METRO EXPANSION IN THE PRESS

Here are some articles written by CRTC members or in support of Metro Expansion

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Snow or no, go long with Metro Rail

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By DONN ESMONDE The Buffalo News, 11/29/00

He has the worst of both worlds. His cause is just, yet few are moved. His words are strong, but hardly anyone listens. Give him a minute, and Ed Deutschman will tell you why it makes sense.

He will tell you that, if we're smart, we will take our too-short Metro Rail and make it longer.

He will tell you that, from Portland to St. Louis, cities are gobbling from a pot of federal money to build Metro Rail lines. He will tell you it costs $7,000 a year to own a car, barely $500 to ride Metro Rail. He will say a rail line cuts highway traffic, keeps exhaust fumes out of our lungs, slows the endless cycle of road building, road repair, road widening.

He will tell you that and more. If only you will listen.

It snowed last week. A lot. Which made me think of Ed Deutschman.

One thing we found out was how many people, every day, drive into and out of Buffalo. You didn't have to imagine the cars lined up end to end. You could see it.

Most of the cars had just one person inside. People say we don't need more public transit here. Then a sudden snow freezes everything in place, and there's the snapshot: Auto Bloat 2000.

Some folks left their cars in the snow. Some of them got home on - drumroll, please - Metro Rail.

I'm not saying we should extend this thing just because it's handy during paralyzing snowstorms. Though that's one reason.

People say we're not a big town, you can drive from anywhere to anywhere in 20 minutes. True. But downtown pays a price in ugly, space-sucking parking ramps and lots. Commuters pay anywhere from 40 to 90 bucks for monthly parking. It costs plenty to own and run a car. With longer Metro Rail lines, more people could leave the car home - or get rid of a second car.

"It's a transportation bargain," said Deutschman. "People don't leave their cars to ride buses. But a rail line attracts auto drivers. It's quick, it's clean, and you can read the paper while you get there."

He is 67, dresses in tans and grays, a retired salesman with a salesman's ease of conversation. He's the leader of a band of about 50. Citizens Regional Transit Corp. meets once a month. It puts out a newsletter. It has a Rolodex of public officials.

The nerve center is a file drawer in the back room of Deutschman's house in Clarence. The archives are in 16 boxes in his basement. It's all there, the letters to and from public officials, the studies, the reports. The cause of his current lifetime.

He is an improbable crusader: a nice retired guy in car-crazy Clarence who picked up the public transit flag.

"I feel it's important," he said. "We need a safer, quicker, cheaper way to get from the suburbs to the city. And where the (rail) line goes, development will follow."

Our one-line, six-mile system is about as efficient as a three-legged dog. Cost-heavy, service-light. Lines this short don't make sense. Even so, 25,000 people ride every day. That's more trips-per-mile than in transit-friendly Portland.

It was supposed to go farther, out to the University at Buffalo North Campus, but money ran out. Another stab at Amherst was shot down 10 years ago, by - ironically - the very folks it would most serve. The Niagara Frontier Transportation Authority, wrapped up in a new airport, lost interest. Deutschman and crew never left.

"Some days you feel like you're spinning your wheels," he said, mining the thin vein of transit humor. "Other days, you see a ray of hope."

Like now. There's a consultant's report due next month. It will say whether a longer Metro Rail makes sense. There's mostly talk of a line to the airport. Tonawanda, the Southtowns and the UB North Campus are also on the map.

Track lines are already there. No homes would be demolished. There's no need to buy extra land. Washington and Albany would build it. We'd just pay to run it.

It's ours, almost for the asking: a pollution-cutting, region-unifying, road-defying, low-cost public rail line.

Ed Deutschman can tell you it makes sense, if you have a minute.

These days, who has a minute?

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"Too Long A Wait for the Right Train"

by CRTC member J.P.Weiksnar

Imagine a young fourth grader in the mid-1970s, wowed enough by the prospect of Buffalo installing a subway system that he made tracking the progress of Metro Rail a lifelong hobby. What would he see today, exactly 25 years later, when the public largely "misses the train" regarding the facts and potential of this underrated marvel?

I was that student, at Amherst School 18 on Harlem Road. An assignment from my teacher was to draft a letter to then-Rep. Jack Kemp. I wrote about rapid transit, no doubt encouraging swift completion. Visits to New York City, Boston and Toronto made it easy even for a 9-year-old to see that downtown and our entire region needed help as the suburbs sprawled.

Construction on Metro Rail began in 1978. I clipped every article, both from our Courier-Express and The Buffalo News, and never missed a daily view of construction thanks to a bus ride along Main Street to a school in the city. When full service started in 1986, we had a fast, world-class line with art in every station and no graffiti on the handicapped-accessible trains.

Whether its thousands of daily riders know or not, Metro Rail has been scoring favorably in Federal Transit Administration reports covering systems across the country. Our modest route serves roughly one quarter of the Niagara Frontier Transportation Authority's transit riders but uses less than 10 percent of the mileage, vehicles and operators of the entire bus fleet. As in almost all cities, it costs less per passenger to run rail cars than buses. We even earned the highest rating anywhere for ridership per car owned.

Metro Rail is far from finished and cannot be dismissed at least until it runs at capacity, up to a whopping 100,000 riders per day. That is about four times the current figure, still enough for experts to call our line the most successful one anywhere not to have been expanded.

Completion means 30-plus efficient miles using existing, primarily surface rights of way - not tunnels - from and to the suburbs. Yes, the original plan to reach the University at Buffalo North Campus is still on the slate but at a lesser urgency than the lucrative Airport/Lancaster, Tonawandas, Niagara Falls or Southtowns corridors. Outer suburban population and employment shifting demands these.

Construction money has been available substantially from the Transportation Equity Act for the 21st Century (TEA-21). Essential operating and maintenance funding, either from tax reallocation or other creative means, could be the deciding point. Offsetting welfare costs by connecting people to jobs should help somewhat, but the time to start engineering a reliable financial scheme is now.

We already have the Rolls Royce of light rail but the fate of Metro Rail expansion could be nearer than we think. The NFTA has contracted an engineering firm to evaluate the financial feasibility of expansion. My candid hope is they will consider the fourth graders of today and their transit interest, employment needs and environmental demands 25 years from now - some 50 years since I drafted my first letter of support.

By then, with a bona fide transit system serving the major regional population, these now-grown young citizens could consider Metro Rail to be the ultimate off-road vehicle.

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