.
Tom Kirkendall riffs off that with a fine post of his own that describes how urban rail/planning/development special interests manage to push forward their favored boondoggles despite dubious economic justification and public benefit:
The costs of such systems are widely dispersed among the local population of an area such as Houston, so the many who stand to lose will lose only a little while the few who stand to gain will gain a lot. As a result, these small interest groups recognize that it is usually not worth the relatively small cost per taxpayer for most citizens to spend any substantial amount of time or money lobbying or simply taking the time to vote against an uneconomic rail system.
And as if on cue, the Examiner‘s Michael Reed reports these interesting financial tidbits:
The city’s commercial paper lending program for Metro has cost Houston taxpayers more than $3.2 million in interest toward long-term promissory notes for Metro street projects so far, according to the City Controller’s office.
That money — $359,635 of which appears on the fiscal 2009 debit side of the city budget — will never be recouped.
[snip]
Separately, as of Feb. 23, the amount of Metro’s unbilled commitment to the city from the general mobility fund collection — dating as far back as 2004 — stood at $161.3 million, according to a Public Works Department document on Metro project expenditures.
Sooner or later, all that money starts to add up. But hey, at least we have a World Class Bus/Car/Train Pinball Machine down Main!
