Table 1
| Ridership Estimate | Cost Estimate ($million) | Cost/Rider | |||
| TSM | 18000 | 105 | 5833 | ||
| Low BRT | 32000 | 485 | 15156 | ||
| Med BRT | 39500 | 700 | 17722 | ||
| High BRT | 43500 | 1255 | 28851 | ||
| Low LRT | 39500 | 1245 | 31519 | ||
| Med LRT | 43500 | 1260 | 28966 | ||
| High LRT | 45500 | 1685 | 37033 |
TSM = Enhanced-Regular Bus, BRT = Rapid-Bus, LRT = Light-Rail
Table 1 shows the ridership, cost, and cost per rider for enhanced regular-bus service and the various rapid-bus and light-rail Purple Line proposals. Remember that ridership is the number of trips. If we assume that most people make a roundtrip on the Purple Line, then the number of people riding it is only 50% of the numbers here (e.g. a ridership of 40,000 is equivalent to 20,000 people making roundtrips).
Enhanced regular bus is by far the cheapest option. I wonder how many more riders would show up if the enhanced-regular bus option were expanded further. While it would clearly carry fewer people, it would also cost much less than the other options in terms of both total cost and cost per rider. The cost per rider for rapid-bus is around 3 to 5 times higher. The cost per rider of light rail is 5 to 6 times higher.
Table 2
| Operating & Maintenance Costs ($million) | O&M Costs/Rider | |
| TSM | 7 | 389 |
| Low BRT | 9 | 281 |
| Med BRT | 9 | 228 |
| High BRT | 8 | 184 |
| Low LRT | 20 | 506 |
| Med LRT | 18 | 414 |
| High LRT | 17 | 374 |
Table 2 shows the operating and maintenance costs for each option. Enhanced-regular bus has the cheapest total costs but it is more expensive per rider than any of the rapid-bus options. However, the difference is small enough that enhanced-regular bus still is more cost efficient. Even after 25 years of operation, enhanced-regular bus would still be more than 50% cheaper after taking into account operating and maintenance costs.
Tables 1 and 2 also make clear that rapid-bus transit is clearly more cost effective than light-rail transit. The initial investment required for every light-rail option is more expensive than every rapid-bus option is terms of cost per rider. The comparison becomes even more favorable to rapid-bus if one takes into account operating and maintenance costs in terms of either total expenditures or cost per rider.
No wonder MTA Project Leader Mike Madden, a promoter of the light-rail system, is now playing down cost effectiveness in terms of choosing a plan to submit to the federal government for funding after having previously emphasized competitiveness. The cost effectiveness numbers favor rapid bus over light rail.
Table 3
| Ridership Above TSM | Cost Above TSM | Marginal Cost/Rider Above TSM | |
| Low BRT | 14000 | 380 | 27143 |
| Med BRT | 21500 | 595 | 27674 |
| High BRT | 25500 | 1150 | 45098 |
| Low LRT | 21500 | 1140 | 53023 |
| Med LRT | 25500 | 1155 | 45294 |
| High LRT | 27500 | 1580 | 57455 |
As shown in table 3, the various Purple Line alternatives attract around 7000 and 13,750 additional people making roundtrips (the equivalent to the 14,000-27,500 ridership numbers in the table) above TSM/enhanced-regular bus. Table 3 also presents the marginal cost of capturing ridership above enhanced-regular bus service.
Put another way, this is the cost of getting the people who would not ride enhanced-regular buses to get on one of the rapid-bus or light-rail transit options. From this perspective, the cost per rider is far higher than enhanced-regular bus. Attracting the people who would not get on the enhanced-regular bus studied by MTA would cost around 5 to 10 times more per trip than each trip on enhanced-regular bus.
The public could not make these calculations for itself at the recent Purple Line open houses because the ridership for TSM (enhanced-regular bus) was listed as "N/A" (see my photograph taken at the open house from the B-CC High School). I got the 18,000 figure for TSM ridership by asking MTA's ridership expert at the meeting what is TSM and what is the estimated ridership.
Remember that these numbers are from MTA and that the data behind the numbers has yet to be revealed to the public or subject to public scrutiny by either supporters or opponents of the various options.
