Did I just hear right? $250B mostly business tax breaks? Rapid Transit - Bush-approved only!

[Leopolds Ghost]

I just SPOKE to a planner here in MD who said extra money would NOT be available for transit locally under Obama's plan beyond what Bush FTA was willing to approve, so the state was lobbying to downgrade it to a 17 mph streetcar (a 10-mile long transit line thru residential neighborhoods!) because of "tough economic times". The rest of the $800 Billion will go to highway projects -- because those are Bush approved and hence "shovel ready."

The only money for transit locally will be as approved locally -- meaning the project was downgraded based on what Bush (and Clinton) were willing to fund.

Clinton's HUD and DOT began the initiative to defund subway and rapid transit and replace them with streetcars.

It is a funhouse mirror reversal of "who killed the streetcar"

(a scandal nearly forgotten by supposedly progressive urbanites
in their obsession with electric cars, despite the fact that
most US electricity comes from coal, coal is a big Blue state
constituency and yet we need to use less of it, not more.
Rapid transit, it happens, carries more people than all
US streetcar and light rail systems combined. Despite that,
supposedly progressive urban planners across America are voting
to de-fund transit projects to "save money on unnecessary tunneling".
After all, "we're in a financial crisis". We need the money
for "shovel ready" projects such as new 8-lane highways.)

Only now they are killing rapid transit in LA, Seattle, and now DC and attempting
to REPLACE it with streetcar (or poorly graft streetcar lines onto existing systems)
on the basis that proponents of rapid transit expansion are "secret opponents of
light rail, the only type of transit we can afford in this country."

Not that there is anything wrong with light rail in cities like Houston,
where it can actually get up to speed. Where they have a blank slate and
no existing rapid transit line to work with. Oops, they've downgraded that
to streetcar too. And I don't mean the cute little circulator systems
like in old European cities. I mean over long distances. 20 miles at
17 mph average with hairpin turns. Bus on rails. For appearances only.
The planners I talked to said "the purpose is to encourage transit friendly
development, even if only 10% of the residents actually use the facility."

Meanwhile the developers line the pockets of the same Blue Dog dems to
get them to build demonstration projects. Something slow and visible
that will help them sell stalled condominiums in low-income areas.

If ridership actually drops after the streetcar replaces parallel
buses due to gentrification and mandated parking requirements in
new "transit oriented development", well, that's just too goddamn bad.

Bush took over and continued the pattern. Only Kerry expressed any interest in the subject.

NO transit project, and I mean NO project was not downgraded to bus or streetcar or eliminated (and hence not "shovel ready") under Bush transportation agency. So no changes will be made because there is no funding incentive to upgrade transit.

JFK and LBJ took a PERSONAL interest in upgrading DC's rapid transit plans in the early 60s.
Gerald Ford and Reagan tried to downgrade them. Clinton and the Blue Dog dems (business
interests who now run many US cities) sided with... Ford and Reagan, allowing them to
shut down rapid transit plans in DC, LA, later Seattle.

Which side will Obama come down on? Kerry and JFK, bold new solutions?

Or Ford and Clinton -- fund only projects approved by past administrations and no new subway systems?

They came this close to killing the Dulles line, and killed any tunneling in the process -- preferring median running in downtown Tysons Corner, so turning the street it runs into a highway with no cross streets. Even the Republican business interests wanted to put it in a tunnel, but the Blue Dog Dems refused. Why? They say there is a fixed pot of money for transit in America, formulated since Reagan, and they want to use it for lots of little startup projects in their districts. And to use as streetscape money to "improve" intersections, turning them into interchanges. NOT for major rapid transit improvements. there was no support for rapid transit anywhere else -- streetcar ONLY. Because -- CHEAP. And hence fundable under Bush FTA. And hence, shovel ready.

Along with THOUSANDS of destructive highway projects approved by Bush EPA.

And not one word about rapid transit, nor subways, from the government at any level.

[JDPriestly]

1. Kicked

[leftstreet]

2. Most suburban areas have LOST transit options over the past decade

Yet current polls show that people want more transit options (non-auto) and believe it should be part of infrastructure building.

[Greyhound]

3. Tick - tock, tick - tock...

[Leopolds Ghost]

5. Not all progressives think Reagan approach (empty gov't coffers) is a good thing.

Once this $1 trillion is spent on "pre-funded, shovel ready stuff that even the Bushies support" we will be powerless to use it to repair the real damage done to the country. I am already hearing how there will be no money for rapid transit moving forward, and how Social Security will still need to be "fixed" (as if there is anything wrong with it that returning the $1 trillion stolen from the Soc Security trust fund to pay for tax breaks wouldn't fix. We could pay for it, by oh, I don't know, REPEAL the Bush tax cuts on businesses, not institute new ones.)

[Greyhound]

8. I'm holding my tongue...

It's sore and beginning to bleed...

[Leopolds Ghost]

11. Okay...

Just remember... be "green" and transit will build itself.

[sandnsea]

4. I think there may be news from the Senate

on Kerry's rail bill, was said in the Kerry forum.

Here are the tax cuts and yes there are some for business - zomg - they hire people.

Many of the tax cuts are for green upgrades.

http://www.obama-mamas.com/stimulus-tax-cuts.htm

[Leopolds Ghost]

6. The Kerry bill has nothing to do with rapid transit. The Kerry bill is HSR.

Big difference. Rapid transit expansion is "dead" according to the planners in "blue" Maryland, LA, Seattle.

HSR is not rapid transit. It's great, but has no bearing on rapid transit in cities where none such exists.

How many times must people who don't use transit on a daily basis hear this?

I know Kerry supports rapid transit, but nobody else on the Hill seems to.

They certainly oppose it at the state and county level in the big "Blue" jurisdictions.

The irony is the only people pushing for rapid transit (a form of URBAN short distance mass transit)
is business groups, who many progressives accuse of pushing rapid transit because THEY KNOW IT WON'T
GET BUILT, THEY KNOW NOBODY SUPPORTS IT so they propose it as a (more expensive, higher ridership)
alternative to the light rail systems "progressive" urban planners support. That's how little support
rapid transit has in this country.

Hell, even the light rail they are not trying to get more than 10% market share.
The systems max out on that. The only way to increase throughput is to separate
grade -- meaning rapid transit.

That is what rapid transit is -- separated grade facility.

Anyone who doesn't support separated grade transit facilities is like a branch of AAA
that opposes highway construction on the grounds that it'll disrupt the romance of
driving on country roads.

[sandnsea]

7. There is a 150+ rail

Two separate plans, 110 and 150+ that will need their own rails. But you're right, it is more to connect cities than within cities. Maybe you want to look and see what DeFazio is proposing.

It is true that this isn't a transportation bill though.

And lots of us don't live in cities. Are we suppose to walk 60 miles to ride the high speed transit?

[Leopolds Ghost]

10. Fairly, Cities are where "the people are"- amongst such systems, subways are "where the people are".

People who live in rural or exurban or small town areas already drive
and will not be negatively affected by an attempt to get a larger percentage
of people in areas wheere "the people are" out of their cars, especially
since those areas are where 90% auto usage makes the least sense.

I support light rail in Sunbelt cities and small Midwestern cities
where it is actually capable of making a difference, too.

But they're downgrading that, too. Subway plans? Build light rail!
Light rail in Texas / Florida? Build a streetcar first! Streetcar?
Build Bus Rapid Transit, which amounts to build nothing since there
is only one city in the world that has Bus Rapid Transit... That's
the decisiomaking process that led to our current "shovel ready" projects.

Once built, they will never be upgraded in our lifetimes... has Baltimore's
as originally intended? They took 20 years to make it two track, which is
like building a one-lane road instead of a six-lane highway.

I agree with you (and Kerry) wholeheartedly on the high speed intercity
rail (HSR). The irony is, most people agree on THAT, and has for quite
some time, but actually figuring out how to implement it after 50 years
of highways and suburbs is the problem -- all the available right of way
is gone. It's hard to do HSR on existing railroad tracks that are less
advanced than India's. Your guess is as good as mine.

Because tunneling and elevateds are considered aceptable for transit
(at least in other countries), lack of ROW isn't as big of an issue
for transit as it is for HSR, where tunneling and elevated is less acceptable
than it was 200 years ago. Say, how do you connect Scranton to New York
or even Allentown!

[Leopolds Ghost]

9. Keep in mind you can put streetcars in tunnels too. It works.

But if you're going to do so in A CITY WITH AN EXISTING SUBWAY SYSTEM, it makes more sense to build a subway line, unless you want to look like Philly 100 years from now.

The planners only use subways on new lines to avoid NIMBYs in wealthy areas, while leaving it above ground in areas where tunneling makes more sense. Often the transit advocates actively preach for slowing up the light rail in downtown areas to encourage people to get on and off.

The impact on throughput (the number of total riders that the facility can accomodate) is what you might expect, allowing DINO "planners" to declare success at 5% share of daily commute traffic when the 2-car trains max out on a combination of low-income riders forced off of cheaper (cancelled) bus lines and DINKs attracted to demonstration condos on top of the station itself.

Just think -- the condo developers could pay for a more heavy duty system advance.

But tunnels and elevated structures can't be sold to their shareholders. and they can't be sold to the County Council as a cap rate improvement that will increase property values (and rents) in low-income areas, which is the stated goal of all urban planning these days. Buses can't be sold as a property value enhancer either.

Subway stations of course massively increase property values, but only when transit is artificially scarce (and highways are plenty.)

But they are revenue neutral because Federal money used for all construction is counted towards the local government "profit margins" defined by increases in property values and displacement of low-income bus riders with wealthy DINKs. I.e. cap rates.

Which is the metric that will be used to define success in improving the economy. If a light rail system improves the local economy by creating a pocket of gentrification in the midst of a depression, isn't that better than "wasting" money on a major, revenue neutral, long-term investment in getting people out of cars?

[Leopolds Ghost]

12. Every time someone brings up what our money is being used for (i.e. no real transit improvements)

The thread dies.

No change to the present planning strategy laid down by Clinton (and merely inherited by Bush) means no real transit improvement.

Just greenwashing bullshit by oh-so-green astroturf groups who don't expect to see any real change in commuter behavior.

Just more highway funding and a designated small percentage of money for mass transit not to exceed a certain amount. There's a flat cieling and other mechanisms to exclude any funding for subways and other large public works projects that are not "revenue neutral" (i.e. don't pay for themselves with inflated bubble real estate).

Think on this: The business portion of those $250 billion tax breaks could be used to build a subway system in every major city in America that doesn't have one.

EVERY MAJOR CITY IN AMERICA and the people out there who pretend we all want more mass transit would insist it was a bad use of money and a ridiculous sum to spend on subway systems when "most people including me drive, so let's put the money where it'll benefit us directly, we'll be green in the future!?"