ok, my question is: does metro make any money or at least break even or does government fund it? (daily use of existing line, not further construction)Originally Posted by Robert
Does the Metro make money?
ok, my question is: does metro make any money or at least break even or does government fund it? (daily use of existing line, not further construction)
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The average daily for the SD Metro L1 is 100,000 trips at DOP$20 a pop = RD$2 mil a day in revenues = RD$730,000,000.00 a year X US$ = +/- 19.3 million, the gov provides a subsidy of US$25 million for the Metro operations until Line 2 is in operations and the use of Natural Gas is 100% employed by the power generators of the electrical supply the system uses is achieved.
Until now the revenues from L1 are being invested to build the L2, leaving the gov subsidy in place until the L2 enters full operations.
The largest chunk of costs related to the operations of the L1 is gulped down by electrical expenses. The long term plan is to invest into gov owned wind farms that will supply the bulk of the Metro system for daily operations, leaving the rest to a mixture from the natural gas fired generators, solar plants and hydroelectric power dams when called for.
You realize of course you did not answer her question!!!!! is it at this time making a profit,
I'm sure it takes a lot more than US$50,000 a day to run the Metro.
When you add in what it cost to build, the debt incurred, what it's going to cost to finish and how many people it serves today and projected in the future, it makes you wonder.
Plenty of contractors are still owed money from L1 construction.
As for the windfarms... Maybe next time they should invest in wind turbines that they can actually transport, instead of letting them rot in the port for years, as nobody had thought about how to transport something that large.
Short answer: NO, of course not.
Will they? Highly doubtful, ever, in spite of friend Pichardo's spins on the situation.
Can they possibly: No, there are not enough riders willing to pay the 100 pesos, at least, that it costs to carry a passenger in the best of times.
HB
And someone said the fatality thread was morbid. Metro making money? It did for certain politicians.
Can you answer the f_ucking question?
If you can read and reason* (*as humans do) the answer is clear as daylight!
No need for profanity here!
the answer is clear as daylight!
The answer is NO.
Of course yes that in you world of opinion, it does take more than US$50 million to run the Metro!
When you add what it cost to build means "nada" to the expenses of running it Robert, or does the tag you paid for your car means anything to the expenses of running it each day? Public investments like the Metro is not meant to be profitable to the gov or repaid the loans from the actual construction, like say when you build a multistory tower and sell the apartments.
The investment into wind towers that sat for long periods had to do with the actual capacity to install them being nill on the DR, having to procure, rent and be placed on a waiting list for the actual equipment to be sent here, after it was done elsewhere carrying out larger contracts. It was decided later on to WAIT instead, as two more wind farms got projected for later stages. This allowed the rental and expenses for the non-local equipment and know-how to be split between more partners and save a good chunk of money. As it stands, the equipment arrived as on the waiting list, and there's an extra three wind farms slated to make use of the same equipment whilst in the country carrying out the work on the two wind farms contracted.
There's not a single contractor owed money for the work on the L1 work! Not one! The ones owed money are those that committed to the work for the L2 and agreed under the term of their contracts. The ones you hear about later saying they're still owed from supplies and work related to the L1, are all subcontractors from those larger partners that already got paid, but depend on said revenues to generate what they owe to those same subcontractors they hired. Contractors will always hold out payments to the subcontractors for as long as legally possible and stipulated on their own hiring agreements. This is to hold the cash on interest bearing accounts and use the deposits as collateral for new projects of their own. This is very common and why many subcontractors don't like to work for some contractors in particular, given their pay history.
Remember the actual fare of RD$20 pesos is only until the feeder buses enter services, that's when the fares will be in the real rate that was announced in the beginning of the project. Like I said, the largest expenditure to the SD Metro is the electricity bill.
Until all lines are built, the exclusive Natural Gas power plant and links to the wind farms, hydro and solar grids will not take place.
The Metro will cut the expenses by a huge margin once that's done!
Jesus! This is a system that entered commercial service in January *30* 2009! Practically 26 months old and already you're calling it a waste of money and a big hole in the ground economically??? Boy! You guys got balls of Steel!
The actual rate for the fares for the SD Metro is going to be a little less than US$1 per ride, with multifare discounts and unlimited weekly/monthly cards. Without even gaining a single extra rider or trip per average a day, the Metro can not only cover the costs but generate more than enough revenues to continue it's own expansion down the line.
That's without even considering publicity in the terminals, in the train cars, TV monitors on both the stations and cars, rental income from commercial placements in the stations, etc...
This is the same moronic talk and arguments I find all over here about the Santiago-Santo Domingo high speed rail, which only takes a high school student a few minutes to see the flow of buses that carry passengers all week long from both ends respectively. Not even to mention the dual use of the tracks for containers cargo from and to the ports and industrial parks...
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