Transit: Another method DC uses to kill the economy

Combine ignorant state legislatures in the large states, add hoards of carpet baggers in the US House; and  we get more waste and poverty.

Economist: But for all this bullishness, there is no empirical link between streetcars and development. A 2010 survey of these systems in America by the Federal Transit Administration offered little evidence of concrete cause and effect. In the cities where streetcars have launched a wave of renewal, it is mainly because they are part of a larger, heavily subsidised development plan, with changes in zoning, improvements to streets and other benefits. Streetcars are also incredibly expensive to build and maintain, with huge up-front capital costs in laying down rails and buying cars. Tucson’s project ultimately cost nearly $200m and opened years late, in part because the city needed to clear utilities from under the tracks, install overhead electrical connections and repave much of the four-mile route. A 3.6-mile line in Cincinnati, Ohio, now under construction is expected to cost at least $133m. Federal grants have gone some way to help pay for these projects, but cash spent on streetcars displaces spending on other, more cost-effective forms of public transport like buses, which offer cheaper and more-efficient service but are considerably less sexy. The capital cost per mile of a streetcar is between $30m and $75m, while a rapid bus service costs anywhere between $3m and $30m, according to the American Public Transportation Association. - See more at: http://www.economist.com/blogs/economist-explains/2014/08/economist-explains-2?fsrc=rss%20#sthash.UgqrcoPa.dpuf