View in your browser.

Wake County’s municipal elected leaders hear only one side of the transit story

Wake County Manager David Cooke and Triangle Transit CEO David King have been traveling the county attending meetings of the town and city councils presenting the information in the Wake County Transit Plan.

Unfortunately, the information they’re providing is incomplete and biased. The presentations are designed to convince elected leaders that spending $4.6 billion on a mix of bus, light rail, and commuter rail transit in Wake County is a good idea. Forgetting their ethical responsibilities that require them to be neutral, professional civil servants, Cooke and King have become policy advocates for a plan that is shot full of holes.

Proof? Please see the John Locke Foundation report Review of the Wake County Transit Report by Dr. David Hartgen and Thomas Rubin.

I have attempted to clarify some of the issues for city and town elected leaders by requesting time to present the facts contained in the Hartgen/Rubin report. Apex, Knightdale, and Wake Forest have accommodated my request by allowing me 10 to 15 minutes following the 30-minute presentation by Cooke and King.

Other cities and towns have been less willing to hear the other side of the story — a side that should have been contained in the report produced by Cooke and King, who are professionally obliged to supply all aspects of the plan, including both its pro and con aspects.

Raleigh Mayor Nancy McFarlane did not even acknowledge my request to speak after the Cooke/King presentation. I had to wait two weeks and then I was allowed to speak only during the three-minute public comment period. That was clearly too little time to engage in an honest and open discussion of this vital issue.

Wendell’s town manager ignored my email request until I called, and then I was offered either three minutes during the meeting in which Cooke and King made their presentation or a little more time at a later meeting of the town commissioners.

Thus, I need to resort to much less effective written communications. My email to the Wendell town commissioners follows.

February 24, 2012

Wendell town commissioners,

I am sorry that my request for time to speak to you about the Wake County Transit Plan (The Plan) following the Mr. Cooke and Mr. King presentation at your meeting on February 27th was not honored. Other town commissions in the area have found it beneficial to hear both sides of the transit controversy.

For some time now, we at the John Locke Foundation have been concerned about the one-sided nature of the transit discussions in Wake County. Thus, we commissioned Dr. David Hartgen and Thomas Rubin to review and critique the Plan. You will find their 75-page report at this link. https://www.johnlocke.org/research/show/policy reports/239

I would encourage you to read the three-page Executive Summary before the Cooke/King presentation and keep the following facts contained in our report in mind during their presentation:

1.    Suburban areas of the county, such as Wendell, pay two-thirds of the cost of the plan and receive only one-third of the service. This is hardly a good thing for Wendell’s taxpayers.

2.    The cost for each commuter rail rider per trip is $92 per trip and the cost for light rail rider is $33 per trip.

3.    After spending $4.6 billion on this Plan, the average bus will carry about 5 passengers and the average rail car will carry about 11 passengers. Or in both cases about an 11 percent occupancy rate.

4.    The region’s population density ranks 30th lowest out of 34 regions with rail transit. This extremely low population density makes the area ill-suited for rail transit and "transit oriented development" will have little or no impact on this low density.

5.    The Plan does not include funding for current transit service. Thus $2.1 billion needs to be added to the price tag for transit in the region.

6.    Very few people will use the transit contemplated in the Plan because the door-to-door travel times are 3 to 4 times the time it takes to make the same trip by auto.

7.   While the bus portion of the plan has some merit, it must be adjusted to serve those who depend on buses for transportation. Our analysis shows that one-half of the transit dependent population does not have an auto and two-thirds are low-income. The Plan must be adjusted to make this segment of our community the primary focus of bus transit.

8.    Finally, the rail portion of the plan, if fully implemented, will carry less than one percent of the motorized travel in the county. This is currently the case in 16 of 22 major U.S. cities with rail transit and all but one carry less than 3 percent. Thus, this Plan after spending $4.6 billion will not solve Wake County’s traffic congestion or pollution problems. (See chart here: https://www.johnlocke.org/agenda2010/publictransit.html)

Thank you for your consideration of the facts contained in our analysis of the Wake County Transit Plan.

If you have questions or comments, please don’t hesitate to contact me.

Michael

Click here for the Local Government Update archive.