Not a Single FUCKING mention of Mass Transit. BILLIONS for new Highways in BLUE areas.

[Leopolds Ghost]

And billions in tax cuts and incentives for the rich.

Breach of every last incentive Dems had for electing Obama, right
down to repealing the bush tax cuts.

Yeah, they'll create so many fucking construction jobs for Americans
already residing in this country... especially with Napolitano and
McCain's support for bracero programs. What do you think an open
immigration policy is for? To create a legal underclass to whom
minimum wage doesn't apply.


http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/23/us/politics/23obama.html?th&emc=th


State Delegate Tom Hucker (D-MD) recently declared that there would
be no federal funds for subway construction (even light rail) in any
suburban areas, and that anyone who wanted rapid transit "doesn't understand
the federal budgeting process and doesn't understand the crisis we are in."

The budgeting process consists of a hard limit of $2 billion in
(inflated) dollars for any transit project, meaning no subways
will be funded outside of Manhattan, period.

The center-left viciously oppose subways, anyhow.

Their urban planning advisers have explicitly said that rail is
an urban renewal tool, NOT a means of transporting a significant
fraction of commuters.

The Dems see light rail (streetcars) as an acceptable alternative
that "does not compete with highway funding" (such as the 8-lane,
$2 billion Inter-county Connector in Maryland or the $4 billion
Alaskan Way Viaduct in Seattle or the $10 billion transit-free
highway tunnel in Boston) and doesn't "waste money."

Anything over $1.5 billion for transit is considered a waste of
money by default. Don't believe me? Ask your local Dem leaders
if they consider it a good use of tax dollars.

They'll say:

Transit is supposed to be cheap and unobtrusive, a mitigation cost
to benefit people who can't be forced to drive (as numerous Dems
have suggested be made a requirement for illegal immigrants, since
"too many of them walk in areas that are unsafe" and can't afford
to live in the affected areas.

Not an alternative to highway program.

[Kazak]

1. Yeah, we need to get on that...

We could have the entire country interconnected. What's the problem?

[Leopolds Ghost]

3. The problem is: Kerry was from Boston. Obama's from Chicago.

Completely different attitudes toward (or should I say against) mass transit use in Chicago.

The only system that has actually contracted in the 90s.

DC's Metro carries more people than Chicago's L, which is twice as large and serves a city
5 times as large. That should tell you something.

Boston carries more people than Chicago I think. It's close, at least. Boston is tiny.

Did I mention DC Metro, which is run by elected Dems (local pols run it directly, they
sit on the board) just voted to ELIMINATE PAPER BUS TRANSFERS for poor transit riders?

They want to "encourage use of their smart card technology". Smart cards cost $5 each
(for an empty card) and are primarily designed for drivers using the HOV/tollway system.

People paying cash to ride the bus will be forced to pay double or quadruple fare
(full fare for each bus they get on) and homeless people will be excluded entirely.

[Critters2]

56. Chicago's transit system sucks. I moved to Chicago from Boston,

and was shocked at what a crappy system a city that size has. Chicagoans will now all chime in, telling us it's a great system, because they've never seen a well-run, efficient, rider-friendly system. But compared to Boston, it would have to improve considerably to be called amatuerish. And unlike New England, once you get out of the city center you MUST have a car to get around. Downstate Illinois has no public transit--nor private, for that matter. No Amtrak, not even Greyhound or Trailways in most of the state. Obama comes from a culture that assumes everyone has a car. I fear his infrastructure plans will reflect that.

[sandnsea]

2. See the Kerry-Spector High Speed Rail Bill

I don't know if this is stupidity or endless partisanship. Either way, it's going to be our undoing.

[YOY]

5. Something stupid about HSR?

n/t

[sandnsea]

6. No, the NYTimes article

How do people get away with writing a whole article about the lack of a program, when the program has absolutely been introduced. Stupid or hyper partisanship, don't know which. But it's got to stop. And the partisanship hits from the far left just as often as from the right, and just because it's from the far left that doesn't automatically make it correct.

[Leopolds Ghost]

10. I am far left? And what the fuck does HSR have to do with transit?

Study up on the subject. The two have nothing in common and are not considered as such
legislatively or by urban planners.

HSR is also completely useless if it is not combined with a realistic mass transit program

(INCLUDING rapid rail, such as subway or elevated construction in cities like Cincinnati
and Kansas City and the suburbs of major metropolitan areas.)

HSR will not fund that program. Blue Dog Dems oppose that program, in fact. They want
HSR to serve park and rides.

And you are center-left, I take it?

[sandnsea]

17. Did you write the article?

What does rail have to do with transit? That is honestly such a stupid remark that I can't even respond to it. I am so sick of complainers.

[Leopolds Ghost]

23. You honestly don't have a clue about the subject? Intercity rail has little to do with mass transit

Read up on the subject. If you join an urban transit policy forum and wish to talk about intercity rail or vice versa, your post will be declared off-topic and moved to the appropriate forum. Just as Israel/Palestine discussion has little or nothing to do with the war in Iraq. Just because they are "both rail" or "both in the middle east" doesn't mean they have anything to do with each other. HSR is NOT a form of mass transit! If you were involved in the planning debate you would know this.

(the planning "debate" is a debate over whether to re-legalize urban zoning practices, not forcing suburbanites like yourself to live in those areas. And as for "leftists" asking you to spend money on rapid transit, how much money are you willing to spend on more 8-lane highways? Per-user basis and spend 1% on transit since only 1% of our existing capacity is transit infrastructure?)

And yes, I wrote the OP. The NYT link is a link to the article on Obama's stimulus proposal with its money for highways and no money for mass transit.
The SPENDING LIMITS ON MASS TRANSIT AT THE FTA WILL REMAIN IN PLACE.

Again, HSR is intercity rail, not a form of mass transit. Airlines aren't a form of mass transit either. Neither are those shuttles you get on at the airport.

[sandnsea]

34. I'm referring to the NY Times article

wherein somebody gets paid to write that there is no plan for mass transit when there clearly is. When you write a bill that MUST get passed immediately, you don't include items that are long term or in any way controversial. Just because transit, local or otherwise, isn't in the stimulus proposal, it doesn't mean that it hasn't been introduced elsewhere. It's STUPID to say so.

[Leopolds Ghost]

43. i think stimulus plans that call for $800 billion before a plan is in place are what's stupid.

They are a blatant invitation to graft and exploitation by the haves who already have access to federal money. Including all the slimeballs who already know how to get federal funding for stuff that we've been doing all along that hasn't worked. And many of those slimeballs oppose other people getting the money (programs for the poor, for instance, or spending more money on local transit, or eliminating mountaintop removal instead of investing in it, or what have you.)

And if you give them the money with no strings, the local politicians will just invest in the same money-losing boondoggles they've supported all along. They oppose real transit.

[Leopolds Ghost]

46. Let's put it a different way: Obama can't fund something local Dems oppose

If local Dems vote to actually prevent a local rapid transit line from being built, or vote to spend the money on highways and insist that less than $2 billion in (inflated) dollars be spent on transit because anything more would be a "waste of money" and not incidentally cut into state highway funding (which has been on relentless decline due to demand destruction in the gas price market -- so much for highways being more profitable than transit!)

Then Obama can only fund what local leaders want.

And the liberal urban planning crowd is even worse. They view rapid rail as a failure. They want to go back to streetcar systems. Even the Houston streetcar is a ridiculous, poorly engineered and slow-moving boondoggle, and that's in a city where light rail actually make sense. The liberal urban planners love it. The slower the better (that is the thinking; the primary objective is to raise property values along the line.)

[YOY]

11. I don't see Kucinich. I see Kerry.

Not far left at all.

[sandnsea]

19. Did Kerry write the article?

I'm talking about the fuckwit who wrote the article.

[Leopolds Ghost]

25. Thanks for the insult to the OP (me)

[sandnsea]

31. You write for the NY Times?

If you really did write the article, congratulations for the terrific job - but the insult stands.

If you don't write for the NY Times, then you weren't insulted.

[Leopolds Ghost]

7. What is? Could you tell us more? I know Kerry's a supporter of mass transit

I used to get all the news about this on misc.transit until I threw up my hands in frustration at the hostility expressed by "mainstream Democrats" towards rail, and the hostility specifically expressed by liberal urban planners towards rapid transit, i.e. subways and elevated rail (I've been studying and working in the field, I know.)

You can put a rail line in a tunnel or elevated only if you call it "light rail" which is ironic because light rail cars are heavier, slower, much smaller (10x less capacity) and cheaper than rapid rail (cheaper being the operative word) and many of them require catenary (unless you turn it into a streetcar in which case it usually travels at 17 mph.)

Streetcars are good for older urban centers where you want what is essentially a permanent bus circulator. They are also good for VERY low density suburbs such as a boulevard out on the edge of Houston or LA (but only if the speed is up -- no crappy twists and turns -- and only if no transfers are involved -- the light rail transfer penalty -- the number of people willing to transfer to a non-seamless light rail connection -- is dismally low.)

[babylonsister]

4. So what's this?

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=389&topic_id=4532603

[Leopolds Ghost]

13. Has nothing to do with rapid transit. Study the subject

"Rapid rail mass transit" has a specific definition. "Urban rail" (light or heavy) is specific. HSR has nothing to do with either.

Most of the cities most easily served by the most advanced forms of HSR are actually transit hostile (Orlando) and HSR will do nothing to advance a transit agenda in those cities since local and national Dems are opposed to a realistic urban and suburban mass transit program. They have voted down the existing major, major projects in the bluest parts of America.

Even if Obama supported mass transit (he has not mentioned it once, it seems to be an effort to steer clear of anything resembling the Great Society lest he be percieved as pro-inner city poor people) he cannot fund it because you can't fund projects that local elected Dems no longer support, or want to de-fund to pay for highway projects, or actively campaigned against.

[DainBramaged]

8. There is a single major problem for new mass transit projects

be it subway, light rail, high speed rail.


Buying right of way. In the 'true' Blue states of the Northeast, it is astronomical and could take decades to just get zoning changed to allow mass transit.


Bus projects might be cool but buses aren't the problem, people are, and highways to hell are the one last remaining place where people can travel in complete privacy in the vehicle of their choice (in most instances) and take the family with them and NOT bother the shit out of everyone else around them (think screaming babies on a coast to coast flight).

[sandnsea]

9. Americans would have to get used to people

and human noises and odors and language, and I don't see that happening any time soon.

[YOY]

12. Adapt or pass away.

Times change. You adapt or you drown. If you take the Amtrak Acela you would be surprised at the lack of a "smell".

Create new industries instead of relying on the old. First mover wins. Cultural bias' are meant to be overrun for the sake of advancement of society.

[Leopolds Ghost]

15. I'm a big supporter of HSR. But it has little to do with transit. It is long distance travel

The number of people who fly each day nationwide, or drive long distances, is less than the number of people who take a subway or commute in certain large cities. If HSR is a success it will do nothing to help local mass transit, people will simply drive to the remote HSR stations (think MetroPark in New York or San Jose CA or the proposed Miami HSR Terminal.) The quality of local mass transit will not be affected. Heavy mass transit benefits HSR use, not the other way around. It's like the people who think running mass transit to the airport will benefit the system. It's a pure loss leader. The number of actual airport users is dwarfed by the number of commuters in areas along the line. And the wealthy center city-to-center city commuter crowd (who are the primary beneficiaries of American-style HSR) drive to work. They have private parking in the CBD. Then they use the HSR as an alternative to the Delta Air shuttle.

[sandnsea]

21. People who become used to rail

between distances, will become more likely to use it at the local level. Demand is part of the problem.

[Leopolds Ghost]

27. Now that, I agree with.

The problem is that many of the folks who support HSR (which I support) oppose money for transit at the local level -- including Dems who say anything over $2 Billion (such as a tunnel) for transit (even in a major urban area) is a waste of money. These same Dems have no problem spending $10 billion on an elevated freeway or bridge, or on HSR (which carries fewer people than subways/rapid transit). That is not a reason to spend less on HSR (inter-city travel carries much fewer people overall than people who commute to work), but it is a reason to reconsider the taboo against Great Society-style transit programs (which many "progressive" urban planners consider boondoggles).

There are frankly plenty of people willing to use high speed rail (think Acela) who would never set foot on a local transit system -- and the cheaper forms of mass transit currently being advocated are even more segregated and strictly geared to getting "non-choice" riders out of buses.

[DainBramaged]

16. You miss the point. NO ONE will Adapt or drown, just resist harder

When my beautiful Daughter was very young, at least once every month, we would hop on NJ Transit to the Path and go to the Village in NYC to have brunch or just to take her and expose her to the kaleidoscope of people in the Village. As she grew older and we gained friends there, we would LET HER GO IN alone or with her friends knowing our friends would meet her so she could go shopping or go to concerts. She is a better person for it. But now that she drives, she refuses to go on the trains and Path tube. Why? She drives in her own bubble, no noise, no smells, no hassles, her music, her car, her schedule.


America, we are a mobile society. Blame Eisenhower for it.

[YOY]

24. I disagree. They will adapt. Just as the Europeans have and the Asians.

But comparing public transit in NYC to that of everywhere is not fair. NYC has an, albeit useful, filthy mass transit system. Perhaps it is underfunded or mismanaged but truly comparing this and other systems is unfair.

Because if they resist, the inconveniences and financial amounts will increase over time while the better financial option of mass transit will continually look better.

[DainBramaged]

29. But did I do the right thing with my kid or what?

:hi:

[YOY]

32. Yes I'd say you did!

But I think if things continue toward the future as I anticipate she will come back to rail and away from her car. The price and convenience of it will increase as will the tech improvements that allow folks to sit and do a crossword puzzle as I do every morning on my commute.

It's really quite pleasant and I gas up once a month as we really only drive to the grocery store.

[Leopolds Ghost]

33. The main problem with NYT as an example is people use it to beat the head as an exception.

New York is so much bigger than any other US traditional urban center that people (INCLUDING New Yorkers) use it to beat over the head with, saying it's an exception and that solutions that work in NY won't work anywhere else.

Some NYers and urban planners on the East Coast even use this to say that NY is the only city that needs significant transit funding because "Transit makes sense there. You want Kansas City to look like Manhattan? No? Then don't build a subway in Kansas City."

When other places like Europe or the few cities in US with decent transit are used to disprove this, people respond with a combination of disdain ("yeah, but those places are nothing like NY") and declaring those places to be exceptional, too ("yeah, but they HAD TO SPEND HUGE SUMS of money to extend transit into LOW DENSITY AREAS and Americans don't want that!") So we keep it illegal, like pot.

[Selatius]

36. Extending fast, safe, efficient mass transit into low density areas will be expensive.

However, I wouldn't say that is a bad thing. A WPA-style program that did such a thing would generate tens of thousands of new jobs in the process. You'd need engineers to design the new trains. You need manufacturing workers to push out the steel, and you need service workers and conductors to run the trains and provide service. In short, lots of new jobs.

It would help to alleviate the rising unemployment in the US, especially in hard-hit states like Michigan and other "rust belt" states.

[Leopolds Ghost]

42. Here in MD, the most liberal delegates just said that folks who wanted to spend more money on transt

"were ignorant of the federal budget and the financial crisis we're in" and declared that we need to spend as little money on transit as possible. They are defunding mass transit programs (all of them) to pay for an 8-lane highway through the most liberal congressional district in the US (and there is no objection from the liberals.)

[Selatius]

45. Is it me? Or did the US lose the stomach for thinking big?

There is a saying that it is impossible to get a person to understand something if his paycheck depends on him not understanding it. Common sense went out the window in Washington a long time ago. That's why outsiders are needed to think "outside the box" here.

Most sane people don't want this in their backyard:

[JackRiddler]

44. If I took the Amtrak Acela, which I'd love to do on a regular trip I take...

I would be un-surprised at my complete impoverishment. That ticket reflects the full cost of the infrastructure plus interest on bonds probably dating back to the 19th C., something that can't be said of car sticker prices or the price of a gallon of gas.

So it's an extra hour plus on NJTransit and SEPTA from NY to Philly. Or I should stop being an un-American deadbeat and indenture myself to the planet's dominant species, the personal car.

[Leopolds Ghost]

47. And that's another problem I was hinting at, the urban planning focus on affluent mobility

If the primary goal is beautification and taking just enough cars off the roads to get in under the adequate public facilities cap (which require a certain amount of car infrastructure in place before anything gets built) and allow them a loophole to tear down older areas and erect condos, while urban development in the areas where the planners actually live continues to remain illegal to maintain the bosky serenity of their 8-lane interchanges, if real estate development of older areas is the primary goal of transit (as some urban planners openly state) then we have a problem.

[DainBramaged]

14. That is the biggest drawback to true mass transit outside of cities

[Leopolds Ghost]

18. That is also an argument against HSR or air travel. Also, why outside of cities?

Suburban mass transit is needed. Is there some sort of demographic barrier between urban dwellers and suburban dwellers that different sort of infrastructure is needed to serve different populations? I don't believe that. Why should urban centers be strangled by surrounding areas maintaining anti-urban policies designed to keep out transit and prevent the construction of multifamily housing (to artificially inflate metropolitan real estate, the only tangible growth industry in the US before the crash?)

[Selatius]

20. See, I disagree with the notion that mass transit has to be noisy, messy, smelly, and unpleasant.

The French mass transit system is one example the US could emulate. Its trains are spacious, well-maintained, and clean inside, and food is served on longer trips. It's an experience not too far removed from flying on a jetliner.

[sandnsea]

22. Read some of the airline threads

People get upset when they have to sit next to a fat person or a crying baby. That's what I'm referring to. For people to put up with that every day, there would have to be a pretty big incentive, or a massive change in how we interact with each other. Mind you, I find the complaints disgusting for the most part, except that one time I had to sit next to a falling down drunk, but it is part of the problem in expanding mass transit.

[Selatius]

28. I guess it's a learned cultural standard, but it can be unlearned.

It would be wise if the US invested in bullet trains and caught up with the rest of the industrialized world. Otherwise, geopolitical realities and the depletion of fossil fuels could impose a much harsher transition that could've been avoided.

[sandnsea]

35. Agree

But usually a problem has to be faced before it can be changed. There might even have to be some kind of promotion like there is with changing eating habits, etc.

[Selatius]

38. Unfortunately, it appears nothing is done until after there is a body count.

I say that there doesn't have to be. I don't want to see the US involved in another bloody guerrilla war in the Middle East 20 or 30 years from now because people forgot what war was really like. We used to have such vision for thinking big. What happened to that country I knew?

[Joe Chi Minh]

26. A great shame.

[Edweird]

30. Well, it's good to see somebody else stand up for American construction workers.

It seems like I'm the only one sometimes....

[Leopolds Ghost]

39. if they combine public works with braceros, it will benefit neither immigrants nor US jobs

It will just lead to renewed and increasingly desperate efforts by the major construction firms to lure Guatemalans to the US with promises that the economy isn't as bad as they think. Once they get to the US, they will be tagged and bagged as "legalized" visa workers with tracking cards (illegal immigrants who submit to the program will be treated like parolees, essentially -- a test run for the new society?) and a guaranteed below-minimum wage salary and if they complain they'll be shipped home. That and a union-breaking bailout of the Big Three will probably be the death of the union movement. US citizens will not be even interviewed for construction work because the jobs will be legally reserved for low-wage workers -- if you offer below minimum wage you can't legally employ US citizens.

[Truth2Tell]

37. Thanks for the important thread Ghost!

Recommended.

[depakid]

40. I don't know about the rest of the nation, but Oregon manages to get federal funding

for public transportation, and has new commuter lines, light rail, bridge expansions and street car projects in the works.

http://trimet.org/projects/index.htm

Now, if only Seattle could get its act together....

[Leopolds Ghost]

49. It seems to be learned helplessness. Not unlike the attitude of our leaders in general, I might add

"We can't ask for enough money to build it properly, they might cancel the project!"

People actually said this about the Dulles rail link, one of the biggest
public works projects in the nation that all sides actually support.

Instead, they talk about retrofitting stuff down the line after it is "proven to be a success".

Everything in America has to be justified by market capitalization and return on investment,
that is why. Even the corporations insist on it. There was an article in the Post by a
prominent Harvard economist "explaining" that the Big Three need to think small in order
to be a success. He stated that all the big ideas of the past 30 years were the result of
corporations "batting for singles and not taking big risks." Throw shit on the wall and
see what sticks -- in other words, creative types are losers, the marketing guys are in control.

[depakid]

53. It's amazing that planners don't include rail links to the airports

BART didn't originally go to SFO- you had to tale a bus around.

Same with MAX in Portland. The city solved that problem by swapping some land to Bechtel- who built the spur line in a matter of months (compared with years it would have taken to get it done via the usual processes). Let me tell you. it's a joy to be able to hop onto the light rail and get on a plane- particularly during peak trafic hours.

Interestingly, the process around Portland has gotten more efficient. The new transit mall and light rail/streetcar lines have been built on or ahead of schedule- and within budgets.

Goes to show that with proper planning and management in place, transportation projects don't have to be slow or wasteful.

[Selatius]

41. Why can't we do something like this?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CB6tgKT-u1Q&NR=1

[AZBlue]

48. I don't know all the ins and outs about public transportation, but shouldn't the local area & state

pay for it, not the federal government?

[Leopolds Ghost]

51. My point is that local and state refuse to support it even if their share of the funds is small.

You can't build a transit line if the local Dems oppose it. Republican opposition is usually but not always a given.

Sometimes the local Dems oppose it even if the local Repubs support it, on the basis that "it won't get funded" by our neoconservative federal transit policies.

the only organized groups I hear out there actually pushing for more and better transit (not just streetcars) are the Coalition for Smarter Growth and a few REPUBLICAN think tanks that are pro-transit.

The major Dem think tanks are allied with Bechtel et al, who oppose spending more money on (non-proprietary) traditional rapid transit. They want more starter systems, more boutique systems, more money for the consultants and real estate developers.

Sure, the green groups are pro-transit, but they are explicitly non-specific because they don't want to alienate the NIMBY set (many, many suburban environmentalists believe transit investment should be strictly spent only on inner-city areas, which is good for nobody because it doesn't allow inner city residents access to suburban jobs and it prices them out of their home.)

All the local Dems want to talk about is streetcars and gentrification. When you try to talk about moving more people, they declare it can't be done, or assert that baby steps are essential. Basically, they need the local transport dollars to pay for highways.

[AZBlue]

54. We're finally getting light rail here in the Phoenix area and it came about through

citizen involvement. An initiative on the 2004 ballot led to the rail that's about to open today. I think voter involvement will be necessary, whether it's to put pressure on the elected officials or to take matters into their own hands. Obviously a transit corporation was behind the initial idea here but voters took it to heart and really championed it. It's now expanding into other local cities (and even being blocked by some in certain local cities including mine - but that's a different rant, LOL).

[shanti]

50. the high speed rail bill passed in cali

:shrug:

[Leopolds Ghost]

52. HSR is a lone bright spot on the horizon. Trouble is, with declining transit support at local level

The HSR will be a string of park-and-rides like you have with the BART system.

[shanti]

55. it has to be better than the current system

of buses and trains. geez, if i wanted to ride a bus, i'd take the bus to begin with! it would awesome to be able to take a train directly from sacramento to LA in 1.5 hours!