Quote:
Originally Posted by CastleScott
^ Guys and gals-don't say never as to the streetcar, why not try public-private partnerships like other places do (this might be a bit new to Sacramento but it should be tried because it works in other places and is quite big in Europe in financing both high-speed rail, transit and highways). For example 5 of metro Denver's transit lines were done via public-private partnerships including the well-used line to the Denver airport. Naming rights could bring in extra funds as well. Its just there's more then one way to skin a cat on this one..
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Probably the crucial point there is that the Denver line is "well-used", so maybe it could actually pay for itself with ridership fares.
The lowest bid on the streetcar is $184 million. Let's say a steetcar fare was $3. (That's generous, currently a bus fare is $2.50 or less). So the streetcar would need about 61 million riders over it's operational lifetime to cover the cost of construction. And that assumes operational and maintenance costs are $0. The entire RT annual ridership in 2017 was 23 million. That's was across 97 light rail vehicles, 205 buses, and 23 shuttle vans. I do not think there is a chance of private capital touching a project as financially ill-advised as the streetcar.
The streetcar is a diamond-encrusted sledgehammer trying to swat a fly. It is a shiny toy, an incredibly expensive solution to a simple problem that a bus would solve cheaply. But buses aren't sexy, and politicians need to win elections. And the Feds may also a throw a bunch of $ into this completely inefficient project.