David Strom of the Minnesota Taxpayers League is skeptical of the Northstar Rail project because it means that limited public cost of a rail project will be saving people gas and parking costs. The idea that this could be in some way a net benefit to taxpayers obviously evades him.
People with extra cash have the option to spend it in the market. It is not like this 'extra money' that people will have who use the rail line will be throwing it into the trash. This equals a net benefit for Minnesota because we are keeping hard earned cash in the local economy rather than shipping it out to the Middle East. He also claims it will cost $5k per passenger per year, but I think he is talking full cost, not just state costs. Downside is, the federal funds will go somewhere else if we don't act, these funds are going towards commuter transit, not roads. Estimating that a user will pay $1000->$1500 to ride it would be interesting to see how much tabs a car user pays in taxes and how much benefit they reap from taxes. I'll guess right now that the percentage of funds to start this transit project spread out over decated is massively less than the subsidy enjoyed by many car drivers.
I'm pretty convinced that the corridor, with its projected growth, will experience commercial trucking savings that should make many other taxpayers reap benefits.
In any case, nobody is debating that this will fuel growth.
