[Mpls] Re: lrt delayed: The Costs

Sat Apr 3 12:26:19 CST 2004

	Bruce, the costs don't come out in the wash... Much of the LRT and 
other Metro Transit capital investments were made with borrowed money. 
Even if we don't use them, we still have to pay for them.

	To draw an analogy, let's say I have custom built for me a $100,000 
motorhome. It started out as a $50,000 motorhome but I had so many 
custom features added that it cost twice as much. I finance this 
$100,000 motorhome at a favorable rate of 5% with nothing down for 10 
years because I had good credit at the time. I thusly have to pay 
around $1,000 a month for the motorhome whether I use it or not.

	The motorhome turns out to be a lemon and It only gets 5 miles per 
gallon and I decide I Iike sports cars better anyway. So the motorhome 
sits in my driveway costing $1000 a month in just interest while I 
spend my retirement racing from casino to casino in a sports car thats 
costing me another $1000 a month. Instead of staying in the motorhome, 
I'm spending another $1000 a month on motels. I don't even know how 
much I'm losing at the casino. (This is turning out to be a pretty good 
analogy to republican budgeting, no?)

	After a year of parking my lemon motorhome in the driveway while 
making $1000 a month payments on it I decide to get it fixed. But the 
warranty was for only one year so the dealer refuses to fix it for 
free. I check the used motorhome price book and find that my motorhome 
will be worth $30,000 after I spend $10,000 on a new engine that I'd 
have gotten for free if I hadn't been to cheap to buy the gas to drive 
it to the dealership while it was under warranty.

	I get mad and let the motorhome sit in the driveway 4 more years. 5 
years old it's worth $15,000 after I get the  new engine that will cost 
$12,000. The tires are and upholstery are starting to crack and the gas 
in the tank smells awful. I swear in disgust at the price of repairs as 
my lender autodeducts the $1000 a month from my account. I park it back 
by the fence so I can at least get into my garage.

	After 10 years, in celebration of my last payment on the motorhome, I 
cut a path through the brush to take it for a spin. I spend an hour 
with WD 40 getting a door to unlock. With the tires all flat it sits a 
bit lower and is easier to climb into. The upholstery is all cracked 
and yellowed foam is popping out. The headliner is drooping to the 
floor. I climb into the split and dusting drivers seat and turn the 
key... not even a click. I push on the gas pedal hoping to pump it a 
bit, and it goes straight to the floor... oops, that was the brake 
pedal. Undaunted, I decide I'm going to get at least some use out of 
this thing. I hook up the garden hose to the motorhome and turn on the 
spigot.. water spurts out of everywhere because I was saving money by 
not draining the pipes for winter.

	Covered in mud, foam rubber dust, and brake fluid I sneak in the back 
way and make use of the basement shower. I get cleaned up just in time 
for family dinner and brag about how much I'd saved by not putting that 
overpriced gas in that motorhome we'd been paying $1000 a month for 
over the last 10 years. They give me that look of disbelief...

	Republicans meddling in transit have done stuff every bit as stupid 
before- remember the short busses they bought for Metro Mobility a 
couple decades back? The Quie administration "saved" money privatizing 
Metro Mobility, and the near new busses rotted away on Metro Transit 
parking lots for over a decade before being near given away.

	from just up the block from Twin City Lines North Side Station in 
Hawthorne,

		Dyna Sluyter

On Saturday, April 3, 2004, at 09:12 AM, Bruce Gaarder wrote:

> Dyna trots out calculations of interest on the capital cost of 
> building the
> lrt line and alleges that those costs are affected by not running the
> trains.
>
> Those costs are wasted anyway because nothing repays those costs.  
> Ever.
> That money is gone.
>
> The train fares will only cover 1/3 of the operating and maintenance 
> costs, so
> if the annual cost is "only" $9 million, that means that fares would be
> only $3 million and not operating it saves up to $6 million.  Not that
> much because of met council and metro transit overhead, but still most 
> of
> that.
>
>
> Visit www.EffectiveTransit.org
>
> The Independent Unsubsidized Voice of
> Citizens for Effective Transit in the Twin Cities  (no lrt)
>
> * lrt isn't a potato chip, you can stop at just one *
>
> Bruce Gaarder
> Highland Park  Saint Paul  MN
> bruce_gaarder at acm.org
>
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