Red, Green and Blue: Public Transportation
Editor's note: In today's Red, Green and Blue, our political commentators Jimmy Hogan and Shirley Siluk Gregory take a look at the costs and benefits of public transportation.
Jimmy: Public transportation is a blessing to metropolitan areas where well designed mass transit systems help reduce traffic congestion and related pollution. It's also nice to sip a hot cup of coffee and read the paper while leaving the business of driving to someone else. Planning and management of these systems is the key though in having successful acceptance by a society of car drivers accustomed to the flexibility of operating on their own schedule.
The point that must be kept in mind is that public transportation is a medicine for a specific ailment and that trying to administer this remedy in areas that are more suburban than urban is often costly and unsuccessful; sometimes doing more harm than good. Policy makers must also distinguish between the goal of alleviating traffic(along with its associated ills) and social welfare in the form of subsidized transportation costs because these can sometimes be at odds.
Shirley: The time is fast coming when America will need to radically rethink its approach to transportation, both short- and long-distance. The forces converging to drive such change include rising fuel prices, the growing need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, a federal highway trust fund that's falling short of covering infrastructure construction, maintenance and repair needs, and an aging U.S. population in which a growing number of citizens will be unable or unwilling to continue driving in coming years.
Public transit ridership has been increasing in recent years and polls show many Americans want more public transportation options. That trend is only likely to grow as gas prices keep rising (and they will: analysts are already predicting $4 a gallon pump prices as this summer's travel season gets under way). Many cities today are exploring or implementing new programs such as light-rail systems, while some states struggling to make ends meet are considering privately maintained toll roads. As with efforts to curb global warming, it's clear that the federal government is lagging far behind what its citizens want in terms of transportation alternatives. Public transit won't solve all our transportation problems, but it needs to be offered in far more widespread and creative ways than it is at present.
Tags: government, politics, Public Transportation, public+transportation, Red, Green and Blue, subsidies, Transportation
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April 25th, 2007 at 8:40 pm
Oh… I think Dubya would go for the Oil tax in exchange for it being subsidized by the progressive income tax the way it is now. Where you’ll meet resistance is with the populists because an oil tax would be considered regressive.
Indexing the cost at the pump to the real cost is still the best way to encourage conservation though. You could throw all the CAFE crap out the window because people would demand more economical cars rather than forcing companies to produce for a market that doesn’t now exist.
You misunderstand my point about government inefficiency when you infer I want to privatize everything. Government has it’s place but that doesn’t change the fact that it is an inefficient, often corrupt and politically motivated bureaucracy. In my mind it comes down to power. For example our ‘justice’ system is totally out of control where America has 5% of the world’s population and 25% of the world’s prisoners… all wrapped up in a public for-profit arrest, prosecute and incarceration machine. If you want to talk social justice in America I think you should start there rather than looking for injustice in gross pre-tax income differences.
That bridge you hate so much is an example of something I think is good. Let the people who use it pay for it… sounds pretty smart to me.
On the topic of public transportation by the time you subsidize it enough to get the masses to ride you end up encouraging a ridership that discourages the very people who’d be willing to pay a premium for the ride into town. The business executive (or middle manager for that matter) isn’t going to want to park his Hummer and ride with Homeless Joe. I do think if he/she could pay a premium for an express first-class service that then you could create a profitable niche and encourage participation that is discouraged by the current more socially sympathetic system.
The main thing, I guess, is that you need to define the goals of the system. Is it to help the environment? Is it to reduce traffic congestion? Or is it an economic social responsibility? I’ll argue that regardless of the original intent it will evolve toward the latter… that is the peril of every government program.
April 26th, 2007 at 3:52 pm
Actually, the bridge I hate so much is a perfect example of the problems with for-profit transportation projects: the bridge has failed to pay for itself, much less make a profit, and raising the tolls repeatedly to try to compensate for the shortfall has only driven more potential users away. Plus, the builders were in such a hurry to get the bridge built and earn early-completion incentives that they trashed the surrounding environment — to the point they were eventually fined one of the largest environmental impact fines of its kind in the state.
But back to the main point: public transportation doesn't have to be an either-or choice, and that's why it works so well in many other parts of the world. It's not a last-resort means of transport for the poor, it's not just to reduce gridlock, it's not just to reduce fuel consumption and emissions, it's all of those things at once (as well as a way to save on all those costly, wasted hours people spend caught in traffic and a way to improve road safety — mass transit is much safer than individual car transportation, in numbers of accidents, injuries and fatalities).
The reason we in the States haven't succeeded in emulating the successes of other countries is a failure of imagination, an inability to envision a transport system that isn't as depressing as today's average ride on a Greyhound bus or Amtrak train.
April 26th, 2007 at 7:10 pm
Sounds to me like someone wildly misoverestimated the demand for this bridge.
Just another in a long line of government boondoggles. At least it's not a prison where they'll just arrest more people to justify its existence.
April 29th, 2007 at 2:29 pm
Amy Stoghill’s point about the city planning/urban sprawl component is noteworthy. The reality of the American city worker’s needs changed significantly through the 20th century as commuting from suburbia was a concept that wasn’t really on the radar until the 2nd half of the century. During the 1st half of the 20th century, cities like NYC had put serious efforts into developing their local public transportation systems. NYC was well-suited to create services like Metro-North trains, Long Island Rail Road, New Jersey Transit along with suburban bus services as the middle class started moving to the suburbs and commuting became a bigger deal. Cities whose public transportation systems weren’t as well-developed found themselves with a much more daunting task; how not only to get suburban commuters into the city, but how to then deal with their transportation once they got into the city.