Now that the draft budget has been delivered, it is actually worse than many, including yours truly had feared. It appears as though the only way council can keep its 10% tax rate reduction (not a 10% tax cut as some would like to advertise) and deliver on every councillor's pet project wish list is to hike fees and utility charges and raid reserves to the tune of $188 million by 2006.

Such a move would put the city's reserve fund at $12 million by 2006. But when one considers the average political life span of a councillor to be six or nine years, 2006 would coincide nicely with many of our current lot being defeated or having enough of public life and pursuing other interests. This would leave the unenviable task of dramatically hiking taxes to meet service needs and replenish reserves for life-cycle infrastructure maintenance to a new council and likely a new mayor. This hardly seems prudent or fiscally responsible.

Of course, a full-scale analysis of the 2002 City of Ottawa operating and capital budgets is beyond the scope of this column but we can isolate a project and take a look at the questions councillors are or are not asking. For this task, the light rail pilot project is well suited.

We now have word that the light rail pilot project has or will shortly surpass the $30 million marker. This is a far cry from the $10 million that Bob Chiarelli - then a candidate for Regional Chair - promised back in 1997. Even with inflation and a few other factors thrown in, this project is now seriously over budget.

In fairness, your not-so-humble columnist has used this space on more than one occasion to ask where the modal shift analysis (moving people from cars to rail) for light rail is or to remind people that, across North America, about 80% of light rail riders come from re-jigged bus routes, not cars. Of course light rail fanatics and those who refuse to consider reality have retorted, "show us the studies Robinson."

So let's pull one - of many that I have - off the taxpayers' bookshelf. Hmm, let's see now, ah yes, here it is … it's entitled A Whole-System Approach to Evaluating Urban Transit Investments from 1999, authored by the Taubman Center, at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at some obscure (surely I jest) American institution called Harvard University. I chose this study specifically because the Kennedy School is not known for being right-wing or purveyors of faulty data.

The study examines 21 transit systems (light rail, heavy rail, busway and HOV lanes and hybrid) in 16 cities (Baltimore, Buffalo, Dallas, Denver, Los Angeles, Pittsburgh, Portland, Sacramento, San Diego, St. Louis, Miami, Los Angeles, Houston, Miami, and Ottawa pre-light rail) - high density and low density, east coast and west, new and old - and raises some interesting points that put further chinks in the armour of light rail proponents.

The study notes light rail fans point to "the potential of rail services to achieve high ridership to offer relief of congestion as well as enhance environments. In addition to providing access to jobs for the poor, rail is said to appeal to ‘choice riders' - higher income commuters who could drive to work if they wished. The standard view is that this group will not use buses but will be drawn by rail's speed, comfort and middle-class image. Rail is also frequently thought less costly to run than bus systems because higher-capacity trains require fewer drivers."

Sounds familiar doesn't it? Sadly, the study goes on to show in most cases, rail (light or commuter) has not achieved its objectives.

In many instances, "the lack of flexibility, the lack of speed, the force of transfers and the very slow trip time of rail" have been cited as problems. And similar to our O-train trial cost overrun issue, the Harvard study notes "while Sacramento's light rail operating costs were 10 percent below projections for the year 2000, in other cases actual expenses range from 12% to more than 200% above their projected levels."

As for those who say rail reduces transit costs, the study points out that "while it is popularly claimed that trains cost less to run than buses … the real question to be evaluated … if rail is to save money, the total system - not only the rail system - must be shown to cost less per unit output to operate than before." Hmm, has anyone down at city hall been asking this question?

And finally we need to look at so-called ridership data. In the U.S., most transit authorities consider one trip, regardless of how many transfers, as one rider … it is called linked data. So if someone in St. Louis takes the bus then the train to get downtown, it's one trip and one passenger.

In Canada, most data is unlinked. So if someone used to take the bus all the way to work, but now takes a bus to the O-train and then hops a train, it is probably counted as two trips instead of the old one. In this sense passenger figures may actually rise but not be indicative of any more people actually taking public transit. This is another question that hopefully some intrepid councillors will ask when assessing light rail.

Meanwhile the O-train project will continue to run over budget and claims of its so-called success will remain unchallenged. Ultimately this is not good public administration, governance or fiduciary stewardship of taxpayer dollars. If light rail proponents can truly answer the questions with respect to the modal shift, its total transit system impact and linked passenger data numbers and show that it's a success fine, but if they can't, council must exhibit political will and stop the trains … sooner rather than later.