July 20, 2006
Transit on Thursday: Examine This! (A DCist Rebuttal)
Written by DCists Ryan and Colin
Every morning, we enjoy thumbing our copy of The Washington Examiner. With strong local coverage that Express sometimes lacks, we have been glad to make The Examiner part of our morning routine. Yesterday's edition of the paper, however, featured an editorial that is as treasonous to Washington D.C.'s interests as it is uninformed and poorly argued. The piece offers 475 irresponsibly ideological words attempting to convince us that Virginia Rep. Tom Davis's Metro funding legislation is just about the biggest waste of taxpayer money ever to sally forth from the halls of Congress. We offer a modest rebuttal.
Just to recap, Rep. Davis has been working to pass a bill that would give Metro $1.5 billion over 10 years, provided the District, Virginia, and Maryland each dedicate a source of funding to Metro as well. This will allow Metro to close huge projected budgetary shortfalls that, if not met, would seriously limit Metro’s ability to accommodate any of the 2 million new residents expected to move to the D.C. area in the next decade. The bill, passed the House of Representatives on Tuesday, still has a long way to go before it becomes reality. But anytime you can get 242 members of Congress (not exactly known for their magnanimity) to vote for a regional investment of this size, you have to feel encouragement.
The folks at The Examiner felt just the opposite though, and in the course of their little diatribe, they offer us three main points.
1. The proposal is “regressive, even elitist”
2. It will force local jurisdictions to raise taxes
3. Metro does not deserve a federal “bailout”
To prove the first, The Examiner argues that a large number of Metro riders live in Fairfax County, where the average income is among the highest in the country. The authors ask:
“Does Davis really think the daily commuting costs of people making twice the national median household income should be subsidized by hard-working middle- and lower-middle-class taxpayers?”
While Metro certainly does serve affluence in Fairfax – along with Bethesda, Chevy Chase, Dupont Circle, etc. – more than a few of Metro’s bus and rail lines go through poor and underdeveloped areas of Washington, D.C., Maryland, and Virginia. Further, Metro isn’t exactly running Pullman Cars up and down the Orange Line, with riders sipping cape codders while browsing the Wall Street Journal and enjoying a shoe shine. It goes without saying that the wealthier someone is, the more likely they are to take a private car on their commute. It also is conceivable that people from less-affluent areas might be taking Metro to Fairfax or other wealthy suburbs to clean houses, lay shingles, mop floors, or otherwise provide the quality of life our dear Fairfaxians enjoy.
The Examiner next argues that the bill is an unfunded mandate, requiring the three jurisdictions to essentially raise taxes or cut spending elsewhere. First of all, the causation is backwards here. Davis' bill doesn't require local taxes to be raised; rather, local sources of funding must be found before the federal funding becomes available. Far from being a mandate, if even one of the three jurisdictions fails to act, the money simply disappears. A small but important difference.
Not only is the line of reasoning false, it also fails to recognize a little-known fact about transportation infrastructure – it costs money. The Washington region is growing rapidly, especially in the suburbs. Anyone who has driven anywhere within a 25 mile radius of this city knows that means traffic, traffic, and more traffic. Investments need to be made to increase the capacity of the transportation network. If The Examiner objects to that money coming from either local or federal taxes, then we leave it up to them to find a better source.
What the bill provides, then, is not a stick, but a carrot to entice D.C., Virginia, and Maryland to do what they should have done years ago, and dedicate a certain amount of annual revenue to Metro. There is plenty of evidence out there saying that transit systems require a dedicated funding source to offer the highest quality and safest service. Roads are no different, but they already have a dedicated funding stream – the gas tax. Like it or not, anywhere from 18 to 24 cents (depending on where you live) of each gallon you buy goes to fund state road construction, in addition to the 18 cent federal gas tax.
This brings us to The Examiner's final argument - that Metro does not deserve what they call a federal bailout. To prove this point, the authors turn to the Maryland Public Policy Institute, which says:
“Unreliable and poorly run, the system is subject to frequent shutdowns and service interruptions due to equipment failure, bad weather, suicides, driver error and passenger medical emergencies. In mid-June heavy rain and wind caused the shut down of two of its five routes, significant delays on the other three and the complete shutdown of the two commuter rail lines serving suburban Virginia.”
Casting aside the nitpicky detail that MPPI generally opposes most government investment (read their mission statement), is this really the best they can come up with? Suicides and medical emergencies are not exactly due to a failure of management. Equipment failure, while it can certainly be reduced (and Metro has a ways to go here) is part of any complex mechanical system. And with significant portions of the Capital Beltway and plenty of other roads shut down due to "Deluge '06," it’s highly dubious to cite bad weather as well. As we pointed out, communications and emergency responses needs to be significantly improved on Metro, but 2 feet of water flooding an underground train station is hardly the fault of Metro.
Beyond that, it is not unreasonable to argue that many of the problems Metro encounters are actually caused by the lack of a dedicated funding source that Davis' bill would create. Metro is distressed because ridership so exceeds that which was originally projected, yet lacks the extra funds to make the massive capital investments needed to fix the problem. In an effort to accommodate such a growing ridership with limited funds, Metro has been forced to ignore capital investments that are becoming more and more apparent in the form of crowded trains, service lapses, and other issues.
Instead of looking at transportation pragmatically and economically, The Examiner has chosen to look at the situation ideologically, ignoring both the city's or the nation's best interests. At over 700,000 trips per day, it's ludicrous to suggest that Metro is a minor part of Washington life. In fact, it's difficult to imagine that the federal government, or any Washington business, could operate if Metro was removed from the transit system. The city would grind to a halt. More than that, it totally misses the point of mass transit.
Metro is not the Tilt-A-Whirl at the local carnival, and like any transit system, it is not supposed to run a profit. It's wrong to call money allocated to them a bailout. Just like money spent to repave a road, install a new traffic light or replace a bridge, it is a public investment. The public invests money in the transit system, knowing it will take a balance page loss, because the benefits to the public so outweigh the costs. If we only ran public services that broke even, the country would be a drastically different place. We wouldn't have the interstate highways, schools, or missiles.
The worst part of The Examiner’s misguided rant is the vague conclusions it comes to:
“Stop subsidizing the waste and mismanagement inherent in an obsolete 1950s mass transportation concept, and force Metro to cut costs, become more efficient and undertake a crash course to learn how transit systems around the country are using competitive contracting to ease burdens on taxpayers while improving service to customers.”
Unfortunately, they don't explain any of these typical 1984 free-market platitudes. They don't note whether Metro is more or less mismanaged and wasteful than private companies or what costs they believe should be cut. They don't say what they believe efficiency might look like, and they certainly don't seem to consider that increased efficiency might involve increased investment. They don't explain competitive contracting, but if they mean privatizing train service, they'd do well to consider how that's worked in other metropolitan areas.
The Examiner printed Part II of this argument today, calling out the local politicians who voted for the bill. In return, we'd like to call on the paper's editors to offer a slightly more well thought out argument and slightly less disdain for the very commuters who make up most of their readership.
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bravo.
Fairfaxians
That seems wrong somehow. Fairfaxers? Fairfaxoids? Fairfaximiles?
I think you guys made some really good poi
Did the end of the post get cut off? On my screen it ends "To prove this point, the authors turn to the Marylan".
Good post. I just want to finish reading it!!!
Been having some problems with the MT software (again). Working on it...
And we're back...
PS - Very clever Politburo!
I prefer "Fairfaxowegians".
Well rebutted. That the metro is a tool of the "elite" is absolutely ridiculous.
Great rebuttal! Your column should be required reading for Maryland and Virginia lawmakers.
Remember that the Exmainer is owned by Philip Anschutz, who has also backed:
1. Amendment 2, a ballot initiative to overturn a Colorado state law protecting gay rights.
2. The Discovery Institute, the conservative Christian think tank that is the center of the "intelligent design" movement.
3. The Media Research Council, which generated nearly all the indecency complaints with the FCC in 2003.
(many thanks to Wikipedia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_Anschutz)
so it's not surprising that his paper would take such a (frankly) blatantly asinine stand.
While I do not agree with the conclusions of the Examiner, you're reply does not acknowledge that they do raise at least one interesting question about the regressive nature of this.
Spending federal money on a system that is mostly used by residents of some of the wealthiest counties in the world should at the very least make you pause. I mean, why the hell can't Fairfax, Arlington, and Montgomery counties pay their own way? Basically the answer boils down to a paternalistic one. The better transit is, the better off everyone is, regardless of how they travel; but since local jurisdictions have a hard time seeing that light at the end of the tunnel, it takes a paternalistic federal government to egg them on. It's always difficult to say who "deserves" federal spending more, but it's at least not ridiculous to propose that extremely rich jurisdictions are not exactly the most deserving.
Basically they're saying: "Hey it's the local jurisdictions who have to sink or swim with the Metro, so it's up to them to fix it. Why should lower and middle class citizens from the other 48 states have to pony up so many tax dollars to get these incredibly rich counties to see what's in their best interest?"
I'm not sure I have a great answer to that. Maybe it isn't right for us to take so much money when we could probably pay for it ourselves. Richard Layman, half-jokingly I think, says it's just reparations for Congress killing our streetcar system. Maybe that's enough.
Reid - "Spending federal money on a system that is mostly used by residents of some of the wealthiest counties in the world should at the very least make you pause"
1st off, Farifax, Arlington, Montgomery (and DC and PG) would have to help pay their own way because each jurisdiction (DC, MD, VA) must find a dedicated funding source or none of the federal money can be used.
2nd, Metro is extremely integral to the functioning of the federal government. Shouldn't they be putting up some money to pay their own way, their fair share? Metro isn't just a regional transit system, like the slogan says, it "the Nation's Subway"
-chris
Reid, there are a couple of answers to that. One is that the federal money is coming from oil drilling revenues, so it's not like worker payroll taxes are footing the bill. Of course, since money is fungible, that's not the best response.
Consider, however, a world without federal Metro funding, which would be a world without Metro. What would the productivity loss to the federal government be, in such a world? It may not equal the total amount of money the Feds have put into the system, but you can be damn sure it's at least $1.5 billion. In that sense, this is the best way to spend that portion of the 48 states' money. It's like saying, why do the Feds spend money on computers for the Washington metro area? Well, because not buying government computers would end up costing everyone a lot more.
Still, it's worth noting that the city gets nothing unless the local jurisdictions pony up. From that perspective, it could be that the other 48 states are getting a pretty good deal.
Why anyone would think that it is the social elite who use public transportation, and cite Fairfax of all places as the argument against Metro funding. Ironic too, considering there are only 5 Metrorail stations in Fairfax County, the fewest of any jurisdictions in which Metrorail operates. "475 irresponsibly ideological words" hits the nail on the head.
So, if Fairfax County, for example, fails to pay its fair share for Metro, can we terminate the Orange Line at Ballston once again?
If you want to make the arguement for not using federal tax dollars for "local" or "regional" projects/issues/etc, our entire country would shut down.
Then again, so much of that money is just pure waste. spending 1.5 billion (over ten years) to help keep metro running seems a lot more justified than, say, 1.3 millon on berry research. and 25 million for native and rual villages clearly doesn't benefit me (or you).
for more examples Citizens Against Government Waste
This money is a drop in the bucket compared to what the federal government pays in roadway construction. Roadway construction and maintenence is subsidised mostly through income taxes, not gas taxes as mentioned in the post.
So basically, in many ways it just falls back on the fact that the federal government itself benefits from Metro. I guess so, but it's not as strong of an argument as I would like.
Say for example Fairfax, Arlington, and Montgomery counties decided that they didn't really want to bother maintaining their roads anymore, even though they have plenty of cash to do so. Would it be appropriate for the federal government to go halfsies with them to keep up useable local roads so government employees could still get to work?
I still don't agree with the Examiner, but I can at least sympathize with the argument that what the hell is the government doing spending all this money when these incredibly rich counties have the tax base to pay for the whole thing their own damn selves [which may or may not be true, but if any counties can pay for it, these are they].
The typical split for roadway construction is 80% federal and 20% state/local.
Even for local roads?
If you terminate the Orange Line at Ballston, you end up punishing more than just Fairfax. East Falls Church is in Arlington, and West Falls Church is in Falls Church - who pay their own way on Metro.
Doesn't the mess of municipalities get to part of the reason why the federal government pays? I mean, most transit systems don't cross multiple state lines (I can't think of any, actually). Most don't even really involve a "state" issue - they are organized within a city or a collection of counties.
The federal government set itself up on the border between two states, and then appropriated a bunch of land to make another, third "state." They also
control the purse strings for a bunch of land in the middle of the metro area - either directly or indirectly.
It seems like the complications inherent in negotiating through and around federal presence, and the necessity of several interstate compacts in an area usually reserved for cities, would justify $150 million a year - right?
Metro has dedicated funding already, it's called ticketing, parking, ads, contracts, etc. I think if metro broke even on its operating expenses, you would see more enthusiastic govt support for expansion. Yes I know low income people couldn't afford it as easily, but that could be means tested and subsidized by the local jurisdictions.
Even for local roads?
No, that is not the split for local roads. I would assume it is the split for many highways. That is basically what Metro is, a regional highway that allows us to move around the metro area. If you want to take the analogy out to its logical conclusion, our roads are more like Metro Buses, Alexandria Dash Buses, Richmond Highway buses, Arlington buses, and others (sorry I live in NOVA and those are the systems I know). And most of those are paid primarily by the local governments just like local roads.
It could be argued that the Feds should not be involved in road construction at all but they made that decision a long time ago for strategic reasons. At this point, with the use of highways being essential to the economy, it would be impossible for that to stop completely. If it makes more economic sense to build subways or train lines than roads, I think it is in the Federal Government's best interest to pay for that. Whether it is here in the DC area (added incentive due to the use by Federal workers - think of how much they are saving in purchasing land for parking lots) or Iowa, if it makes more sense than roads, the Feds should do it. And that isn't even factoring in the environmental reasons that it may make sense for the Feds to push rail transport.
Zack, no mass transit system breaks even on operating expenses, not even the vaunted New York subway. Like all public infrastructure, they are net money losers. It just so happens that rail doesn't receive the same 80% subsidy as highways.
Now that's a compelling piece! Nice!
If people are interested, I also wrote about the Examiner piece here, Examiner Editorial gets it wrong: Choosing cars over transit as well as a piece in response to the full-page editorial in today's Richmond Times-Dispatch, which is related, but different. That piece is Train wreck or a Land Use and Development Paradigm Wreck? The RTD piece has a different focus, more about density being the basis of efficient transit, the Examiner, but could be better.
Yesterday I also wrote about reconceptualizing regional railroad service, using a map produced by Dan Malouff of BeyondDC. That piece is entitled A regional railroad passenger transportation vision for DC, MD, VA, WV and parts of PA
Now that's a compelling piece! Nice!
If people are interested, I also wrote about the Examiner piece here, Examiner Editorial gets it wrong: Choosing cars over transit as well as a piece in response to the full-page editorial in today's Richmond Times-Dispatch, which is related, but different.
That piece is Train wreck or a Land Use and Development Paradigm Wreck? The RTD piece has a different focus from the Examiner, less ideological (surprisingly because the RTD has a conservative editorial page too), more about density being the basis of efficient transit, but could be better.
Yesterday I also wrote about reconceptualizing regional railroad service, using a map produced by Dan Malouff of BeyondDC. That piece is entitled A regional railroad passenger transportation vision for DC, MD, VA, WV and parts of PA.
Sorry. It's what NOVA needs. Metro from Gainesville to Vienna, then the train thru Tysons to Dulles... am I crazy? It's all we need in Va to deal with traffic I think. Who the heck would sit in their cars on 66 with that available?
Here's what pisses me of: When the government he immediately says, "OMG! Wasteful earmark!" This is total bullshit. .j., $25 million for "rural and native villages" isn't "waste" so much as funding for some of the most impoverished communities in the nation in return for, oh, the entire landmass of Alaska.
Government is in the job of collecting money and then scattering it back out to folks. Things like Metro are governmental investments for the good of the entire region. They do it so Metro doesn't have to go to every door between Vienna and Greenbelt to ask people to donate for buses and trains.
If you're pissed about "the biggest earmark in history," try looking at the one that equals about $400 billion for Iraq.
that first sentence should read, "when the government spends money on something someone doesn't agree with, he immediately says..."
sorry!
Public transit projects are usually closer to a 60/40 or 50/50 split. The Dulles Metro extension, for example, is anticipating the federal govt will pick up 44 pct.
I think the 80/20 for road projects may be changing also to lower the federal share. At least it's been discussed recently.
But that money comes mainly from the federal gas tax, if I'm not mistaken, rather than oil royalties.
GhettoBurbs: The Tokyo Metro subway network and the Hong Kong transit system operate in the black.
Elizabeth should remember that mass transport has little to do with the morals that the guy was trying to support in her 3 points (though I'm not saying I agree with him)
And it's unfortunate our mass transit is so expensive and is relatively ineffective (compared to europe). Unfortunately this whole problem was brought on by auto lobbyists after WWII who screwed up the nation's development habits so that it's going to be terribly hard to have a very effective mass transport system almost anywhere unless we start smart growth.
But that's another subject.
NJ Transit operates in 3 states, although it's not as extensive as WMATA. They do collect some funding from NY.
Talking about other countries' metro systems is kind of unfair. They have ultra-dense development that can support a profitable system. Until there are serious changes in zoning law, it's not gonna happen here. That doesn't mean WMATA can't be more cost efficient, though.
Sure, but Tokyo and Hong Kong are the only two in the WORLD that are in the black. As a general rule, public transit doesn't make money, for a whole slate of factors from capital expenses to non-fare revenue sources to rider demand and capacity. Now whether it should or not is a totally different debate.
I don't know much about either Tokyo or Hong Kong systems. But I suspect, as Politburo points outs, that the density of development in those cities helps boost revenues a lot. Tokyo's system carries about 5.7 million passengers per day. What does WMATA carry, about 500,000 on a good day?
But, of course, there is always room for improvement.
I don't know the details of why the Japan system is profitable. Certainly the population and building density and the difficulty and expense of parking cars is contributes.
But HKT derives a significant proportion of their revenue from development in and on their stations. Rather than selling it off, they develop it and capture revenue from leasing and presumably appreciation--although I don't see how they could monetize the appreciation (well through various financing strategies maybe). In any case, the value of transit access that normally just goes to property owners is partially captured here by the transit system.
Granted in our region the local jurisdictions capture add'l property tax revenues, but most of the value increase goes to the commercial property owners. In the HK case, they manage to keep some of it themselves.
If WMATA would develop the land by stations itself, then it could have a growing add'l revenue stream. Of course, the Growth Machine would never let it happen. (There is a link to Molotch's paper on my blog.) They want the profit themselves.
DCist Adam,
i think you either misunderstood my post or i didn't make myself clear enough (probably the latter). I agree with your description of the role of the federal government; my point though was that if, in this example, alaska is getting this money for local and regional things that may (or may not) benefit the country as a whole then no one has a right to argue that metro should not receive federal money as well, without saying that all federal spending for regional issues be stopped all around the country.
I did not, or did not mean to, imply that the money going to alaska is waste. That's for the US congress to decide and not me. (especially since i live in the district)
does that make any more sense? i apologize if not.
As someone who has only read the Washington Examiner after picking it up off the floor of a Metrorail car, I was surprised to see them publish such criticism of Metro funding.
One would think the editors of such a highly-esteemed (somewhere beneath the Washington Post Express and above leaflets about Larouche or the Moonies) publication would place greater value on the opinion and welfare of what appear to be the mainstay of its readership: free-media-consuming metro customers.
"If The Examiner objects to that money coming from either local or federal taxes, then we leave it up to them to find a better source."
How about making users pay for it? If you really want something, you pay for it. If you won't pay for it, then you don't really want it.
Like, what happens when you go to the GAP to buy like this great t-shirt? Do you spend money for it or do you expect them to give it to you for free?
JB, what if the thing in question brings benefits to those who don't use it? Folks who drive on roads that aren't (as) packed because Metro offers an alternative, they benefit from Metro. Companies who are able to have better access to employees and clients because of Metro's connectivity, they benefit from Metro. Builders whose condos and stores enjoy booming business because they located near a station, they benefit. Everyone in the city, whose air is a little cleaner because there are 700,000 fewer car trips per day than there would be, they benefit.
Metro is an example of a public good, or of something which displays positive externalities, which means that the benefits of the system extend beyond those who simply ride the trains. It's unreasonable, therefore, to expect the full cost of all the benefits to fall on riders. If we set up funding for public goods in that way, there is massive underinvestment in public goods.
So let's say you bought a shirt from the GAP, and when you wore the shirt it somehow dispensed free drinks to others around you. Wouldn't it make sense for them to share the cost of the shirt with you?
Then you won't object to London-style charges for automobile use, right JB?
And you want to increase gasoline excise taxes to capture the 50% of the cost of roads that drivers don't pay for...
Serious question: Why does Metro need subsidies? Given the immense ridership it enjoys it must rake in huge amounts of cash. I'm not sure it is simply the nature of the beast -- The Washington Post ran a serious of articles documenting mismanagement in the system:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/06/04/AR2005060400350.html
And anyone who has lived here for any length of time must be familiar with the travails associated with buying new trains, which seemed to have all kinds of defects.
I don't mind spending money on a needed resource, but I do resent it if it is merely do to WMATA incompetence.
Having said that, I don't pretend to be an expert on public transport. So can someone please enlighten me why it is too much to expect WMATA to fund itself via tickets, parking, advertising and other revenue sources?
Jeez, I really need to start proof-reading my posts first. I meant to ask if it is simply the nature of the beast for mass transit systems to lose money. Can this not be avoided? Why?
Colin, we talk about this quite a bit in the comments above. You can also follow Richard Layman's links for some very thorough discussion of transportation issues.
The main point is this: transit systems aren't supposed to be for-profit businesses. You could raise the fares to try to balance the books, but doing so would reduce ridership, and increased ridership is the thing that's generating benefits for the city.
The benefits of transit, in this city at least, far outweigh the costs, but it's impossible for the operators of transit to capture all those benefits financially, so it's hard to balance the books. Subsidization is not a bad thing here. It's an investment, and the returns on that invest are considerable, they just don't all accrue to the government.
.j., since you said, "then again, so much of this money is just pure waste," and then linked to the Citizens Against Government Waste, I hope you can see where I came from with regard to your comment.
But, I agree with you on the point that local and regional projects are justifiable outlays for Congress. I'm all about Metro getting an infusion of capital, especially if that speeds up the development of a series of pneumatic tubes that will shoot us all over the city like so many costco receipts.
Colin - No transit system in the US, and almost none in the world (see above) makes money. The infrastructure required for rail transit is extremely expensive. You don't really get economy of scale on train cars because so few are made. So you end up with custom-made cars, that sometimes need custom-made parts. You can't work out the bugs because it's the first time the cars are being made. So if there are problems, you discover them when the product is first used. Ouch!
Same thing for your signalling systems. There are parts of the NYC subway that they won't touch because they're not sure if they can fix it if something breaks. Track is made of solid steel, an expensive commodity. Systems that run underground or overhead have huge costs associated with tunnelling or bridges. Not only construction costs, but upkeep costs are high for these structures (near constant inspections, patching, etc.).
Are there problems with WMATA's spending? Yes. Yes. Yes. I don't think there is anyone in the world that would say WMATA is perfect. However, that doesn't mean they should be expected to operate at a profit or break-even.
Transportation is an infrastructure investment, not a profit center.
Probably could have saved some time by just saying "What Ryan said". Oh well!