The dubious economic nature of Houston’s light rail system is a common topic on this blog, so I took interest in this insightful Warren Meyer post that ponders why a light rail system is being built in Warren’s hometown of Phoenix, which is one of the few metro U.S. areas that may be even less conducive to such a system than Houston.
Given the inefficiency and inflexibility of such systems, Warren wonders who supports such boondoggles and suspects that a few powerful businesspeople are using the rail line in an effort to jumpstart the misguided goal of establishing a dominant downtown area in the decentralized Phoenix metro area. Add in a few high-minded environmentalists and many others who are simply ignorant of the enormous cost relative to the benefit of such systems and, as Peter Gordon wryly-noted awhile back:

“It adds up to a winning coalition.”

Unfortunately, as another Phoenix-area resident — Nobel Laureate Ed Prescott — reminded us recently, once such coalitions are successful in establishing a governmental policy subsidizing such boondoggles, it is much more difficult to end the public subsidy of the boondoggle than to start it in the first place.
By the way, Houston Metro’s subsidy of its light rail system has other perverse effects, such as the lack of security for one of the transit options that actually makes sense for the Houston area.