I'd rather not see the more expensive road projects get built. I want to see the transit project come to fruition. I still wish the fees in the suburban zones would have been higher. That would create more of a disincentive to continue our traditional suburban growth patters. However, I also understand it takes compromises to get things through.
Quote from: cline on September 16, 2011, 09:20:06 AMI'd rather not see the more expensive road projects get built. I want to see the transit project come to fruition. I still wish the fees in the suburban zones would have been higher. That would create more of a disincentive to continue our traditional suburban growth patters. However, I also understand it takes compromises to get things through. I don't know that it's so much a compromise as it is the fact that the city has to look out for the entire (very large) county. Our suburbs need good planning too, it just so happens that they're under the same local government.
Unfortunately, there is a segment of the body politic who believes that any funding of public transit as opposed to automobile-oriented transit is somehow a blow against “freedom†and a sure sign of socialism (if not downright communism).
Quote from: finehoe on September 16, 2011, 12:27:05 PMUnfortunately, there is a segment of the body politic who believes that any funding of public transit as opposed to automobile-oriented transit is somehow a blow against “freedom†and a sure sign of socialism (if not downright communism).Would their initials be "T.P."? (Oh, the irony...)
The debate over the benefits of mass transit falls along a pretty clear “Mars and Venus†partisan line: Democrats cherish every ounce of mass transit, while Republicans love love love their cars. A few months back, we did a Q&A with Bill Lind, the conservative author of Moving Minds: Conservatives and Public Transportation, which evaluates mass transit policies from a conservative perspective. Now that the debate over rail, both high speed and passenger, has lit up following the distribution of Obama’s stimulus funds, we thought we’d check back in with Bill to see if his views had changed, or held steady. Infrastructurist: Given all the heated partisan debate that has crippled Congress in other topics like healthcare, can infrastructure really be bipartisan? Lind: Yes. There should be a nonpartisan non-ideological consensus in favor of adequate infrastructure. From the conservative perspective, the federal government has two and only two legitimate functions: national security and infrastructure. The first bill passed by the first Congress was an infrastructure bill. With government involvement in canals and railroads and highways, the federal government has been involved in infrastructure from the beginning. This is consistent with a free market economy, because the markets only work if there is adequate infrastructure. More specifically to the current time, conservatives do not enjoy being stuck in traffic any more than liberals. We may be in a Mercedes or Jaguar instead of a Neon, but [traffic] still isn’t fun. So when high quality transportation is offered — meaning rail, not bus — conservatives are using it. If you look at the demographics of rail transit riders. what you see is that a lot of the people on board are conservatives. if you look at the ridership on Metra around Chicago, in some counties the average income of people on trains is higher than people driving alone to work. You are turning waste time into time when you could be productive. So the fact is that where high quality transportation is provided, conservatives use it. But there isn’t much rail transit in this country for us to use. I: It sounds like your definition of “conservative†basically means “wealthy people.†What about conservatives who aren’t necessarily Jaguar-drivers? L: The fact is that most conservatives own cars. They have sufficient money that they own cars. which means that if they ride transit they ride from choice, not necessity. Which means they want high quality transit, not just something to get around. So the transit that is relative to conservatives is that which is relevant to people with cars — I would rather take transit than drive to work. I: Do you think this plan should have greater bipartisan support at the expense of the high speed rail proposals? L: We think there should definitely be bipartisan support for bringing back streetcars. Every city in the U.S. with over 5,000 people once had a streetcar line. We would like to see most cities have commuter trains — the infrastructure is already there. And we would like to see an expansion of light rail. We think all of these should be electrified and this is an important part of energy security. We would like to see a national consensus going across left and right. It’s simply a matter of bringing back what we had. We threw it away – we subsidized national highways and taxed electric railways, and we think that was an unwise move, and we need to bring it back. Not put enormous amounts of money into a few lines that would serve geographically only a small portion of the country.SOURCE: http://www.infrastructurist.com/2010/02/03/a-conservative-makes-the-case-for-mass-transit-but-not-high-speed-rail/
I don't know, Mr. Lind sounds like a bit of a twit. "The fact is that most conservatives own cars. They have sufficient money that they own cars." Uh, yeah, whatever. Like the interviewer notes, he seems to conflate "conservative" with "wealthy".
