They’re not unicorns, they’re Republicans who like buses and trains

[mahatmakanejeeves]

They’re not unicorns, they’re Republicans who like buses and trains

Jul 20, 2016, 7:07am EDT

Former Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood denounced the parts of his party’s platform having to do with transportation on Tuesday, saying it’s out of step with what most younger Americans want — walkable neighborhoods where people don’t always need a car to get around.

The former congressman from Peoria, Ill., and member of President Barack Obama’s cabinet during his first term, said the GOP simply has not caught up to national and international trends. He also called for an increase in the gas tax, saying fuel-efficient cars have removed much of the capital federal, state and local governments need to build roads, bridges, pedestrian and transit infrastructure.

“The leadership has been more highway-centric or bridge-centric,” LaHood said in an interview after a luncheon sponsored by the National League of Cities that also featured Fort Worth, Texas Mayor Betsy Price and Oklahoma City Mayor Mick Cornett, president of the U.S. Conference of Mayors, both Republicans. “If they start listening to mayors and start listening to their constituents, they’re going to find bike shares are very popular in cities, walking and biking paths are very popular, transit is very popular.”

Price did not directly criticize the GOP platform but also extolled the virtues of light rail, which her city now has access to, and bike share programs.

[KamaAina]

1. Many, many repukes commute from their lily-white suburbs to their cushy downtown jobs on trains

The reason repuke politicians don't like transit in general is that it might enable "those people" to go the other way. Try taking DC Metro to Georgetown. Or MARTA to Cobb County.

[mahatmakanejeeves]

2. That bit about no Metro stop in Georgetown:

Sorry, but that's an old canard.

Georgetown never blocked Metro stop

by David Alpert • June 20, 2007

Conventional wisdom says that the Washington DC Metro was supposed to go to Georgetown (after all, it barely misses it between Rosslyn and Foggy Bottom), but NIMBY residents in the 1970s blocked the station, fearing that the subway would bring inner-city (i.e. black and Hispanic) people out from poor neighborhoods to commit robberies. The anticipated crime spike around transit lines never did occur in other neighborhoods and cities, and now the people of Georgetown regret their earlier opposition.

I've heard that story from DC residents and seen it written online many times. But it's not true. Wikipedia points us to Zachary Schrag's book The Great Society Subway, which debunks the myth:

In fact, although Georgetown residents did oppose a transit station, their attitude was essentially irrelevant, for a Georgetown station was never seriously considered. While it would have been possible to build a subway line to Georgetown, it would have been difficult. (Page 155)

According to the book, two major obstacles prevented a Georgetown station. First, the corner of Wisconsin and M, which would have been the sensible location for a station, is so close to the river that a station in a river-crossing tunnel would have been too deep at that point, and highway planners had no interest in a bridge. In addition, routing the Metro to Georgetown would force tunneling under private property, which is much more complicated, both for the engineering challenges of underpinning buildings and for the legal issues.

In addition, the Metro was primarily designed as a suburban commuting resource, "connecting suburban parking lots, bus nodes, and clusters of apartment buildings with dense collections of office buildings in downtown Washington and Arlington." Georgetown was neither especially dense nor a major office center, and therefore wasn't a prime candidate for a station. (This probably explains why Adams Morgan has no station either, the misleadingly named Woodley Park-Zoo-Adams Morgan station not actually being very close to Adams Morgan).

But:

Suburban racial fear wasn't confined to Washington, DC. Metro Atlanta's Gwinnett and Clayton counties opted out of MARTA at least partly for racial reasons (PDF - scroll to page 18).