Project Connect 'earns' dubious Government Waste 'award'

"Dishonest scales are an abomination to the Lord,
But a just weight is His delight."
Proverbs 11:1

A friend in Senator Cruz's Austin office passed this along.

Every year, U.S. Senator Tom Coburn puts out a 'waste book' that details the most egrigious examples of government waste at the Federal level; guess who made the cut this year?!?

[Author's note: The piece on Project Connect is on page 61 of the report linked above.]

From the article:

WASTEBOOK 2014 61 An extensive, and expensive, rail project for the City of Austin, Texas, is getting some fiscal assistance from Washington. Project Connect, the program management group spearheading transit for the Central Corridor Advisory Group in central Texas, has spent $157,000 on an ad campaign to prop up public support to approve floating a billion dollar bond to help pay for the rail line.

The catch? Approximately 80% of the ad campaign is being financed with federal grant money, essentially using taxpayer money to encourage taxpayers to pay more taxes. Critics have voiced concerns over the media campaign’s funding sources and questioned want to know how it can be considered appropriate when “Taxpayers are paying money to the federal government, which is then turning around and lobbying Austinites to support more taxpayer spending.” The advertisements ended just before being subjected to provisions on election laws regarding ballot measures.

In addition to questions about how public funds have been used to shape public opinion, Project Connect changed the line route, invalidating public comments collected regarding the original plan. The change in route and need for a new round of public comments is required for Project Connect to seek additional funds from the Federal Transit Administration to finance the rail line.

Project Connect also spent time and money canvassing Austin with flyers that local groups claim provide misleading propaganda regarding the actual route and benefits of the line. Instead, they claim, the fliers are intended to gauge locals knowledge of Project Connect and encourage people to attend their open houses.

The potential bond could put Austinites on the hook for over $500 million.

 Congratulations Project Connect!!!

The true cost of Austin rail emerges

"Dishonest scales are an abomination to the Lord,
But a just weight is His delight."
Proverbs 11:1

Wow:

Read much closer, however, and it becomes clear that the $1 billion will pay for only one small piece of that rail web — the part shown in lighter green, for $600 million of borrowed money — and those seven yellow circles for the other $400 million. And building the rail part will require at least another $600 million from the federal government.

All of this is no accident, of course. Getting to that map on that mailer — also posted on the advocacy’s group’s website at www.letsgoaustin.org — has been a three-year process.

The city of Austin and its junior partner Capital Metro had foundered trying to build popular support for a Central Austin light rail system when, in 2011, they called in experts from other cities with light rail on the ground. What Austin needed, they said, was a long-term transit vision. Get that done properly, they said, and maybe you can sell the initial piece of rail.

....

Turns out that transit vision has been refocused a couple of times, adding those extensions and altering an earlier Mueller extension to end it at that neighborhood rather than continuing north to U.S. 290. The latest version, largely reflected in the flier map, was approved by the Austin City Council and the Capital Metro board this summer, officials tell me.

Well, OK. So, that’s the current vision version, which has the distinct political advantage of showing rail going out in every direction, eventually.

But if Proposition 1 supporters are going to argue — as they increasingly are — that the 9.5 miles of light rail and its 18,000 rides a day in 2030 are just the beginning and that you have to start somewhere, then it is equally valid to note that the overall system will be costly. How costly? And who will pay?

....

We might eventually get another 100 miles or more of rail in greater Austin, as that map shows. And it could cost well above $6 billion to get it, though the feds surely will chip in some of that. That doesn’t include finding the money going forward to pay annually for train engineers, mechanics, managers, fuel, electricity, track and signal repairs, and, in time, replacement train cars.

So, yes, Proposition 1’s 9.5 miles of rail is only a start. So is the $600 million Austin taxpayers are being asked to pay.

Read the whole thing here.

The Urban Rail Swindle fleshes out details

"Dishonest scales are an abomination to the Lord,
But a just weight is His delight."
Proverbs 11:1



Highlights:

• Council voted unanimosly for Urban Rail.

• "Regional significance to relieve congestion" is governmentspeak for money laundering.

• Lee Leffingwell will be advocating for rail "as a private citizen on my own time."
• Personal Note: How stupid does he think we are?!?
• Secondary Note: Don't answer that 

•  "You can do road improvements that assist mostly the motorist or you can do road improvements that will assist future rail. So if you put a preference on road projects that can improve future rail, we think this is disingenuous. Because it's all about, it's really about rail,"

Austin Urban Rail...in one GLORIOUS sentence

"I have heard the rebuke that reproaches me,
And the spirit of my understanding causes me to answer."
Job 20:3

[Author's Note: As per the statesman, the article is behind the paywall; quote below transcribed by hand from a paper copy.]

The one way the current Urban Rail plan might make sense is if the line were extended to the airport.  Apparently, council member Mike Martinez asked that very question.  Project Connect's response is priceless:

[Project Connect CEO] Keahey said that Project Connect, a joint rail effort of the city and Capital Metro, had "not really examined going to the airport."

Sigh, way to go government....

 

Austin Urban Rail: Third Most Expensive Project in History

"For all who do such things, all who behave unrighteously, are an abomination to the Lord your God."
Deuteronomy 25:16

This article, from a pro-Urban Rail website, illustrates the horrors of the current proposal:

Project Connect’s urban rail plan for Austin, if implemented, at $119 million per mile in current dollars, would be the third most costly light rail transit (LRT) starter line in U.S. history, in terms of cost per mile.

That’s a conclusion Austin Rail Now draws from results emerging from a recent study posted on the Light Rail Now blog, plus other available data. The LRN study, reported in an article titled New U.S. light rail transit starter systems — Comparative total costs per mile, researched the cost per mile of a dozen new “heavy-duty” (as opposed to streetcar-type) LRT starter lines installed since 1990. In 2014 dollars, these range in investment cost from $26.8 million per mile (Baltimore, opened 1992) to $185.6 million per mile (Seattle, opened 2009).

Project Connect’s urban rail proposal 

Project Connect revealed their proposal for urban rail (see map below) at a meeting of the Central Corridor Advisory Group (CCAG) on May 2nd. The 9.5-mile project comes with a pricetag of $1.13 billion in current dollars, escalating to $1.38 billion in Year of Expenditure (YOE) dollars by 2020, for a projected ridership in the range of 16,000-20,000 per day.

The proposal invites comparison with the plan for light rail in the Guadalupe-Lamar corridor (see Austin’s 2000 light rail plan — Key documents detail costs, ridership of Lamar-Guadalupe-SoCo route). When compared, Project Connect’s $1.4 billion plan can be seen to cost 29% more than the previous Guadalupe-Lamar line would cost today, yet provide 35% less route length, and 47% fewer riders.

To finance such a plan through general obligation bonds, according to an April 29th Austin American Statesman report, Austin homeowners would face a substantial increase in property tax, estimated to range between $77 to $153 per year for a “typical” $200,000 home. That estimate was based on financing a $965 million project, about 85% of the actual size of the project now on the table.

Even if the Federal Transit Administration agrees to fund half the project cost, city officials and civic leaders are considering “bundling” the rail proposal with several hundred million dollars for additional road projects. The result could be a substantial 67% increase in Austin’s debt load per capita.

 But it gets better, because it turns out Project Connect used a financial sleight of hand:

At the May 2nd CCAG meeting, Project Connect’s Urban Rail Lead Kyle Keahey assured his audience that the investment cost of the 9.5-mile proposal was quite comparable with recent similar projects, particularly in cost per mile, with the chart shown below as evidence:

However, there’s a serious problem with this comparison — it compares the proposed starter line for Austin with extensions of these several well-established LRT systems, each of them contending with the much more difficult urban and terrain conditions that are typically avoided and deferred in the process of selecting routes for original starter systems. A far more valid cost comparison would evaluate the cost of starter system projects, thus offering better “apples-to-apples” cost equivalence.

That’s because, in designing a starter line — the first line of a brand-new system for a city — the usual practice is to maximize ridership while minimizing costs through avoiding more difficult design and construction challenges, often deferring these other corridors for later extensions.

But what's $1.4 Billion between friends?!?

Project Connect thinks we're Julia

Consider the work of God;
For who can make straight what He has made crooked?
Ecclesiastes 7:13

This morning we attended a "workshop" for Project Connect, the Central Texas 'transit coordination' authority.  We were struck by the central planning mentality and lack of humility.  Project Connect officials also had no answer to our question about why a Federal government that is already $18 Trillion in the hole could be a reliable business partner over a two decade project.

Most telling, however, was the video they showed to introduce the presentation.  In 2012, Barack Obama's re-election campaign put out a video entitled "the life of Julia," a faceless entity who went from cradle to grave relying on government programs and subsidies.  Today's Project Connect video used nearly identical artwork, which underlines the nearly identical mentality.

Judge for Yourself: