Rural Commuter Rail

[Charles5]

Here's some more rough math, basically a repeat of what I've put out before.

$200,000,000 in annual operating costs.
50 stations (won't happen in my opinion, there's reasonably only about 35 possible locations, but I'll use MOOSE's figures).
Therefore each station must contribute on average $4M annually to MOOSE (200/50).

Assuming you can get 2000 households on average around each station to contribute to the cost of the train, that means that each household would have to contribute $2K each year.

So, once again I throw in the human nature factor. Can you actually imagine having 100,000 households in this region all voluntarily (or possibly involuntarily if you are a tenant or condo owner) contribute an average of $2000 annually from rent increases, condo fees, or a portion of the sales of a home, for a train that is expected to carry 25,000 people. (once again using MOOSE's numbers, in my opinion they would be lucky to get 10,000 riders on a good day)

I've used MOOSE's numbers, but if the numbers of stations and riders are reduced then of course the costs start to escalate.

So, if there are only 35 stations, then the average cost per station is closer to $6M and the cost per household would become $3000 per year for 70,000 households to support 10,000 people.

Throw in human nature. As the cost goes up fewer and fewer property owners will be willing to contribute thus raising the costs to those who remain.