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SMART
SMART's Ridership and the Coming Fight over TODs
SMART is required to report monthly ridership to the DOT, which publishes monthly figures on its website. Also, up until this month, the MTC reports Clipper Card usage by transit agency, including SMART, which reports average weekday Clipper usage.
Both indicate that SMART is nowhere near meeting its projections.
Consider the following:
- Ridership is fundamentally flat;
- Weekday ridership is far under the forecast of 3,000 riders per day;
- Weekend ridership is barely exceeding the paltry 300/weekend day figure;
- Fare revenues (reported in the monthly reports) are pretty much at the budget created a year ago;
The basis for the NTD (National Transit Database) filings are counts by the conductors, which means Farhad Mansourian, SMART’s general manager, has ridership by train and day data, but has not shown it to the public.
An Economists Perspective on Investments in Public Infrastructure
Evaluating the economics of these investments is a well-established area for economics. And it’s largely about costs and benefits (broadly defined). While there are always difficulties and challenges associated with measuring “benefits” when it comes to public infrastructure, in the case of SMART this is not a particular challenge, because no matter how one counts, benefits are few.
Ridership is incredibly low, having no impact on the real social cost—which is traffic congestion and air pollution. Indeed, as the Marin public will learn firsthand, once the train travels across 2nd and 3rd streets in San Rafael, it is quite likely that the “congestion costs” in that area, largely offset any potential benefits associated with public transit ridership. And, would the cars stuck in traffic emit more pollution than anything saved by the train? Probably, but I’m not the expert on this calculation.
I have been tracking and accumulating financial data on the agency via the financial audit reports. This fiscal year’s report will be available near year end. But through June 30th, 2017 SMART agency has spent over $650 million.
And the benefit? Paltry ridership. It’s so low it’s ridiculous, but that doesn’t stop the train defenders to making claims about its success. SMART is the definition of a boondoggle and an utter failure from a “public investment” perspective, which is high cost, low benefit.
Is SMART “cooking the books?”
No, they don’t misreport ridership figures, but they limit what is reported. Since Board members don’t ask any questions, no one is the wiser. Meanwhile, the media reports figures that few understand, so few know that ridership is paltry and going nowhere.
Heck at a party a friend asked me, “Isn’t SMART a wild success?” That’s what the public thinks, because they don’t realize just how low ridership really is.
Claims that the Larkspur extension will lead to material increases in ridership are equally ridiculous. Bus shuttles are cheaper and more efficient, since they drop passengers off in front of the terminal. Will anyone count the loss of transit ridership (in total) when the bus shuttles are terminated? Doubtful.
Here’s what detailed data show:
- About 12 peak hour trains per weekday have reasonable ridership. These are the trains people are taking and witnessing lots of riders. These are the ones spoken about. It’s why the riders using the train “feel” as if it is well used because they are on the few # of daily trains that are well used.
- What isn’t discussed are the (about) 22 trains per day that have little ridership.
- How do I know this? It’s simple math. 2,000 riders per day on 34 trains is 59 riders/train. If some trains have lots of riders (say 12 have 125 riders on average), by subtraction, 22 have under 30 riders.
In regards to Novato station: it’s an incredible waste of funding. The public thinks “alternating” service means trains every hour rather than every half hour. Actually, it doesn’t mean this. It means midday trains will serve the station and peak hour trains will not. Why?
Behind closed doors, the engineers know frequency of service is a key determinant of ridership. Split service between 2 stations a mile apart? It will reduce total ridership. SMART will lose more riders from only providing service once an hour to Atherton than they’d gain by providing service to downtown Novato. They can’t afford to do this. In time, the Novato public will learn that the service will generate very few riders getting off the downtown Novato station.
Beware of Housing Shortage
We all know the strategic challenge that is coming: MTC/ABAG will try to impose high density housing into Novato’s downtown areas wedged between a “train station” and an oversized bus pad a few blocks away. It’s only a matter of time now. The region-wide housing shortage demands attention. And right now the folks that believe in TODs are running the show.
They’re looking for sites other than downtown San Jose, Oakland and San Francisco. If you’re not aware of this, get aware: Novato is on the list. That’s what the oversized bus pad was really about and it is why the MTC just coughed up funds to complete the station.
This is an effort by the regional agencies has set up a strategic game. As many others have pointed out, TODs don’t achieve what proponents claim. Sure, they generate some modest increases in transit ridership, but they also generate more congestion in the vicinity of the TODs. And, when TODs are located in suburbs that aren’t connected directly to a high density employment center (e.g., SF), the tradeoff is even worse. Those communities that don’t understand this and accept the TODs will live with higher levels of congestion. So, there’s an incentive for those that do understand these relationships to “Just say no.”
Marin is a wonderful place to live because so much open space has been preserved, because its citizens have fought to preserve even more land (e.g., Bahia) and Hamilton, St Vincents/Silveira while other communities, less sophisticated, have adopted pro-growth.
But, it’s not just Marin. Look at a map of the region. Growth has occurred anywhere local communities have accepted it.
Obviously, we need to elect politicians that get this. Pam Drew and Pat Eklund get it. The rest of the Novato City Council is part of the problem and they are naively setting up Novato for future TODs imposed on the city via the withholding of large amounts of transportation dollars.
Those believers in TODs have no choice. It’s just about the only tool in their shed. Without pulling back dollars, they won’t be able to impose TODs into communities that don’t want them.
Mike Arnold is co-founder and principal at Alco Partners, which provides financial risk management consulting to the banking industry. He is a lecturer at the Osher Life Long Learning Institute at Dominican University and Sonoma State. Mike was co-chair of both campaigns to defeat the SMART sales tax measure and has sought public disclosure of details concerning SMART’s finances.