Today, responding to news about a stimulus amendment giving tax breaks to car buyers that increase with the price of the car commenter “Car Free Nation” at Streetsblog said,
“So 11 billion to pay for cars for the rich (it’s a tax break, the more you earn, and the more expensive the car, the more we, the taxpayers, pay), but nothing for maintaining mass transit for the rest of us.
I thought the Democrats won.”
I support some sort of Detroit bailout directly connected to preserving jobs, not through make-work, but through productive uses – perhaps making more fuel efficient cars (and making them cheaper), or retooling to build more buses and trains. But whatever one thinks of the car manufacturers, the profound underfunding of mass transit is terrible.
Ongoing operations are being cut and costs to commuters (including in Illinois) are on the rise – see Transportation for America’s Transit Cuts Google Map/article.
Currently there’s a Barbara Boxer/James Inhofe $50 billion amendment out for highways that would bring the total for highways to around $80 billion of the stimulus. Meanwhile mass transit is struggling to get in the range of $13 – 15 billion. For perspective, I’ve personally identified over $8 billion (and this number may rise substantially with some additional data I’m adding) in *just* rail projects ready to go in a year or less (some within 90 days) that exceed $5 million per project (i.e. they are relatively major). Rail, because of historic underfunding and longer mandated development requirements, is a very small subset of all mass transit. Chicago’s CTA alone estimates it could use over $4.3 billion for rail (although most is not “shovel ready” within 90 days) – and could spend $500 million on projects ready to go in 90 days (rail and bus). Funding mass transit projects will create good jobs, develop key infrastructure with lasting positive economic benefits and aid America in reducing the ills of traffic congestion (cost, pollution and stress).
The stimulus package can be anything, including stupid. America deserves better than that. We need a smart stimulus package that includes serious funding for mass transit. Click this link and tell your U.S. Senators that you want substantial stimulus money used for mass transit!
Comments 1
The biases in the Stimulus Bill against Amtrak and public transit in general, urban rail transit in particular, reflects the control that the automobile manufacturing/highway construction/petroleum refining and distribution industries continue to have over Congress, thanks to political contributions. The goal of the A-H-P lobby, simply stated, is to continue to keep the as depended as possible on their products in order to maximize their profits. And in order to achieve that goal, they must minimize as much as possible, preferably eliminate, their primary competitors, namely rail passenger transportation in all of its forms.
The more routes and service that Amtrak can provide, especially if high quality and on time, the fewer people will drive their motor vehicles or use airlines nation-wide. And that is contrary to the vested interests of the A-H-P lobby and the politicians (like US Senator John McCain) whom they have in their pockets.
For another example, it is clear that light rail transit is a superior mode of travel from the passenger’s standpoint, especially comfort of the rider, carrying capacity per vehicle, and long-term operating and maintenance costs, etc. To kill off new LRT starts wherever, the A-H-P lobby, the so-called think tanks that they fund and their hired project assassins (like Wendell Cox), came up the a bogus subsitute called Bus Rapid Transit that minimizes the damage done to their financial interests.
If we are to save this country from its decline into Second World Nation status, we must once again have a robust transportation network – air, highway, rail and water. And the best way of ensuring equity between highway improvement/expansion proposals and public transportation projects (both new starts and remedial repairs) is to have them both elligible for the same federal funding ration, i.e. 80 percent federal aid for all – not 80 percent for highways but 50 percent for rail Then a state or local community would not have to deal with a built in bias that leads it to say “If we go for highway, we only have to come up with one-fifth as much local match as would be required with rail for the same overall project value/investment cost.
Posted 07 Feb 2009 at 8:55 am ¶