American Dream

Photograph from Sydney Morning Herald

In what has become a familiar story, Sydney Australia built a transit way that went nearly 250 percent over budget and carries 30 percent fewer riders than predicted. The difference between this and most similar stories in the U.S. is that this transit way is an exclusive busway rather than rail -- but the U.S. will no doubt soon have its own busway failures.

The busway was expected to cost $98 million (all prices in Australian dollars), but ended up costing almost $350 million. The transit agency internally projected that the buses would carry 1.7 million people per year, but publicly claimed it would carry 2.8 million. Actual ridership is about 2.0 million. Based on the higher projection, the agency claimed the busway would pay for its operating costs, but actually a subsidy of nearly $5 million a year is needed.

Despite the problems, an government official quoted in the article claims the busway "demonstrated the potential of transitways." Yep -- the potential to drain away huge amounts of tax dollars.

Meanwhile, various rail projects in Sydney are also suffering problems. One project alone mentioned in this article is $1.2 billion over budget.

Few exclusive busways have been built in the U.S., but Pittsburgh has one along with some expensive light-rail upgrades to worn out streetcar lines. Pittsburgh's transit ridership has declined by nearly 30 percent in the last two decades. Albuquerque, Eugene OR, and Las Vegas are all opening exclusive busways, and these are not likely to be much more successful.

Bus-rapid transit does not require exclusive busways. All bus-rapid transit really means is more frequent buses with limited stops. But pork-barreling politicians want to spend large amounts of public funds so they can be recognized supporting highly-visible public projects that, incidentally, make private contractors (and potential campaign donors) huge profits.