Here's how we calculated the Energy usage
for Tri-met compared to automobile

Notes:

• All of the data was supplied by TriMet as a result of an email inquiry. Such data is indicated by: (from TriMet) and are clickable to see the original Email (I added bold to the relevent data item). I have been told that this same data is available online from the Feds.
• Since transit vehicles carry more people than cars, we will compare them per passenger, instead of per vehicle. After all the point is to move people, not vehicles.
• We calculate the energy consumption in BTUs, since cars, busses and light rail all use different sources of energy.
• Diesel has more energy per gallon, so we translate that into gasolene to compare it to an average car.

Data & conversion factors used

Energy usage for Tri-met bus system (FY2002)

To get miles per gallon, just divide total bus system passenger miles by total bus fuel consumption

Energy usage for Tri-met rail system (FY2002)

This time we get passenger miles pre Kilowatt hour by the division:

The electrical system only delivers 1/3 of the fossil fuel energy to the MAX car, so we must multiply by 3 to the fossil fuel used:

Translate both bus and light trail to gasolene for comparison to car

Now, lets look at what a car must get to EQUAL mass transit energy
(if your car gets better milage than the below, you are using less energy than by using mass transit):

At 1.2 passengers per car, a car must get this to equal mass transit:

At 2 passengers per car, a car must get this to equal mass transit:

The Tax Supervising and Conservation Commission, a Multnomah count agency show a pie chart of revenues on PDF page 107: 17% of revenues come from fares and 79% of Tri-Mets income is from taxes - federal, state & local. This means that for every dollar that a Trimet user pays, someone else pays $4.65.

PDF page 108 reports a tri-met budget "all funds" amount of $658,838,398 for FY02, which is all expenditure, including some rail construction and a few bond payments. Tri-Met reports 384,480,432 passenger miles for FY02:

$658,838,398 ÷ 384,480,432/p-m = $1.74 per passenger-mile

If you back out: Ending balance & light rail construction you get $347,004,082:

$347,004,082 ÷ 384,480,432/p-m = $.90 per passenger-mile

But the MAX system cost 1,600 million. At 12%, this would require yearly payments of $196 million. Adding that to the $347 million gives a cost of $543,004,820:

$543,004,820 ÷ 384,480,432/p-m = $1.42 per passenger-mile

Another version of the cost can be calculated from Tri-Met's "busmaxstat.pdf":

Bus: $156,871,889 to serve 239,561,352 passenger miles = $.655 per passenger mile
Rail: $54,810,104 to serve 144,919,080 passenger miles = $.378 per passenger mile
System: $211,681,993 to serve 384,480,432 passenger miles = $.551 per passenger mile

But this appears to NOT include rail construction costs. If we add the $196 million annual amortization of the $1.6 billion to the $54,810,104 rail cost reported (above), we get:

Rail: $250,810,104 to serve 144,919,080 passenger miles = $1.73 per passenger mile

For comparison, local taxi fare is $1.80 per mile plus a $2.50 starting fee plus $1.00 per added passenger.

Light rail to Vancouver

The Portland/Vancouver I-5 Transportation and Trade Partnership was formed by the governors of Oregon & Washington to make recommendations about the congestion problem on I-5 between the Rose Quarter and SR-500. They looked at costs and riderships of bus and light rail:

3 lane/Express Bus-Short cost: $14 million for 9000 riders
3 lane/LRT loop cost: $1222 million for 13000 riders
Increase due to rail cost: $1208 million for 4000 riders

So we can calculate the cost per increased rider: 1,208,000,000 ÷ 4000 = $302,000 per increased rider
Cost of Pearl district condo: $200,000 up

MAX Construction Costs From Tri-Met web site(July 2000) In millions.

East MAX
$173 million FEDERAL
$24.8 million STATE
$10.9 million LOCAL Total: 208.7

Westside MAX
$704 million FEDERAL
$113.6 million STATE
$145.9 million LOCAL Total: 963.5

Airport MAX
$28.3 million Port of Portland
$45.5 million Tri-Met
$23.0 million City of Portland
$28.2 Cascade Station Dev.Co. Total: 125

Interstate MAX
$257 million FEDERAL
$30 million City of Portland
$38.5 million Tri-Met
$24 million Regional transportation funds Total: 349.5

------

Total for all lines: $1646.7 Million

Monthly payments at 12%, 30 year = $16.4. Yearly = 16.4 x 12 = $196 million

Sources

Conversion factors: http://webbts.bts.gov/publications/nts/2002/html/table_04_06.html
Tri-Met Facts: http://www.trimet.org/inside/pdf/busmaxstat.pdf
Tri-Met Facts: http://www.co.multnomah.or.us/orgs/tscc/
Rail construction cost: Tri-Met web site (July 2000 - appears to be removed later)
Monthly payments: http://1000bestlenders.com/bestlenders.html

MAX death rate

MAX passenger miles from 1987-2002: 1,025 million
Deaths: 14
Deaths per 100 million passenger miles: 14 ÷ 102.5 hundred million = 1.37

Other info sources

http://www.cascadepolicy.org/
http://ti.org/
http://www.hevanet.com/oti/
http://www.publicpurpose.com/
http://www.demographia.com/dbx-por.htm
http://www.innobriefs.com/index.html
http://www.heritage.org/library/keyissues/smartgrowth/