The Best Of Both Worlds

Yesterday, I put up a post defending spending on transit as a warning to my Utah neighbors not to develop "ridership" myopia when it comes to deciding whether or not to continue spending on FrontRunner. Today I would like to direct the discussion back toward my former Minneapolis neighbors and discuss why their "transit only" myopia of today is not good thinking. The lesson comes courtesy of Mr. Lane Beattie who is the President and CEO of the Salt Lake Chamber (HT Utah Policy Daily).

You may have seen the TV commercial in which a motor oil company searches for the worst commute in America. It won’t surprise AJC readers that one of the featured commuters is trying to drive to Atlanta.

Had we not taken action a few years ago, it would have been equally appropriate to feature Salt Lake City.

By their nature, transportation and transit issues cannot be solved by an individual city or county government. The problems are too large and the scope of influence too wide. The cooperation of city, county and even state government is essential to creating a solution.

Emphasis mine. This is a lesson that my friends on the right AND the left must learn. The state Legislature can not dictate and the county can not say "keep your hands off". They need to be able to work on the solution that fits their regional needs best. If that best is commuter rail, then St. Paul you need to allow the discussion into commuter rail!

In Utah, a big part of our success stems from our ability to present a holistic solution including both roads and transit. Any time we found ourselves getting too far in one camp or the other, the going got rough. The best policy is to acknowledge and advocate the need for both modes.

Diversity of transit options was pretty much the gist of my post yesterday. Offering a diverse choice of transit options WORKS! See Europe, New York City, Chicago, Boston and a whole host of other cities.

I call a “roads-only” focus a “rear-view mirror mentality”; it misses the trends happening right before our eyes. The flip side is a “transit-only” focus, which I consider a “pie-in-the-sky mentality.” Get over it: Most people will never let go of the freedom, comfort and convenience of the automobile.

Focusing on one or the other is like asking which is more important, the gas pedal or the brake. You’ve got to have both.

This point can not be stressed enough! YOU HAVE TO HAVE BOTH!

Over the next 21 years the population of Utah is expected to increase by 56 percent, according to the Census Bureau. There is no time to relax or declare our problem solved. We’ve gotten ahead of the curve and must work to stay ahead.

This is where the Met Council really put the Minneapolis Metro area in the bind it is in today. Rather than focus on tranist issues when the metro was growing, it focused on maximizing green space, which while important was the sole myopic view of the Met Council to the exclusion of everything else and that IS bad.

Because we faced our transportation challenges head on, worked together and kept the big picture in mind, we avoided the oncoming catastrophe of crippling gridlock at the Crossroads of the West.

Alleviating traffic issues has increased efficiency for businesses, keeping many from downsizing during difficult times. Funding road and rail projects puts thousands of Utahans to work and stimulates our economy. It’s one reason Utah has fared far better than the rest of the nation during the current economic downturn.

And this (along with a well run state that does not tax it's businesses out of existence) is why Utah was one of the last states to enter the recession and it will be one of the first out! The "Happy to Pay For A Better Minnesota" can mewl all they want about the "quality of life" in Minnesota, but when people can not afford to live there because all the jobs are gone, you have no quality of life! Balance is the key and while not perfectly there, Utah has certainly tried to come close. It is a lesson that Minnesota lawmakers need to learn real fast if they want to turn the economy around and have a real "quality of life".

A Conservative's Defense of Mass Transit

Fox 13 did an interesting little story about the falling ridership numbers of FrontRunner. For my Minnesota readers - FrontRunner is the local commuter rail line that runs from North of Ogden to Downtown Salt Lake City. Once downtown, a commuter can hook up with either the UTA Trax (lightrail) or the buses...but I digress. The gist of the Fox 13 story was the pros and cons of continuing to build additional lines when ridership of the North line is not what was projected. The money quote (for many) was when they quoted a local economist who said that it did not make sense to continue building rail lines at a time when the demand was not there for it. However, perhaps I can give you a couple of reasons why building now, in spite of low ridership, is preferable to waiting for 20-30 years (as the Minneapolis Metro area did) to build.

Take, for example, my old home town of Chicago. I won't go into a detailed history, but I will say that the rail corridors that Metra uses today (as well as the tracks for the "L") were built long before the city and the suburbs were where they are so that there was no need to condemn properties in order to make room for the trains. In fact - many of the suburbs around Chicago (like Wheaton and Glen Ellyn) were actually built up AROUND the Metra station! Ridership did drop in the 1960's and 1970's but it has gone back up and is back at a point (now that the Northern Illinois area has become a nightmare for drivers) where it is actually faster to commute into Chicago via train than it is to drive. Contrast that to the Minneapolis/St. Paul metro area. Rather than incorporate the old trolley lines (as many metro areas did when they phased out trolleys) into a newer train system (the pre-cursor to light rail) they ripped the rails up. Now that the pendulum has swung back the other way - Minneapolis is looking at spending many times more the amount to build new rail lines now as they would have spent maintaining the old ones all this time.

Which brings us back to Utah. I know it seems counter intuitive to continue to build the rail lines at this point in time (with ridership below projected levels) but the cost of the land and ripping up streets and the other costs of construction are never going to be any lower than they are today! Utah has one of the best balanced transit systems I have seen in this country (it is very reminiscent of the type of systems I have seen and used in Europe). While a transit system will never replace cars entirely, the fact that we have a system that gets the commuter from where they are to where they want to go relatively easily (as opposed to ANYTHING that has been proposed in Minneapolis) is key. Which is why stopping now would be a foolish waste of money.

Living The Fantasy Life

Last week, True North readers were treated to a couple of posts that were one half of the back and forth between contributor Craig Westover and Dave Mindeman of MNPACT. Politics In Minnesota carried the back and forth in their Tuesday and Wednesday editions. Today PIM carries another Dave Mindeman post - this one gloating over the fact that Scott County is facing commuter frustrations and gleefully proclaiming that they wouldn't be in this pickle if only.....

Huh. Scott County. The county who opted out of the 1/2% transit tax. Scott County.

One problem with that assumption Dave. Scott County was not in line to get anything out of the "transit tax" anyway. Even if the county had signed on to that fiasco they would still be facing this problem. The other problem that Apple Valley resident Mindeman has is the assumption that mass transit would solve rural Scott County's problems. Let me clear that up for you Dave. It won't! Light rail going from Shakopee to Minnepolis won't help the Belle Plaine resident who works in Plymouth get to work. It won't help the Prior Lake resident who works in Minnetonka get there faster. It also won't help the Savage resident who works in Eagan get their car off of the road either. Most Scott County residents work in either the first ring suburbs (Richfield, Bloomington, Eagan and Plymouth) that are not served by light rail.

Mindeman's next comment is one that needs to be exposed for the fallacy that it is....

The county that has voted in representatives who are transit opponents time after time after time. Resistance that is still there as evidenced by Rep. Mike Beard's statement:

I will get to Rep. Beard's comment shortly, but I simply have to jump in here and say flat out that Scott County's representation are HARDLY anti-transit. As a matter of fact, Rep. Beard was one of the co-sponsors (along with Rep David Bly of Northfield a DFLer) of HF 3440 that would have allowed the Met Council and the cities of Northfield and Prior Lake and Savage and Burnsvill and Lakeville to talk about the possibility of allowing a commuter rail corridor to be built on existing tracks through their communities....a bill that was sponsored in the Senate by Sen. Claire Robling of Scott County and Sen. Kevin Dahle of Northfield. The bill was defeated in both conference by Hennepin County legislators (Republican and Democrat). While Senator Robling was (at the time) still torn on the need for commuter rail she was at least willing to talk about it - unlike her Hennepin County colleagues!

Now to the apparently egregious remark made by Rep. Beard.

"I don't want the transit people to run away with this, and undermine our chances to get another lane of traffic," said Republican Rep. Mike Beard.

Let's take a quick look at the context for that comment as provided by the Star Tribune....context that Mr. Mindeman conveniently left out of his screed.

But there also is high-level dissent over what Scott should do next. The Shakopee legislator who describes himself as allowing a bill for transit planning for the county to be drawn up "under my name" confesses that he worries about a heightened emphasis on transit.

"I don't want the transit people to run away with this, and undermine our chances to get another lane of traffic," said Republican Rep. Mike Beard.

Rep. Beard has been on of the few Minnesota legislators who has been all in favor of allowing the cities and the counties to decide FOR THEMSELVES which form of transit works best for their communities. As I mentioned before, he co-sponsored a bill that would have been a start to establishing commuter rail in the district. He has also been one of the very few in the legislature who are for a combination of transit answers - he has not been wedded to just one answer as the Hennepin and Ramsey County reps are. He "gets" the fact that there is no "one size fits all" answer to the transportation needs of the 7 county metro area.

Which leads us back to Mr. Mindeman's biggest assumption....that what works for Apple Valley or Eagan or Minneapolis will work for rural Jordan, Belle Plaine or Credit River Township. Simply put, Scott County is not nearly as developed as the northern half of Dakota County is. Any form of mass transit is only going to work for small portions of Scott County and only if that transit goes from where the people in Scott County live to where they work. For the majority of Scott County, the thing that gets people from where they are to where they need to be is ROADS. No amount of wishing and hoping and train related money is going to change that basic fact of life.

Taxing Thoughts

Some thoughts to keep in mind the next time you fill up your gas tank at almost $3.50 per gallon. The first comes from the Mayor (no - not this mayor.....a real mayor!)

Bill Dunkelberg, a professor of economics at Temple University and former dean of the Fox school of business there, periodically issues random thoughts on public policy as it relates to his arena of academic interest. His April 24 “Notes on the Economy” includes this gem regarding that Great Economic Satan, Exxon Mobil:
Some presidential candidates have decided that Exxon is a symbol of what is wrong with America. Recent ads complain of Exxon’s 40 billion in profits as if Exxon is some evil entity. First of all, Exxon is not a person, it is millions of owners owning over 5 billion shares in their investment portfolios. Vanguard holds over 160 million shares for its clients, Fidelity over 100 million shares. Taking Exxon’s profits for hair-brained government schemes will just mean millions of people will have to work longer to accumulate their retirement assets. And, doesn’t return on investment count? 40 billion may not represent a particularly good return on the capital invested in the company. Size is not the issue, the percentage return is what counts.
And the government takes over 40 cents a gallon in tax, far more than the profit per gallon made by refiners. And the government doesn’t make any gas for you.

That is something that the voters really need to take into account this November. Especially in light of the fact that by then Minnesotans will be paying another 7 cents a gallon in state sales tax thanks to this year's transportation bill.

Speaking of which, the House Republican caucus is taking out a new ad that is designed to remind voters just who is responsible for the increase.



Now I know some will say (as one caller to Jason Lewis' porogram said yesterday) that the Democrats did have some bi-partisan support in this, but hear me out. As Speaker Siefert has pointed out many times, there are 85 members in the majority. If there were not 85 members in the majority, the 6 defectors would not have made a difference! Also, the Republican Party in the districts that the 6 defectors belong to have (for the most part) given the defectors their reward....by denying them endorsement at the BPOU Conventions. They have "paid" for their votes...now it is time for the 85 to face the music and THAT is what this ad is all about.

The bottom line is that the 85 members of the majority pushed through a sales and gas tax bill that hurts the poor and those of fixed incomes THE HARDEST! The very people that they claim to want to help are the once that are suffering the most as a result of the transportation bill. It is time for the voters in this state to let the legislature know how they feel about it.

Busses, Trains and Automobiles

I have long stated (during many transportation debates over at Anti-Strib) that I have no problems with commuter rail, but have huge problems with light rail. A couple of things hit my mail box last week that are starting to change my mind altogether on rail.

The first was an email from Rep. Mark Buesgens (R-35B).

The Governor vetoed a $70 million bonding provision for a part of the $900 million Central Corridor light rail line connecting Minneapolis to St. Paul. Let us assume that the cost of the project would not grow.
Even without a government discount or a bulk discount, one can buy a 36-seat transit bus (the CTS rear engine model from Champion Bus Inc. of Imlay City, Michigan) for about $120,000.
So for the same price for the 11-mile light rail line, you could buy 7,500 buses.
These buses are 38 feet long. So the length of 7,500 buses, rolling bumper to bumper, would be 285,000 feet.
The 11-mile route of the rail line is 58,080 feet long.
So you could have five lanes of buses cramming University Avenue, bumper to bumper for the same price as the train.
Or you could have one lane of buses headed in each direction, bumper to bumper, with 4,500 buses waiting in mothballs until they were needed.
Or you could have 100 buses headed in each direction of the 50-block route, with one bus for each block. That would leave you with 7,400 buses in mothballs. With a five-year warranty on each bus, it would take you 375 years to run out of buses.

The second was this Cato Institute Report (via Drew). It thoroughly debunks the "theory" that moving to any kind of rail transit will reduce pollution.

Far from protecting the environment, most rail transit lines use more energy per passenger mile, and many generate more greenhouse gases, than the average passenger automobile. Rail transit provides no guarantee that a city will save energy or meet greenhouse gas targets.
While most rail transit uses less energy than buses, rail transit does not operate in a vacuum: transit agencies supplement it with extensive feeder bus operations. Those feeder buses tend to have low ridership, so they have high energy costs and greenhouse gas emissions per passenger mile. The result is that, when new rail transit lines open, the transit systems as a whole can end up consuming more energy, per passenger mile, than they did before.
Even where rail transit operations save a little energy, the construction of rail transit lines consumes huge amounts of energy and emits large volumes of greenhouse gases. In most cases, many decades of energy savings would be needed to repay the energy cost of construction.

There is much more - you really should read the whole thing and save it!

I'll admit my bias toward commuter rail. Until I moved here, I had lived in cities with vast commuter rail systems (Chicago and in Europe). We simply did not drive unless we had to. My complaint about light rail has always been from that bias....light rail does not go from where the people are to where they want to go (suburbs to city center) but rather it covers territory already served well by busses! I started to convert to Rep. Buesgens way of thinking only after the 35W bridge collapse when I saw just how quickly Metro Transit was able to adapt their bus routes in order to bypass the bridge and to go to those routs hardest hit by the collapse - no rail service can do that!

Today my conversion is complete. After reading this Cato report and it's in depth look at bus versus rail and after reading Rep. Buesgens email, I am fully convinced that the best, most ecologically sound way to get cars off of the road is not rail....it is the good old fashioned bus.

What The People Want...

The Star Tribune is pushing hard for the quarter cent transit tax. I know that this will surprise many of you but it is true. Yesterday, the target was Washington County.

Just weeks ago, Washington County transportation officials fumed that the county was losing ground in the metro-wide race for commuter trains and other mass transit to help relieve crowded highways.
The Metropolitan Council's long-range transit study, the county board was told, included few promises for Washington County. Don Theisen, the county's lead engineer, said that the county was falling victim to a west-metro bias despite growing evidence that huge numbers of commuters were funneling through Washington County into St. Paul and Minneapolis.
But now Washington County, like the six other metro counties, is furiously computing the advantages of imposing a quarter-cent sales tax authorized by a new Minnesota transportation bill. While commissioners must first vote whether to impose the tax, Theisen said the county is suddenly in a better position to join the regional transit picture.

They even interview several helpful residents of Washington County, asking them what their transit desires are....

...those who attended the Forest Lake forum said they love the new bus line to downtown Minneapolis and now they want express bus service to downtown St. Paul,
Rogers said.
Joan Nicolai was one of about 13 people who attended last week's transit forum in Woodbury. She takes the express bus from Woodbury, where she lives, to her job in downtown St. Paul...

Notice what they asked for...BUSES...not trains.

In the days following the collapse of the 35W bridge I argued (with commenters over at Anti-Strib) that more buses were the answer because bus routes are flexible and the go from where the people are to where they need to go! If a light rail track is blocked due to road construction or a fire, the rail line is closed. If a bus line is blocked for those reasons, it can be detoured around the blockage! It is cheaper to operate than light rail or commuter rail and people use it. Try getting parking at any of the Park and Ride lots after 7:30 am and you will know what I mean. Shoot - when I lived in Chicago and Europe, I only drove if I was going somewhere the trains didn't go. If I had the option between taking a bus or a train to get to my destination and my schedule was flexible enough to make it work, I took transit! I really hate to drive in traffic!

Transit can indeed be a useful tool. However, here in Minnesota rail is not (light or commuter) is not practical. Trying to build commuter rail now would cost way too much money just to acquire the land necessary to build it. We need more buses to solve our transit needs. It really is the most efficient way to get the job done.

Representative Leadership

Logical Lady Sue Jeffers reports...

I stopped by the SD 41 endorsement convention to drop off some literature and ended up staying for the fun. The 308 people who showed up, read that part again, the 308 people who showed up had one thing on their mind, representative leadership.

Representative leadership has been missing for a long time in this district. One so called representative had been around almost 18 years, since 1990. Almost two decades of incompetence and ignorance of what was important to the people in this district. Almost two decades of telling his district they trend blue. No Ron, they don’t.

Taped to the chair backs was a lit piece that included endorsements and recognitions from the Sierra Club, the Transportation Alliance, AFSCME, MAPE, and the GOP Feminist Caucus (what IS that?). He proudly proclaimed support from the League of MN Cities, the Suburban Transit Association, the Coalition of Greater MN Cities, the MN Public Transit Association and the MN Transportation Alliance (LL notes - the same MN Transportation Alliance whose president - Doug Zila - is the DFL endorsed candidate for HD 35A...Correction - Zila was not endorsed this weekend - he just ran for endorsement LL).

Signs posted around the auditorium included Commuters Go for Erhardt, Drivers for Erhardt, Ron Builds Bridges. Another list of supporters included Jim Ramstad, Neil Peterson, Marty Seifert, Randy Johnson, Al Quie and Arne Carlson.

The signs and all the mainstream media present…well for a minute there I thought I was at a
DFL convention. I too will be waiting for Lori Sturdevant’s column; my elation may have gotten the better of me and I may have been a bit uncharitable to the RINO’s and the few RINO supporters there. OK, I was and I am not really very sorry.

Thank you SD 41 for decisively endorsing candidates who believe in limited government, lower taxes and fees, life, liberty and property rights. Thank you for soundly standing up for values and principles. Thank you for endorsing candidates who can actually articulate a winning message to all voters in your district. Thank you for showing up.

We know there is a lot of hard work ahead. We know there are lots of opportunities to help these candidates get elected. I personally pledge to help door knock for your endorsed candidates Jan Schneider and Keith Downey. Many of my new friends from the guest section are going to help too. A clear message, great conservative candidates, hard work is exactly the combination needed for conservatives to win.

A perfect example of the DFL, RINO assisted, incompetence was the transportation override vote, we have 89 more seats to target. Thank you SD 41, let’s get busy!

PS Neil Peterson deserves a bonus point for addressing his vote for the override in his opening remarks. I will not be sad to see both men go away, I only hope both have the grace and sense to go away quietly.

Translating Political Language into English for the Common Folk

From Logical Lady Sue Jeffers

In the land of ten thousand taxes and fees, left-leaning legislators of both major political parties govern us. Minnesota consistently ranks among the highest taxed states in the nation. The business climate and job and housing markets look bleak. Government expansion, regulation and intrusion are reaching a breaking point.

For the most part, Minnesotans go ahead with their daily lives blissfully unaware of the grisly details of government’s operation, with only a vague notion of the larger situation based on sound-bites from the nightly local newscast.

This legislative session, the big issue is transportation. “Transportation” is has become a buzzword, and a dangerous one at that. For most of us, transportation is an automobile, so when we hear government officials talking about transportation, naturally, we think of congestion, roads and bridges. Bridge safety is a powerful new concern in the public consciousness that easily comes to mind when transportation issues are mentioned.

When politicians hear and use the word transportation they do not mean roads and bridges. They use transportation as a catchall term, often used by design, to obfuscate the truth.

Furthering the obfuscation this legislative session will come in the form of diversions like, who takes the blame for the bridge collapse; firing the DOT commissioner; compensation for the bridge survivors and is the NTSB credible. Knowing there’s a great big pile of money at stake, all interested parties are queuing up to get their piece of the government pie.

While it is important to understand the problem, diversions and possible solutions, it is even more crucial that we understand the terminology. Let’s start by clarifying words that politician’s use and what these words really mean.

“Transportation”- They really mean light and heavy rail transit, buildings (like a bicycle station with public showers for dirty cyclists, for example), bike paths, nature trails, buses and then, if there are any scraps left over, roads and bridges.

“Comprehensive transportation package” - This definitely doesn’t mean roads. This means even more money spent on light and heavy rail and various transit buildings instead of roads and bridges. Whenever you hear “comprehensive” and “package” coupled together with any other word or phrase, there is also a plan to raise taxes bundled into that “package.”

“Maintain fiscal discipline” – This means 8-10% spending increases for the state budget, when inflation is around 2% and taxpayers are seeing less and less real return for their work. Only in government is this called fiscal discipline.

“Appropriate levels of funding” – See above. Yes it is yet another way to say “tax increase.” We will never hear how much is “enough” because there will never be enough, they will always need more.

“Reasonable gas tax increase” – This can not exist without spending reform and accountability first. Any gas tax increase is regressive and hurts families and small businesses the hardest. Ironically it doesn’t matter that 57% of the public does not support a gas tax. What they mean by “reasonable” is the highest amount they could get away with at the moment.

“Multi-modal system” – I so love it when we come up with fancy new terms. Translation: trains, trams, trolleys, light and heavy rail transit. Maybe a bike path. Roads and bridges are definitely not the priority when this kind of language is used.

“Revenue Raiser” – Easy one (and also a Democrat favorite) This is just a fancy way to say “tax increase.”

“Real money” – This one is my favorite. Minnesota has a general fund budget of $34.5 billion. That is just the starting point, our legislators spend much more on top of that. This is apparently not “real money” to them. Real money really means a tax increase.

“Quality of life issue” – Politicians love feel-good words. This one is often used to justify - you guessed it - tax increases. More of our “real money” can then be wasted on solutions we already know won’t solve the problems of congestion and safety.

“Bipartisan agreement” – Hold onto your wallets! This means that all sides agree on the plan to best stick it to the general public and they now have even more of our money to waste on the latest boondoggle.

The outrageously expensive transportation legislation of 2007 that included a metro-wide sales tax increase, a gas tax increase, and a “wheelage” tax (translation: a new tax on your vehicle, “just because”) and a license tab fee increase. It will be reincarnated bigger and more expensive in the 2008 version.

The general public is about to be inundated with a PR campaign pushing costly, wasteful and unproductive non-solutions. Of course, they won’t call it that. They’ll call it “A bipartisan plan for improving our quality of life through a comprehensive transportation package that maintains fiscal discipline and raises revenue with a reasonable gas tax so our multi-modal transportation system is appropriately funded.”

Translation: Big Tax Increases coming in 2008. Congestion and road and bridge safety will continue to deteriorate.