Earth to Heartwell: We are entering Great Depression II.

The mayor’s justification for the request to spend $1,000,000 more on five buses was summed up thusly:

Heartwell argued the DDA should somehow come up with the money — he didn’t know where it would come from — because having buses labeled ‘hybrid’ plays well with the city’s efforts to market itself as ‘green.’

“If for no other reason than the important symbolic benefit of having buses around downtown that say ‘hybrid,’ it’s an investment worth making,” he said. “It’s terribly expensive to do, but if we don’t start making these kinds of investments in our environment, we’re being short-sighted.”

So, in other words, the word “hybrid” painted on the side of a bus is worth spending an extra $1,000,000 of taxpayer money. Right.

Wisely, the DDA voted 5-1 (with Heartwell being the “one”) to reject his request.

Just to drive the point home of how the mayor is completely out of touch and apparently has absolutely no idea what a position of public trust involves, I was just leaked the actual improvements in gas mileage that the hybrid-electric buses enjoy. Get ready for this. These are the numbers from The Rapid (ITP) itself:

A standard diesel transit bus gets 4.45 miles per gallon. The hybrid-electric buses get 5.12 miles per gallon. Yes, that’s right – an improvement of 0.67 miles per gallon – all for the spiffy additional cost of $200,000 each.

Remember this when the city commission comes to taxpayers asking for a tax increase to shore up the rapidly-deteriorating budget.

The Grand Valley Metro Council (very much pro-Silver Line) won $400,000 in federal grants to clean up several abandoned sites along Division avenue, in the hopes that this will attract more development. You can almost hear how this would have been announced if the Silver Line had passed. It would have been touted as the first in a series of positive developments because of the Silver Line. Of course, the Silver Line had nothing to do with this grant award, but it underlines the claims that these sorts of transportation projects somehow spur development. However, as this news item shows, the development is largely spurred by government subsidy, not the appearance of a fancy silver-colored bus line. The Rapid supporters confuse correlation with causation. It goes against logic that replacing the current buses with buses that are painted silver will someone convince people and business to move to Division Avenue.

As we have previously pointed out, the development in Portland around mass transit, as the pro-Rapid supporters love to point to, only occurred after government subsidies were enacted. The development did not occur due to the mass transit system. This is the heart of the pro-Silver Line argument; that the Silver Line “would have” spurred several dollars’ worth of development for each dollar spent. This is simply not the case. The only evidence the Rapid points to in support of their argument is a thinly-documented three page article, as we pointed out here.

However, this Press article also points out that they haven’t given up on the Silver Line boondoggle. The article states, “Although [The Rapid] expects the Silver Line route eventually to win the voters’ blessing, plenty of other properties could be helped in the meantime . . .” Clearly they aren’t done with trying to sell this mess to the voters. Based on the negative Silver Line feedback both in the Press and on other online sources, it seems unlikely that they can salvage this project without significant changes. Even the pro-transit people weren’t convinced about the need for the Silver Line.

Rapid Silver Line: FAIL

It’s fantastic news for taxpayers and for fiscal sanity in the Grand Rapids area. Last night the expensive and redundant Rapid “Silver Line” tax increase request went down in flames. The overall vote total was 52% against and 48% in favor, but when looking at the six cities in the Rapid service district, we see that a majority of the cities rejected the request:

Grand Rapids – 53% yes, 47% no

East Grand Rapids – 64% yes, 36% no

Grandville – 36% yes, 64% no

Kentwood – 46% yes, 54% no

Walker – 32% yes, 68% no

Wyoming – 36% yes, 64% no

As you can see, Walker, Wyoming, Kentwood, and Grandville all soundly rejected the tax increase request and even Grand Rapids was closer than expected.

The pro-Silver Line people are predictably dour. The comments of Peter Varga, executive director of the ITP (Rapid), sum up their attitude perfectly. He said it was rejected simply because voters didn’t understand the request. Right. Voters heard from this blog as well as other groups (including our friends at KCFFR) who exposed the bad plan of the Silver Line. The Rapid folks tried their hardest to limit the information available on this request, but active citizens exposed the Rapid and let voters know the facts. This web site alone received thousands of visits from people searching for more information.

The message was clear:

• This new Silver Line was a duplicate of already-existing bus services
• The Silver Line would cost tens of millions of dollars (just for buses)
• The Silver Line would have cut off traffic on Division by shutting down lanes and dramatically increasing congestion
• The Silver Line was slower than existing bus services (see our previous posts on the issue)
• The claims of spurred development and “new jobs” were based on speculation and conjecture

In summary, bravo for the voters of the four cities who rejected this request. Make no mistake, they will be back, asking for more. Their next request will be for more than $100 million for an even more inefficient light rail line.

 Just Say No to the Silver Line

The supporters of the proposed $110 million Silver Line bus system in Grand Rapids tout it as a “Bus Rapid Transit” line. The proposed route of the Silver Line is up Division from 60th Street, a jog around the hospitals around Michigan street, and back to the Rapid station. The total route, according to Rapid, is 9.8 miles. It will take 35 minutes for the new “Silver Line” to travel this route. An important note here is that, as we’ve previously pointed out, Division will be turned into an effective two lane road (one lane each way) so that these Silver Line buses can have their own dedicated lanes. This supposedly will speed these buses up because they won’t have to share these lanes with regular cars. 

But wait, the Rapid already has a bus, route #1, that travels from the Clyde Park Meijer, down to 68th Street, up Division, and around to the Rapid station. The total distance for the current buses on this route is 12 miles, according to Google Maps. In addition, according to the Rapid’s web site, the buses on this route take about 33 minutes.

Let’s do the math. The Silver Line is supposed to take 35 minutes to travel 9.8 miles, with dedicated lanes on Division. The current #1 bus, traveling 12 miles, takes 33 minutes, sharing the lanes like every other vehicle on the road. The Silver Line factors out to be traveling at around 16.8 miles per hour. The current bus factors out to 20.57 miles per hour.

Huh? How do they call this Bus Rapid Transit? It’s Bus Slow Transit. It’s slower than the regular buses that take the same route now!

Don’t forget that these dedicated Silver Line lanes on Division will squeeze all current traffic on Division down to one lane in each direction. Traffic jam, anyone?

Be sure to cast your vote on this idea on Tuesday, May 5th, if you live in Grand Rapids, East Grand Rapids, Wyoming, Walker, Kentwood, or Grandville.

See our prior posts on this subject:

• Rapid Silver Line – More Concealment and Deceit
• Rapid Silver Line – Another Waste of Money

The only detail the post card has on the Silver Line is as follows:

Silver Line is more like a light rail system than a traditional bus. A proven solution in other communities, it will maximize ridership opportunities, economic development, and travel-time savings. Silver Line vehicles will use:

• Dedicated lanes during peak times
• In-station fare collection to speed boarding
• Intelligent transportation system applications such as signal priority, allowing quick travel between stations

That’s it? Yes, that’s it. As previously stated, they don’t want you to understand all the details.

What is the Silver Line really? As we’ve previously reported, it is a Bus Rapid Transit line that will dedicate one lane each way on Division Avenue from 60th street to the Rapid Station for use only by these new buses. This means that Division will be limited to one lane each way for regular vehicular traffic during peak traffic hours (rush hour). You heard that right. Division will turn into a traffic nightmare, likely pushing traffic to side streets to find better ways to get where they are going.

They say that this new “traffic priority” system will allow for these buses to travel much faster than current buses (which already travel the same exact route as the proposed Silver Line). How much faster? Well, we don’t really see any improvement. The Silver Line’s route would be 9.8 miles long and would take the new buses 36 minutes to travel. Huh? Yes, that’s right, 16 miles per hour. We don’t honestly understand how they can call this a Bus Rapid Transit line.

But wait, it gets better! This whole project is a $70 million tax increase – all so that they can duplicate the bus route they already have. No kidding: they already have a bus that travels this route. There’s no reason to raise taxes by $70 million just to duplicate what’s already there.

If you are a resident of East Grand Rapids, Grandville, or Walker, you will see no benefit from this line at all. If you are in Kentwood or Wyoming and happen to live near Division street, you might be able to use this new line conveniently, but as said before, there already is a bus line on this route. Basically, very few residents of any of the six ITP cities will see any benefit, yet will be expected to pay for it.

In the same vein as the near-informationless post card, the Rapid’s pro-Silver Line web site lists one source for their claim that the “investment” in the Silver Line will create jobs and produce a return on investment through new development. They reference an article named “Bus Rapid Transit: A Powerful Real Estate Development Tool” by William Kaplowitz. They don’t provide a link to this article, nor the text of it. So we did a simple Google search and came up with the text of the article. Read it for yourself here. The article makes a couple of simple, poorly-documented claims about development, and that’s it. That’s what they use to try and get residents to raise their own taxes by $70 million.

What they don’t discuss is that most of the time this “new” development was already happening or happened only because government created tax incentives to do so. In other words, they confuse correlation with causation. Just because development occurred around same time as the bus system’s implementation, it doesn’t mean that the buses caused the development. For example: there already is a lot of development going on along Division. It is likely that the Silver Line people would say that the Silver Line caused that development if they try and tout the “benefits.” But once again, since there already is a bus line along Division, it’s hard to understand how new buses would suddenly spring up more development.

But this is how the ITP/Rapid works. They don’t release their budgets. They don’t make true ridership numbers (by route, etc.) easily available. They don’t release the true operational statistics of their system. They don’t release the minutes of their board meetings, as the City of Grand Rapids does. They operate as though they don’t need to be accountable. But they’re a publicly-funded body and they need to operate transparently. The Rapid operates secretively so that you don’t understand how they operate. It’s all part of their contempt for taxpayers and efficient operations.

Don’t forget for vote on Tuesday, May 5th if you live in Grand Rapids, East Grand Rapids, Wyoming, Kentwood, Walker, or Grandville.

Read more on this issue:

• Rapid Silver Line: Another Waste of Money
• Rapid Silver Line – Bus “Slow” Transit
• ITP Watch
• ITP Watch: Rapid Silver Line Blog

The Rapid's Silver Line - Flushing Money Down the Toilet

The ITP/Rapid transit agency is again asking taxpayers for a tax increase on Tuesday, May 5th. Once again, they are using an off-election date to try and get as few voters as possible. If you live in Grand Rapids, East Grand Rapids, Walker, Wyoming, Grandville, or Kentwood, you should vote no on May 5th. 

The new “silver line” that is proposed is what’s called a Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) line. What’s that? Basically, they will cut off two of the four lanes on Division and squeeze regular traffic into one lane each way so that these new “rapid” buses get their own lanes. Did you think rush hour was bad before? If this passes, Division will be a traffic nightmare.

Some common-sense reasons to vote no:

1. This is a $70 million tax increase in the middle of the worst recession since the Great Depression – plus another $40 million in taxes that will be spent from the Federal and State governments – bringing the cost to over $110 million for buses
2. There is already a bus line that has the exact same route
3. The residents of Grandville, Walker, and East Grand Rapids will see absolutely no benefit for their increase in taxes
4. How many people do you think live and work right along Division Avenue? This is another waste of money on a ineffecient and inconvenient fixed-line bus system
5. As previously mentioned, the “Silver Line” will absolutely choke up traffic on Division during rush hours

UPDATE: (4/16/09)

Since this original post, I’ve had several people contact me with more information:

• The Rapid Silver Line will travel 9.8 miles from 60th Street to the Rapid Station near downtown. The total travel time is 36 minutes, which factors out to a whopping 16 miles per hour! Wow, Bus Rapid Transit, indeed!
• The Silver Line will eliminate crucial parking along Division that small businesses depend on.
• The pro-Silver Line web site names one source for their claim that this spending will result in a 400% return on investment. However, a quick search on the Internet reveals that this “source” is just a three page article with no data to back up the claim.
• The Rapid has supposedly done years of studying of this issue. Why don’t they publish any of that information on their web site? What do they have to hide? The Rapid has a history of not publishing data – they still refuse to publish their budget online.
• The Rapid claims that this project will create up to 189 direct and indirect jobs. This project is costing $110 million (assuming it comes in on-budget). This means that there is a cost of $582,000 per job! Where do I apply?

See our other posts on this subjet:

• Rapid Silver Line – More Concealment and Deceit
• Rapid Silver Line – Bus “Slow” Transit

For more info, visit the new ITP Watch web site: http://www.itpwatch.org

What would this light rail system look like? The plan is to have one rail route, from the Sixth Street/Monroe intersection, south on Monroe Avenue, to the Rapid bus depot. That’s a grand total of about 3 miles. $24.8 million per mile.

The plan also calls for up to 2,900 passengers per day. The $1.30 cost of riding the streetcar would cover only about one third of the annual $1.75 million cost to continue operations.

Never mind the rediculous re-engineering that Monroe would need to build this thing (seven lanes wide?), why can’t buses accomplish the same thing? We’re no fan of the inefficient fixed route bus system that The Rapid employs, but good God, anything would be better than the joke that this light rail system would be.

Of course, the magical benefits of this system are touted, such as $5 in development growth for each $1 spent on the system. Where do they get that number? They often point to Portland’s light rail system, which supposedly spurred so much development. But did it really? A recent report from the Cato Institute looks at just that question. A couple of telling excerpts:

[W]hen Portland’s first light-rail line opened for business in 1986, the city zoned much of the land near light-rail stations for high-density development. Ten years later, city planner Mike Saba sadly reported to the Portland city council, “we have not seen any of the kind of development—of a mid-rise, higher-density, mixed use, mixed-income type—that we would’ve liked to have seen” along the light-rail line.

…

Over the next decade, the city experienced a boom in high-density developments, virtually all of which were [taxpayer] subsidized.

…

Measured by value, the vast majority of the $1 billion of investments supposedly stimulated by the [Portland] light rail consists of government buildings, some built in response to executive orders by President Clinton and Oregon’s Governor Barbara Roberts that all federal and state agencies should relocate to downtown areas.44 One government-funded building supposedly stimulated by the lightrail line was a $5 million downtown parking garage. If light-rail works so well, why is a new garage needed and in what sense did light rail stimulate the construction of that garage?

Laughably, The Rapid’s web site has on its FAQ page the following item:

• Why not change the current bus system instead of spending new money on streetcars?
• Streetcars have several desirable features for downtown areas. First, with metro dwellers and workers nationwide demonstrating a strong preference for rail transit, streetcar systems draw more riders than equivalent bus systems.
• Second, streetcars have no vehicle emissions and therefore help improve air quality.
• Third, while streetcars have a higher initial investment, their operating cost is typically lower than equivalent bus systems. Higher operating cost for buses is attributed to escalating diesel costs, and shorter service life. The average life span for streetcars is 25 to 40 years and 12 years for buses. This trade-off will be part of the feasibility study evaluation. Is it worth a higher initial cost to provide increased benefits for many years to come?

First, the idea that more people like streetcars because they are cooler than buses has got to be the worst possible reason to spend $79 million. Second, the idea that streetcars don’t pollute is false, since they use electricity, and since much of our nation’s electricity is generated by coal power plants (or natural gas), there certainly are emissions. And third, as we’ve demonstrated previously, the Rapid loses about $5.82 per passenger when they ride a traditional bus. The Rapid will lose approximately $2.60 per passenger when they use the light rail, and that doesn’t include the capital costs. When you factor in a 30 year usable life for the initial capital costs, the loss per passenger rises to about $8.39 each. Where do you think that subsidy comes from? You guessed it… us, the taxpayers! That’s hardly more efficient than a traditional bus.

What are these people thinking? Can they see the forest from the trees?

You can read more excellent points debunking the value of the Portland light rail system at the Antiplanner web site.

If you live in Grand Rapids, East Grand Rapids, Kentwood, Walker, Wyoming, or Grandville, you get the pleasure of voting on the bloated and wasteful Interurban Transit Partnership (The Rapid) tax hike of 18%. Some interesting fact on The Rapid:

• Rapid buses carry an average of only six people at any given time
• Even as the numbers of passengers has increased, the cost of The Rapid on a per-passenger basis is also going up, meaning the Rapid is getting less efficient with time
• The Rapid’s web site misleads the public by under-reporting revenue by $18 million this year alone. Why do they hide the real cost of The Rapid?
• The average transit bus gets only 3.65 miles to the gallon and spews 50 times more pollution than a car. Rapid buses add pollution to the environment, they don’t reduce it!

You can read more information on the waste at The Rapid by checking out the Rapid No web site at www.RapidNo.org.

All Kent County residents get to vote on the GRCC millage increase of 31%. The interesting part is that this property tax increase is permanent! It never expires.

Grand Rapids Residents Also get to vote on the Grand Rapids Public Schools operating millage. This tax is on non-homestead property only, but effects renters.

So, don’t forget to vote on Tuesday, no matter where you live in Kent County.

Tax issues include the following:

• Grand Rapids Public Schools – GRPS is asking for a renewal of their 18 mill non-homestead operating millage. Basically what this means is that GRPS depends on an 18 mill tax on properties that are not claimed as primary residences. The 18 mill amount has actually decreased to 17.8258 mills due to Headlee amendment reductions. This is generally a non-controversial issue since homeowners do not pay it, only businesses and rental property owners (thus renters).
• Grand Rapids Community College – This one is a true tax increase. GRCC is asking for a an additional .56 mills, in addition to the current 1.7856 mills they already tax us for. That’s a whopping 31% increase. The increase will bring an additional $11 million to the college each year in revenues. It will cost the average homeowner an additional $28 a year, or about $140 over the next five years.
• Interurban Transit Partnership (The Rapid) – We’re no friends of the Rapid, as our readers should know. They are asking for a .17 mill increase to the .95 mills they already get in tax revenue. That’s an 18% increase. The new tax will raise about $2 million a year for the Rapid. This will cost the average GR homeowner about $8 a year or $40 over five years.

All told, the two homestead tax increases will cost the average homeowner about $37 a year extra, for a total annual cost of $173 a year for both GRCC and The Rapid.

Oh, and Grand Rapids Public Schools board elections are on the ballot too – but does anyone even care any more?

As you may know, The Rapid’s web site is at www.ridetherapid.org.

It has come to our attention that opposition to the tax increase is organized this year. Check out www.stoptherapid.org (also apparently at www.rapidno.org). Some of the facts surrounding The Rapid mirror what we’ve been saying for years. In short, it’s a horrible deal. From the website:

• “The average transit bus only gets 3.65 miles per gallon
• Transit buses spew 50 times more pollution and 279 times more soot than a passenger car.
• Each RAPID bus costs $9.40 per mile to operate. A typical car costs about $0.22 per mile to operate.
• For each passenger that rides a RAPID bus, the RAPID loses $5.82. Taxpayers (that’s us!) make up that amount to the tune of $30.7 million a year!”

Wow! 3.65 miles to the gallon? We knew it was a bad deal, but just how bad wasn’t this clear to us.

The best part of the site is the “This Pig Stinks!” campaign. We like it so much, we’ve added it to our menu at the right. This pig really does stink! We just hope the word gets out about this web site before the election. The taxpayers of Grand Rapids and the surrounding area need to understand the facts on The Rapid.