Submitted by MWBartko t3_10kc3qj in pittsburgh
ktxhopem3276 t1_j5q7a3t wrote
Reply to comment by AirtimeAficionado in A T line from Pittsburgh International Airport to the Allegheny County Airport by MWBartko
Yes, but the issue is ridership that would unlock federal funding for the project. There is no hard and fast rule, but to be eligible for federal funds, there would need to be an absolute minimum of ~30-40,000 daily riders for a light rail expansion of this length to even be considered (and really a ridership of 50-75,000 to be seriously considered) against other projects.
Those numbers seem a little off to me. San Diego received funding for a 11 mile extension with 20,000 riders for a cost of $2 billion or $100,000 per rider
AirtimeAficionado t1_j5qiw9l wrote
The numbers vary a lot on census trends/weight of the region— even though I believe a lot in Pittsburgh, we have had a long period of stasis in our population, and likely will not see huge changes (barring anything huge) for a while, and therefore thresholds that are looked at are a bit different. San Diego is a growing region and has different outlooks than Pittsburgh, which play a role in all of this. They also have different state funding structures, as well as many other contributing rail projects in the state of California that may have played a role in project approval.
ktxhopem3276 t1_j5qmmib wrote
Yeah but I dont agree that 30,000 is an absolute minimum. I prefer an estimate like $100,000 per rider and $100 million per mile construction would require 1000 riders per mile. Busier lines can cost more to construct and lines that are cheaper to construct won’t need as many riders so it is a handy little rule of thumb to go by.
If you want a similar sized city Portland is the closest to Pittsburgh. They spent $1.5 billion with 50% federal and 25 % state funding for 7.3 miles with a projected ridership of 17,000 puts it at $88,000 per projected rider. Sadly that lines projections were two high and actual ridership has come out to be around $200,000 per rider. Some agencies are better than others at estimating and the San Diego line had near perfect estimates.
Here is a great article with a lot of data. It discusses heavy rail in big cities first which is obviously not comparable to Pittsburgh but later in it gets into light rail in other cities
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