Portland is a PR machine for light rail & streetcar

Here are Some Facts About Portland Oregon          

“It must always be remembered how cost-effectiveness works in the public sector: the cost IS the benefit.” - author unknown

Annualization of Capital Assets

The factor for annualizing any cost is given by the following:

t is the number of years a component or vehicle is expected to remain in service

i is the discount rate (7 percent for compliance with OMB guidance).

Note that the value of the annualized cost factor declines as the number of service years for a component increases (i.e., as the cost of that component is spread over an increasing number of service years).

The values for the annualized cost factor at different years of service are presented in Table D-1 (for the sake of comparison, Table D-1 also includes the value of 1/years, a frequently used but imprecise means of estimating annualized cost).

From:

Useful Life of Transit Buses and Vans,  Report No. FTA VA-26-7229-07.1, April 2007  (Local copy)

More on annualization

Source of the 0.0806 Annulization Factor for Light Rail:

Annualized cost table from SCC workbook published by U.S. Department of Transport, Federal Transit Administration at Standard Cost Categories (SCC) for Capital Projects