Mass transit: "Every demon unleashed"

Ali G, Sacha Baron Cohen’s gangsta TV host persona, once posed an empirical counter-point to his anti-drug official guest: What about his mate Dangerous Dave, who took 22 Ecstasy pills in one night, and “found it difficult to get to sleep. But next day, he was really buzzin’, and the people on the Egham to Ruislip bus said he drove it better than he ever done before”?

Perhaps the DC metro employee that tested positive for drugs after being caught putting too many rail cars on a train found Ali G’s point convincing. Yet after a summer of embarrassments – including a June crash that killed nine, maintenance fatalities, subway suicides, and a growing budget deficit – the case for public rail-lines is becoming less convincing.

Ironies abound. As the economy collapsed, 9.3 billion stimulus dollars got earmarked for high speed transit. As its unemployment rate reaches 12.4% (second only to New York), Oregon blazes the “urban planning” trail. As the planet cools (since 1998), global warming remains a justification for mass transit. As people blame Detroit for failing to compete, Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood promotes mass transit because, “it’s a way to get people out of their cars,” and the Energy Secretary Steven Chu says, “Somehow we have to figure out how to boost the price of gasoline to the levels in Europe.” And as DC’s metro system unravels, Maryland hopes the federal government will pay half of the $1.5 billion construction cost for an addition to the system that would, it admits, run a deficit.

Public transportation has its place. Just as it’s pleasing to find a road at the end of your driveway, it’s satisfying to have a bus or subway at the end of your busy downtown block, even if these humble guarantees require the imperfections of government intervention. The New York subway and the Chicago “El” train may run deficits, but the population densities of these cities make it hard for even the government to mess up the service.

Yet in cities with smaller population densities, like DC and Minneapolis, the costs begin to outweigh the benefits. Urban rail proponents justify the fact that fares only cover a quarter of operating costs by saying it relieves traffic congestion. According to the Minnesota department of economic development, however, only 4.8% of Minneaopolis-area commuters use light rail, and most of them would otherwise swallow their pride and ride the bus, where riders are 25% poorer. The Arizona Transportation Research Cetner found that operating costs for one person to travel one mile are 6 cents on roads and $2.75 on light rail. Furthermore, Transportation expert David Hartgen, a professor at UNC-Charlotte, says that an interstate mile costs $10 million to construct, compared to a $20-30 million transit rail mile that transports 1/5 as many people. For the $300-400 million cost of the proposed commuter line to Big Lake, MN, he adds, you could fix every bottleneck in the metro area. The fact that light rail benefits mainly its passengers, while roadway expansions and traffic light coordination improvements benefit everyone relying on goods shipped on roads, magnifies the opportunity cost of light rail.

Urban mass transit proponents use “smart growth,” too, as a justification for their costly venture. They say that such systems keep people concentrated, reducing suburban development – an environmental threat. But less than 6% of the U.S. is currently considered urban. Also, by limiting suburban development (a dollar spent on urban transit is one that could have been spent on roads to suburbia), housing prices in the city soar and, as we’ve seen, burst.

Most importantly, roads are more conducive to liberty than mass transit. Unlike light rail, two lanes can take you anywhere. The car represents the social mobility that makes America great. Who is the federal government to socially engineer Americans away from it? One fifth of every federal gas tax (18.4 cents per gallon) increase goes to mass transit. If it let states decide for themselves how to spend this money, perhaps states like Minnesota would opt for, say, bridge repairs instead.

As the DC Metro Transit Authority reflects on its disastrous summer, it should consider spending less money on rail expansions and a hybrid bus fleet, and get back to basics. Just last Friday, after a Metro employee was hit by a train while working on the tracks, the Metro Board Chairman said, “At a time when I feel like the heavens have opened and every demon has been unleashed upon us, we have this budget.” Meanwhile, a D.C. councilman noted, “Every year we're writing a blank check and the program is expanding and expanding.” Like Ali G and his Dangerous Dave story, some would have us believe that spending billions of more dollars on mass transit will help cities function better than they "ever done before." Me thinks they need to read up.