March 20, 2008
Transit on Thursday: The Deregulation Edition
Transit is inherently tied to politics, and as such, involves quite a bit of perspective.
Bearing that in mind, here's a question for those readers out there that drive to work everyday: how would you like having tolls escalate with the amount of traffic density in order to fund those same roads that you currently sit idly on?
Well, if the Department of Transportation and the Bush Administration have their way, you might be looking at such a system across the country. As the Post reported Monday, the DOT, looking for a solution to alleviating the traffic around urban areas, siphoned off $850 million dollars of a $1 billion funding package to fund a program called "Urban Partnerships" in five different cities across the country. The point of the program is to investigate the idea of progressive tolling, where tolls rise as traffic does the same - a controversial, free-market idea touted by neoconservatives and hated by mass transit proponents.
Although the premise of the idea might not sound that terrible - make the people who create the most traffic pay for maintenance and construction - the unfortunate victim of the theory is a catastrophic loss of mass transit development. The report notes, for instance, that people were using cars to shuttle others in northeastern Iowa because they were unable to afford updated buses without the diverted "Urban Partnership" funds from the DOT. Locally, the Dulles Rail project has been waylaid due to a lack of funds from the federal government as it's, you know, not a road (and not as easily privatized as a slab of gravel and concrete).
If this pattern continues, streetcars, rail, and other public transportation could see a serious loss of momentum, even though usage is booming:
The focus on toll roads alarmed the transit industry, which argues that public transportation is the best way to fight gridlock in cities. Industry leaders say the DOT has made it increasingly difficult for expensive rail projects to qualify for federal dollars. The number of major new rail and bus projects on track for federal funding dropped from 48 in 2001 to 17 in 2007, even as transit ridership hit a 50-year high last year and demand for new service is soaring.It's a pretty slippery slope, too: the process has a likely terminus at the complete private ownership of roads by large firms and corporations - who would be able to charge whatever they wanted, anytime, as they saw fit to regulate traffic. With the Dulles Toll Road, we're no stranger to that type of arrangement. How does a $5 trip on the Verizon Capital Beltway sound? (Maybe it should be The Capital Beltway, presented by Verizon. We're split on the whole naming thing.)
It's definitely something to ponder in a country where public spending on roads is pretty ludicrously out of balance already: according to DCist alumnus and development guru Ryan Avent, for every one dollar we spend on mass transit, $40 is spent on roads.
After the jump, your post-protest survey and a few odds and ends.
Photo by AlbinoFlea. Joshua Davis contributed.
Well, At Least No One Ran Them Over: Well, it probably wasn't as bad as it could have been, but Wednesday's anti-war protests did manage to shut down their fair share of flowing traffic. The most prominent unexpected stoppage was probably at 17th and L, which lasted for about an hour; but, it was mostly after morning rush hour had subsided. There were other blockages at McPherson Square and on Constitution and Independence Avenues - but people probably had to expect that (especially if they started off their drive prepared.)
Dirty Buses Become Green: Metro is donating four of its dirtiest buses to educate students about green technology. Of course, the education will be more than getting a mouthful of black smoke and a lecture on global warming: the buses will be converted to run on biodiesel fuel.
The retrofitted buses will then travel to schools, universities and public events. Biodiesel University, a non-profit related to the University of Maryland, hopes to inspire a new generation of scientists to develop fuel solutions.
"It will be part theme park and part hands on lab that will be a field trip coming to you," said Executive Director Dan Goodman said statement. Inside, visitors will find information on how biodiesel affects food supply, what scientists are doing to limit biofuel pollution and show how biofuel based economies work.
Metro currently maintains a fleet of 1,500 cleaner buses, the last 4 dirtiest buses should be retrofitted by the end of the year. -Joshua Davis
Engines and Cabooses: As a reminder, Metro will be open an hour later this evening to accommodate fans going to the NCAA Tournament at the Verizon Center. Since we're not bajillionaires, we'll take the extra hour of drinking time...More Metro details for those planning to witness the unveiling of the seven deadly sins: remix version...Petworth, you have an elevator again.
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So will Halliburton or Blackwater be taking my money? I rather have Halliburton, Blackwater has an itchy trigger finger.
>a controversial, free-market idea touted by neoconservatives
That is the most convoluted use of term "neoconservative" I've yet seen.
This toll road privatization approach has been a pet project of *LIBERTARIANS* for years.
We're paying the price for the vicious circle of suburban sprawl: zoning laws encourage sprawling suburbs, which generates more vehicular traffic, which demands more roads, which generates more sprawl.
Make developers pay the true cost of hinterland Mcmansion development, including sidewalks, and cut the costs associated with infill development. Otherwise, the next big construction boom will be in West Virginia and Pennsylvania and you're back to long haul commutes and gridlock again.
Mass Transit.
Now that's wassup.
The expansion out to WV and Pennsylvania fucks them as well. In WV at least they've seen a huge gain in avg. household income but nothing in terms of population or state wealth. So people with jobs out of the state are moving in and commuting out while no new jobs are created in the state and everyone else has to move out.
So the developers are not only screwing the environment and the DC traffic situation, but the economy of third world states like WV and rural Pennsylvania.
There's absolutely no reason that variable tolls have to mean less money for mass transit. Private road or toll operators could easily have it in their contract that a certain percentage of revenues goes back to the city or state for transit provision.
The fact that this idea has been proposed, in this particular instance, in company with cutting transit funds, doesn't make it bad in and of itself.
"The point of the program is to investigate the idea of progressive tolling, where tolls rise as traffic does the same - a controversial, free-market idea touted by neoconservatives and hated by mass transit proponents."
I think you're conflating multiple issues. There's congestion tolling, there's road privatization, and there's diversion of funds from transit to road projects.
In general, my understanding is that mass transit proponents support tolling, as it brings in more money that hypothetically goes to mass transit, and encourages use of transit. However, they do not want to see privatization of roads (I think this is more because mass transit proponents tend to be liberal and therefore would rather see the gov't in charge of roads than a corporation), and of course do not want to see funds diverted from transit to setup these tolls.
Also, the Urban Partnerships program is not necessarily a dynamic toll. The NYC plan, at least, is not.. but it appears the Miami plan is.
"It's a pretty slippery slope, too: the process has a likely terminus at the complete private ownership of roads by large firms and corporations - who would be able to charge whatever they wanted, anytime, as they saw fit to regulate traffic."
Pretty big jump to conclusions there. While I don't support privatization, this fear is easily mitigated by conditions in the lease agreements that limit the frequency and magnitude of toll increases.
There's an inherent problem with the "tolls allocate the cost of roads directly onto the people who use them" argument. Which is, they don't. A driver who avoids a congested freeway by taking city streets and highways is not paying any tolls, yet is benefitting immensely from the drivers who are on the freeway and thus not on the city streets.
That fact seems lost on Virginia, which apparently has no trouble at all building toll roads yet scoffs at the notion of raising a gas tax--which spreads the burden of transportation costs equally over all drivers--which has been stagnant for over 20 years.
I don't have so much of an issue with the congestion tolling, but the Bush Administration seems to be missing a fundamental component of that equation. The idea behind congestion pricing is, ostensibly, to create a disincentive for people to drive into congested areas. Yet for that disincentive to truly be a disincentive, there must be a viable alternative option presented. It's difficult to reconcile the slashing of mass transit funding currently being done by the Adminstration with their calls for toll roads, congestion tolls, and fewer drivers on roads.
I'm not so certain I'd lump all transit proponents as opposed to congestion pricing. Certainly, the current administration has set up the rules that way, but that's not how it has to be. In many cases, the idea of congestion pricing could be used as a major funding source for transit.
That all depends on the particulars, of course. New York's proposed congestion pricing scheme would do just that - price auto trips into the CBD and use the revenue to improve mass transit - which also serves the CBD. You develop alternative modes as well as a revenue source.
Good lord! The ridiculous privatization conspiracy argument is something that I'd expect from a college freshman paper or one of the idiots sitting down in the street to protest the war.
First the use of "neoconservative" is totally inappropriate and wrong. Its sole purpose seems to be to equate supporters of progressive tolling to supporters of the Iraq War (both are bad, bad, bad! Boo! Hiss!).
Second, you can sit and stomp your feet about how our only lord and savior is Mass Transit (blessed be its name). But the simple fact remains that large numbers of people will still prefer driving on their commute because they either have no mass transit alternatives or they are tired of dealing with a dysfunctional Metro system.
The arguments put forth in the pre-jump section are just a total mishmash of different ideas and issues, all culminating in the one-size-fits-all answer that Mass Transit is the way, the truth, and the light.
I don't get the connection between tolls and mass transit. If anything, adding or increasing tolls should encourage use of mass transit, since it raises the cost of driving.
Of course, we need to also give a shit about mass transit and fund future development better. But wouldn't increasing demand for public transit likely result in increased pressure from the public to actually fund these projects?
Split the difference:
"This morning on the Verizon Inner Loop of the Capital Beltway, presented by Fedex, there's an accident blocking the left lane...Amazingly, the Outer Loop, brought to you by DynCorp, of the Fedex Capital Beltway is running smoothly with no accidents reported..."
@ajw_93
If they keep the traffic running, they can call the Beltway whatever they want to.
is there general agreement that there are potentially two sides here:
one that sees transportation, in whatever form, as something that is a public good that doesn't exist to turn a profit, but rather exists to get people to where they must go.
another that sees potential profit in transportation, whether that comes from outsourcing, full private ownership, or some other means.
look at the interstate highway system for example. a private, profit based model would not have built freeways across the empty middle of our country. there's no money to be made on it. that might have led to continued reliance on rail for shipments, and perhaps continued investment in cross-country rail, which would give us better options than amtrak today.
the model that did exist in the '50s when the interstate highway system was started believed that the federal government should provide these roads for public benefit (common defense and promoting the general welfare, etc.) because of that (dare i say) socialist stance, we now use that public good for shipping, which has led to an increased reliance on truck shipments and the downgrading of some of our rail network.
i'm rambling here, but "things just ain't simple" is what i'm trying to get at...
DC's streetcar system was always run by private companies, so it's not an inherently evil thing for public transit to be run by a for-profit entity.
Drivers should support greater investment in public transit, unless they want a couple hundred thousand more cars on the road.
[snip] Private road or toll operators could easily have it in their contract that a certain percentage of revenues goes back to the city or state for transit provision. [end snip].
Let's face it, this administration doesn't exactly have a great track record when it comes to asking the corporations who fund campaigns to be good citizens and give back some of their Congressional largesse to support the common good, whether it be taxes, infrastructure, or community projects.
"the model that did exist in the '50s when the interstate highway system was started believed that the federal government should provide these roads for public benefit (common defense and promoting the general welfare, etc.)"
IIRC, Eisenhower pushed the interstates for defense, above all. Everything else was just a bonus, especially for the car companies who lobbied for the system.
Defense was one reasoning for Federal spending on the Interstate system. Prior to that, pretty much all transportation spending was locally funded, state funded, or privately operated.
It's totally thrown the funding systems out of whack. The Feds also started subsidizing air travel, but did not do the same for rail.
The author clearly has no idea what the word "neoconservative" means, or he would not use it to describe this proposal. The libertarian groups that support these kind of free-market-based transportation reforms have as little in common with neoconservatism as left-wing ideologies do with neoconservatism. Neoconservatives, if anything, tend to be against free-market proposals more than any other right-wing ideology.
It sortof depends on where an area sees itself in 50 years.
For instance, there ain't no way NYC could get by without mass transit.
So the question is: does DC want to be a mini-NYC in 50 years? Or do we want to be a collection of far-flung mini-cities?
I don't see it as an either/or, either mass transit or roads.
I see reason for both, in their place.
But this current administration is virulently anti-mass-transit. Sortof goes along with their mistrust of us latte-sipping urbanites, just because we laughed at the newbie Republicans in town when we discovered that every last one of them that ventures out to a gay bar or hooks up on craigslist is a big giant bottom, with massive daddy and submission issues.
I mean, Jesus already, is there even one Republican out there that doesn't want to be humiliated and called filthy names in the bedroom?
What's up with that?
So there you have it. Mass transit is doomed unless we can somehow fulfill the "Dress me up, call me Heather, and spank my skanky Karl-Rove worshipping buttocks" needs of every single damn Republican in town.
But it is worth noting that no one seems to count the additional costs of hatin' on the public transit. That is, our massive debt we go into to secure foreign oil.
What is Iraq up to now? Trillion plus?
And the environmental costs.
If we're going to have an honest discussion of roads vs mass transit we need to consider all the costs.
But we also have to realize that some are going to drive, no matter what. And whether we like it or not, DC ain't NYC, and many of us can't get by without our cars.
For instance, some of the newbies on the H St NE corridor are quite the car haters. I've literally been sneered at when I pull up to an H Street bar or restaurant in my vehicle.
Well, folks. Maybe I ain't hip enough, but I'm just not walking 15 blocks for dinner, then 15 blocks back.
Or adding an hour plus to wait on the damn bus, just to get dinner.
It ain't happening, especially when you add crime factors in.
We should go ahead and admit that walking the streets in many DC neighborhoods simply isn't safe. If I have to choose between putting my own little hole in the ozone and someone putting a hole in my head, I'll choose killing off the ozone every time.
So, to sum up, progressive tolls are "terrible" because they'll lead to a horrifying dystopia where every road is owned by a massive corporation? I don't see it, DCist. I really don't see it.
Also, tolls (which, I believe, GENERATE money) will somehow TAKE AWAY money from mass transit? I guess all that extra money is going toward…well…I guess the massive corporations must be stealing that too.
As for the discussion of the usage of "neoconservative," I think the progressive folks at DCist were just using it as a synonym for anything they don't like.
Two thumbs down.
HCE, you've hit the nail on the head. So many "progressives" today use the term neo-conservative interchangeably with "bad" or "backwards." That's a problem because neoconservative is quite a specific term for a strain of thought that seeks to use the heavy hand of government to transform society in a "conservative" direction, which it completely fails to do (see Iraq, war in).
Because this ideology is so pernicious is exactly why we shouldn't let the word lose all its meaning and impact through overuse.
Stateo:
Sortof like many people on the right (generally) demonized the word 'liberal' for years, then applied it to literally everything they didn't like.
Sucks, doesn't it?
Neoconservatives are only identifiable by their takes on foreign policy (as, in an earlier era, by their pre-WWII roots in socialism and their subsequent rejection of Leninism, Stalinism and Trotskyism). Some are small-government types, some are big government types, and none are liberterians because Neocons find common ground concerning their belief in the need for projections of US military power.
Also, I agree with the statements above that making it more expensive for people to drive their cars (either through tolls, taxes or even nonpecuniary costs) will tend to increase the demand for public transportation.
Finally, partial privatization of roads does not create a slippery slope to complete privatization. It is not a matter of physics. As political power shifts, programs change. There may be circumstances in which privatization is superior and instances where it is not. In the long run and it seems worth it to find out. Unfortunately, given the US population densities and the American driver's strong prefernce for driving alone, we are not well situated to learn lessons from experiments in oher countries.
Privatization of roads in quite common in places outside of the U.S. that actually have decent public transit in Europe and Asia. Here in North America, it's become quite common in Canada. I don't have a big problem with it.
I don't have a big problem with congestion pricing toll roads either, but I think it depends on what people are doing with the tolls.
The Golden Gate Bridge and Transit Authority just got a big chunk of that congestion toll funding -- but you know what? The tolls on the Golden Gate Bridge not only support the bridge maintenance (which you can both walk and bike over, btw), but also the transit system that shuttles between Marin and central Transbay bus terminal. The funding will very much help the support their dual mission.
That requires of course that states use the revenue from highway funding to actually support the broader transit agendas in their states, bridge and highway tolls do that in places like SF and NY. Places that see their transit planning holistical. Perhaps if others did silo their transportation funding, the pain would be non existent.