If you're going to include the one time capital costs, plus operating and maintainance, to calculate the so called subsidy it seems every ride from the day it opened until today should be counted into the equation. With every single passing year the "subsidy" should be decreasing as the number of trips taken continues to grow every single day, year after year. Do the math with 6 or 7 million trips taken on the Red Line and look at the "subsidy" then.
Also, it's s a commuter train, not light rail. It's single tracked most of the way. During weekday morning and afternoon peak hours the trains were full of suburbanites commuting downtown.
The line can grow as more improvements to the line occur, and more development occurs around the stations.
But again, the big money being spent on Project Connect is on light rail in the heart of the city where there's already density of population and employment. The areas already have high transit usage, and that can and will continue to grow. Having trains gets these transit users out of buses which are contributing to, and getting stuck in traffic.
This is not about today, though it would be fantastic and well utilized even now. This is for 10, 20, 30, 100 years from now. Imagine the Austin area twice the size it is today, pushing 5 million people trying to get around only by car. Lamar isn't getting widened. Neither is Burnet or Congress. The Express Lanes on Mopac are it. Mopac north of the river is done, no more lanes. I-35 is about to be widened for the first and last time. 2 more lanes in each direction. Do you think it won't still be a parking lot much of the time?
People are going to need a way to get around besides the gridlocked roadways. This is the plan that gets us there.