A Perfect Storm for Public Transportation in the United States?

The Good

The last two years have been an exciting time if you are an advocate of public transportation in the United States. Among other things, we have seen a major spike in gasoline prices, and although they seem to have stabilized somewhat have pushed people away from their personal automobiles and towards alternate means of transportation in record numbers. Case in point: Amtrak saw a 14% increase in ridership between July 2007 and July 2008. The poor economy has eroded some that increase, but ridership is still higher than it was at this point in 2007. It's also important to keep in mind that this is with a smaller system than Amtrak has ever had along with stagnant funding. Check out the master list vs. what service is in place today.

Ridership on public transit is up. Way up. In 2008, transit ridership was the highest since 1956! That's big. That's 52 years of highway dominance, out the window in one year.

Additionally, the winner of the 2008 Presidential campaign brought even greater hope by promising to invest in our long neglected transportation system along with our national infrastructure. This promise was highlighted by the symbolic train ride that the President-Elect and Vice President-Elect took from Philadelphia to the inauguration in Washington, D.C.

Things sure are good in the transportation world aren't they? Not so fast. Some big issues in America right now are forming together with the record success of transit to form a perfect storm of sorts that threatens to hamstring transportation development in this country, if not set cause a massive setback.

The Bad

While transit use is up, which is great, funding remains flat. Check out an article here in the Post gazette that touches on the issue. Local transit authorities are faced with increased demands on their infrastructure and calls for service expansion all while dealing with the same funding levels that they dealt with 5 years ago. In some cases, because of the hard economic times funding has even been cut, again, while ridership increased. The system is broken, that's not news. The Gas Tax hasn't increased in 16 years and the Highway Trust fund is broke. You can't get better transit if you don't have the money to pay for it.

The Ugly

The healthcare debate, among others swirling around Washington seem to have caused enough strife to further the notion that our current funding strategy will suffice for another 18 months. The Post Gazette covers it here . It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that if the funding system doesn't work now, it will continue to not work for another 18 months. Things will stay about the way they are now. Ridership looks to stay high, and funding will be inadequate which will cause further cutbacks and potential fare increases.

Hope isn't completely lost for a new funding package before the September 30 deadline of the current deal, but an 18 month delay could cause a permanent halt to a funding overhaul and renewed emphasis on transit.

The political tides seem to be shifting. The tremendous support that the Obama administration and their policies enjoyed may be at least wavering. The Senate Committee charged with appropriating the initial $4 billion dollars of HSR funds decided only to appropriate $1.8 billion. While this is not the end of the discussion, the figures initially discussed are already being paired down. This does not bode well for future HSR funding. The same can be said of transit funding. If support for HSR is still high and the money is being cut, imagine what happens when the support dies down, or gas prices come down.

I don't want to be a Negative Nancy here, but in my mind, we as a nation are at a crossroads. The demand for transit is there (and hopefully will continue to rise). What is missing is political will. If we put transportation in the back seat and don't fund it now and fund it properly, our best case scenario is we will have what we have now. Aging infrastructure, too many roads, and not enough alternate forms of transportation. That's the BEST case scenario.

The link between Healthcare and Transportation

While relationships between healthcare and transportation may not seem immediately clear (except for the fact that the people who work for and operate transportation companies/agencies/authorities all generally have healthcare) there are similarities in the debates between the various camps on either side of the issues.

First, let me say that the point of this is not to shout my opinions about Obama's healthcare plan, there are plenty of other blogs where you can find people's opinions about Government healthcare. When reading an article, found by way of The Radical Middle yesterday, I was shocked by some of the ridiculous arguments being made, by both sides on the medical debate. The far left view was that anyone who oposes their idea of Government healthcare is basically a heartless fascist who is just a puppet of big business, while the far right view was that Government healthcare was tantamount to communism and would force poor granny to go in front of a "death panel" that would decide her medical fate.

Both arguments are downright ridiculous, and the people who further these types of arguments should be ashamed of themselves. They turn important policy debate into a turd flinging contest. Their intent is also not to compromise and create the best course of action for everyone but to demean the opposition through the spreading of ridiculous lies and insults.
Where am I going with this you ask? After all, this is not Shadyside Hospital Blog, it's East Busway Blog. My point in this is the same ridiculous, emotional attacks that are clouding the healthcare debate are always present in the transit world, and it's a problem.

When lies, misconceptions and anecdotal arguments are allowed to influence public policy, the outcome is a dumbed down, half-assed version of an ideal policy. A perfect example in Pittsburgh is the hated Allegheny County drink tax. I have made it well known that I support the tax, because I looked at it rationally and to me it makes sense. You've got plenty of drinkers in Allegheny County, and the proceeds from the tax would serve a worthy cause, transit. However, the opposition to the tax was immediate and just plain angry. From radio ads by the owner of the Church Brew Works invoking Abraham Lincoln, to a gentleman who wanted to challenge Dan Onorato to a boxing match because of a tax on his beloved beer.

Most of the opposition was rooted in the fact that people just didn't want to pay more for alcohol, there wasn't a whole lot of rationality to their argument beyond that. The closest thing I saw to a coherent argument was that the tax would cause such an outrage that people would abandon drinking at bars in Allegheny County and flock to neighboring counties (which has happened to an extent, how much however, is not all that significant) which would cause bars to go out of business. However, even that argument which was rooted in rationality was taken to the extreme. Supposedly, the drop in business would lead to some mass bankruptcy in the bar industry, causing huge losses in jobs and revenues.

As it turns out, the "losses" have been minimal. The decrease in drinking at bars has been negligible, and I don't believe there is any quantifiable evidence that the drink tax has caused any bar or restaurant to close and the tax exceeded expectations for revenue. (Check out one of my favorite comment strings from way back on a "discussion" about the effects of the drink tax). My friend "anonymous" may have some valid points, but they are clouded by his insults and condescending tone.

The HSR debate is another example. There are logical arguments why HSR would not or could not work that could be made by reasonable people, and then there are people like this guy. (check out comment number 5). This quote came from Trains for America, and they seem to get more than their fair share of ridiculous, emotion based polarized arguments. You don't like trains? Fine, don't belittle rational discussion with regurgitated garbage you probably picked up off your favorite political radio talk show host.

I know that you find whackos anywhere, and two examples in a blog does not an argument make. However, go onto a news website and look at the comments that follow and article or opinion piece or watch a town hall meeting. It's frightening, not so much what people are saying, but how many people are saying the same crazy things, meaning the lunacy is widespread.

Why this polarized thinking has become so prevalent is another topic for another blog, but it certainly is present in transportation/transit policy debate, and it's damaging our infrastructure and de-railing (pun intended) our future.