conservative theory
Tolling
Remember that federal grant that Seattle received last summer to study tolling on 520? The Washington Post has a story on the program behind it, which is part of a larger effort on the part of the Bush Administration to privatize roads:
When Democrats took control of Congress and stripped most earmarks from last year's federal budget, Peters took $850 million that would have been shipped to hundreds of municipalities and poured it into Urban Partnerships, a pilot program awarded to five cities on the condition that they test congestion pricing.
The focus on toll roads alarmed the transit industry, which argues that public transportation is the best way to fight gridlock in cities. Industry leaders say the DOT has made it increasingly difficult for expensive rail projects to qualify for federal dollars. The number of major new rail and bus projects on track for federal funding dropped from 48 in 2001 to 17 in 2007, even as transit ridership hit a 50-year high last year and demand for new service is soaring.
William Millar, who heads the American Public Transportation Association, says he set up three appointments with Duvall to try to influence how the Urban Partnership money would be spent, but each was cancelled. "They just see no role for transit," Millar said.
I think congestion pricing of some sort is inevitable, and probably a good idea in the long run, but we have to keep in mind that once you've moved to a tax-supported infrastructure to a fee-supported infrastructure, the next logical step can be to privatize the whole darn thing. This is one reason why environmentalists oppose use fees for parks: once you've created a consistent revenue stream, sooner or later it makes sense to let the Mariott Corporation, say, come in to run Yellowstone and collect the fees.
In other words, we need to tread carefully here. That's not to say that tolls are impossible. After all, highways on the East Coast have been tolled for decades and have still stayed within public ownership. But beware the words "public-private parntership," which can often lead to a whole lot of public funds going to enrich private companies with little emphasis on what the public's getting in return. But don't take my word for it, listen to the GAO:
Public distrust of privatization, however, remains high. Republicans lost control of the Indiana state legislature in 2006 partly because of controversy over the governor's lease of a public highway to Macquarie. Political opposition has also forced governors in New Jersey and Pennsylvania to suspend plans to lease roads. Texas lawmakers put a two-year freeze on the governor's strategy to privatize a 4,000-mile network of tolled highways.
Last month, the Government Accountability Office warned that tolls on privatized roads are typically higher than if the roads remain under public control, because of the need to generate steady profits for private investors. The report said the federal government needs to better protect the public interest.
"This is all about making money," said Frank Busalacchi, the Wisconsin transportation secretary and a member of a congressionally chartered commission that last year studied transportation funding and supported raising the gas tax. "The financiers, bankers, people coming in -- the foreign dollars coming in and buying infrastructure in this country that American people put down."
Transit and Conservatism
Conservatives and libertarians' arguments against transit boil down to three categories.
1) "No More Taxes"
2) "We Should Spend it on Roads"
3) "Transit is Socialism"
I can't say much about the first argument. If you sincerely believe that taxes in and of themselves are always bad, and if you're willing to trade off more and better public services for lower taxes (thus ignoring a fundamental finding of neo-classical economics -- that public goods such as roads, police, and schools will always be underprovided absent a government to provide them), well, then, there's not much I can say to you. Congratulations on your good fortune ... it's not many people who can afford private armies with which to conduct their own personal foreign policies, and fewer still who can pave their own private roads to get to and from work. So, good luck to you, sirs and madams; you are truly fortunate.
The second argument was highlighted in an op-ed in yesterday's Seattle Times (read Frank's rebuttal). As Frank points out, there are hidden costs inherent in roads. In formal economic terms, some of these costs are "externalities", i.e., the source of the cost (say, the air pollution from car exhaust), is spread equally among all people who breathe the air. Thus, the driver of any single polluting vehicle bears little of the total cost of this pollution, and so has an incentive to pollute. Use taxes on vehicles -- such as license tabs, gas taxes, tolls, etc. -- can help mitigate some of these impacts, but the truth is that in the United States we generally do a poor job of forcing drivers to bear the total costs of their activities.
In addition to such externalities, the other fallacy inherent in the "spend it on roads" argument is that road capacity is scalable linearly. It's not. Doubling theoretical capacity of a road (say, by doubling the number of lanes), does not in fact lead to a doubling in capacity (an accident that closes the highway closes the highway whether there's one lane or twenty, e.g.). Not to mention the huge footprint that roads require. Something like 10% of urban land in the U.S. is devoted to roads and parking lots ... insane, in my opinion.
Which leads me to the third argument -- "transit is socialist." The idea here is that transit, a "mass" activity, is somehow unAmerican by the fact that it requires people to congregate together in a communal activity, while cars are more in line with the individualistic nature of American life.
There're (at least) a couple of problems with this argument. No one is "forced" to use transit. Therefore anyone who chooses to ride in a car will always have that option available. But I think there's a more fundamental refutation.
Conservatism -- the libertarian kind, any way -- is about choice. It's about having the opportunity to select from among as many different methods as possible to accomplish your own personal goals. In fact, our auto-centric culture creates precisely the opposite situation -- in many cities, for most people in the most common kinds of living situations, the fact that we've underprovided transit means that people are forced -- forced! -- to use a car. This is the opposite of choice, and is absolutely in opposition to the spirit and principles of American libertarianism.
More and more thoughtful conservatives are starting to realize this, and are adding their voices to the chorus of those of us calling for increased investment in transit and transit-related infrastructure.
... my colleague William S. Lind and I have written several monographs ... making the conservative case for rail transit, including streetcars. It seems the public agrees with us because while in State after State conservatives have won ballot initiatives in many of these same States transit initiatives also have won. The libertarians have made the case that money for public transit is a waste. They want more roads. That is a form of subsidized transportation as well. But they don’t see it that way because individuals can drive. However, in city after city which has adopted light rail an overflow crowd has elected to use it as opposed to driving.
The point we try to make is that under the right circumstances rail works. No matter how fancy the bus people don’t care to ride a bus. Buses serve Manassas, Virginia, Fredericksburg, Virginia and Baltimore, Maryland. Yet competing commuter rail lines carry many more passengers than do the bus lines. That is true even though busses are in some cases more convenient. People like to ride rail.
Another member of the "neo-neo-conservative" (or, as he calls, it, the "next conservative") movement adds:
As someone who has lived and traveled extensively overseas, one thing I miss the most in the “good ol’ US of A” is a decent public transportation system. In many countries of the world, it is quite comfortable to get around without owning a car. But here, especially where I live, it is next to impossible to get by without one.
Although I appreciate the wealth and the freedom we have in this country to own cars and drive where we like, when we like, I feel we take this freedom to an extreme. Or perhaps I should say, our urban environment forces us to use cars far more often than is necessary or prudent. I don’t put the blame on any one group, person or factor. But clearly, our city planning has evolved in an environment where cars, gas and land were cheap, and public transportation seemed too costly because our cities are too spread out ...
In conclusion, I strongly believe the next conservatism should support mass transit, to conserve our precious resources, decrease urban sprawl, lower the blood pressure of every commuter who rides it, and help relieve the heavy load on many of our roads.
In short, the Seattle Times and its contributors need to get with the program and realize that even conservatives increasingly draw the conclusion -- transit works, build more.
