Editorial: Silver Line's hopelessly outdated assumptions, Washington Examiner, February 3, 2013, and Thoughts on Existing Forecasts

A bill requiring the Virginia Department of Rail and Public Transportation (DRPT) to perform an up-to-date economic feasibility study as a precondition for transit projects receiving state funding has been withdrawn by its sponsor, state Sen. Dick Black, R-Leesburg. The reason is that such a rule would cause problems for the $6 billion Silver Line. (Emphasis added.) That's unfortunate, because a current economic feasibility study is exactly what this misbegotten project needs. . .

. . . (T)he Silver Line's underlying economic assumptions are at least a decade old, made when the Washington suburbs were still booming and Loudoun County alone was building 6,000 new homes per year. The Great Recession ended that frenetic pace, and looming sequestration cuts threaten to hit Northern Virginia's Dulles Corridor, with its high concentration of defense contractors, particularly hard. . .

DRPT and the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority, which is managing the Silver Line project based on decade-old information, are both acting as if the Great Recession, the mortgage and foreclosure crisis and the sequestration impasse never happened. To forge ahead without acknowledging these realities would be like driving a locomotive blindfolded.

Click here for the rest of this editorial.

This editorial makes an excellent point that forecasts for Metrorail have not been updated for the better part of a decade.  Moreover, the various forecasts we've seen (some not even official) indicate only a modest addition to public transit usage; most of the rail users will simply move from bus to rail.  Here's what we've found for Silver Line ridership along the Dulles Corridor in the longer term (2025 or later):

• The 2004 Final Environmental Impact Statement (FEIS), Chapter 6--Transportation Effects, does not address the issue directly.  It foresees average weekday ridership at 57,500.  It speaks only to Metrorail system-wide new rider increases.  It forecasts 47,800 new riders system-wide, about a 3.6% increase in Metrorail-wide ridership over the "no-build" alternative in 2025 with full build out. 
• The FTA's 2008 assessment of the federal funding request for Phase 1 of the Silver Line reports  ridership for the Wiehle extension of 18,400 new average daily riders among 85,700 average daily ridership of the Silver Line.  It does not address full build out.   
• A 2010 update of FTA's assessment forecasts 10,000 new transit riders daily among the 87,500 who will use Phase 1 of the Silver Line in 2030.
• A technical presentation by MWCOG's Transportation Forecasting Committee on May 20, 2011 re the latest planning model (V. 2.3) indicated an average daily ridership of just 57,000 in 2025 and 69,000 on the FULL Silver Line in 2040.  No number was provided for new riders.
• A March 23, 2012, updated MWCOG TFC discussion of Silver Line ridership indicated average daily ridership in 2025 would be about 52,000 in 2025, 58,000 if you include Dulles Airport passengers.  Here's the key table:

The key point of the preceding list is that there is a large difference in forecasts ranging from the low-50 thousands to the mid-80 thousands for average daily or weekday ridership and apparently a low number of new public transit riders.  The FTA's forecasts of new average daily ridership for Phase 1 suggest new ridership at the completion of Phase 2 may only be in the 20,000-30,000 range.  It appears that well over half of the Silver Line's users at decade an more from now will be people simply moving from buses or the Orange Line to the Silver Line.