This Rail System Costs Taxpayers $22 Per Passenger

[Geee]

Heritage Foundation:

A Minnesota commuter rail line is costing taxpayers approximately $22 per passenger, per trip.

“When you’re subsidizing about 80 percent of every trip on the line, it’s a really big fiscal disaster,” Annette Meeks, Freedom Foundation of Minnesota CEO, told The Daily Signal.

The Minnesota Northstar rail opened for service in the fall of 2009, providing commute by train down the 40-mile stretch of railway that runs from downtown Minneapolis to Big Lake. The route cost taxpayers $320 million to build, half of which was funded with federal transportation dollars.

“Federal taxpayers have already paid $150 million for the construction costs of the Northstar Line in the form of ‘New Starts’ grants,” Michael Sargent, a research associate in the Thomas A. Roe Institute for Economic Policy Studies at The Heritage Foundation, told The Daily Signal.

@Valin

[clearvision]

The Feds are paying for it, it is free.