Conservatives and Mass Transit
As a fan of Rich Lowry and Ramesh Ponnuru, I was dismayed to read (in a piece that made some good points) their un-conservative and off-handed attack on mass transit:
The Left’s search for a foreign template to graft onto America grew more desperate. Why couldn’t we be more like them — like the French, like the Swedes, like the Danes? Like any people with a larger and busier government overawing the private sector and civil society? You can see it in Sicko, wherein Michael Moore extols the British national health-care system, the French way of life, and even the munificence of Cuba; you can hear it in all the admonitions from left-wing commentators that every other advanced society has government child care, or gun control, or mass transit, or whatever socialistic program or other infringement on our liberty we have had the wisdom to reject for decades.
Lowry and Ponnuru seem to believe that mass transit is a “socialistic program” and an “infringement on our liberty.” Presumably they think this because mass transit is built and administered by the government and supported, quite often, by taxes. But the exact same thing is true of highways. Would Lowry and Ponnuru denounce the Interestate system as socialistic on the same grounds?
Their casual slander also dishonors one of the recently passed heroes of the conservative movement, Paul Weyrich. Weyrich co-founded the Heritage Foundation and founded the Free Congress Foundation. Lowry and Ponnuru, who both probably knew him, also know that he was as American and un-socialistic as they come. Weyrich realized that transit was, in some cases, an eminently reasonable way of transporting people. If Lowry and Ponnuru are unsettled by the fact that Europeans have more transit than we do, they should look back to the time when America had both more transit and less government than Europe did, or than it does now. If you’d like to read more on the conservative case for transit, see David Schaengold here.
89 comments
Ponnuru and Lowry’s position seem like an exquisitely pure version of the “liberals like it, so it must be bad.”
Freddie Reply:
February 24th, 2010 at 8:52 am
Also: cars are not a non-governmental alternative to transit. Automobile traffic is subsidized by government in incredible proportions. The highway system, for example, is one of those entities that I wish the right wing would recognize is a massive and hideously expensive government expenditure. It just isn’t treated that way in our usual political posturing.
Louis B. Reply:
February 24th, 2010 at 3:10 pm
Now do you see why us free-market folk won’t be to blame when Bangladesh goes underwater?
To say nothing of the public expense of having an oil driven foreign policy.
So let’s concede the liberal point that the highways and even autos are all government subsidized and definable as ‘socialist’ tools of transit. Great. So then why do we need mass transit? Is it because of the environmental impact of autos? If so, how great is the potential carbon offset created by passenger rail? What about the carbon costs associated with building and maintaining those networks? Conservatives generally oppose mass transit on the grounds of not endorsing change simply for the sake of change. I’ve yet to see a proposal for passenger rail that adequately proves it will have a SIGNIFICANT (re: more than minimal) impact on carbon production in the US.
greginak Reply:
February 24th, 2010 at 10:11 am
mike who said anything about socialism?
Cars are great for some things, but not for others. Mass transit is a good and often better alternative in some situations like cities and their suburbs, for people who can’t, don’t or want a car and as an alternative for medium distance travel as opposed to planes.
Mike at The Big Stick Reply:
February 24th, 2010 at 10:16 am
“Lowry and Ponnuru seem to believe that mass transit is a “socialistic program” and an “infringement on our liberty.” Presumably they think this because mass transit is built and administered by the government and supported, quite often, by taxes. But the exact same thing is true of highways. “
Light rail is great in places like NYC or Boston that were built around the lines. Not so good as a post-development addition in other places. The debate is over new lines, not existing lines. High-speed rail as as an alternative to planes has minimal economic impact (i.e. less cost to consumers) and it’s mainly an issue of comfort. I don’t know that comfort justifies billions in federal investment and maintenance.
Freddie Reply:
February 24th, 2010 at 10:41 am
There is indeed a net carbon benefit, but that’s hardly the principle reason: car ownership, when you including purchase cost, registration, insurance and fuel, is extremely expensive and essentially excludes the poorest Americans. The interstate highway is essentially a massive government venture that is inaccessible to millions for that reason. By contrast, mass transit doesn’t require nearly the same initial expenditure, is cheaper on a per-trip basis thanks to the miracles of shared costs, and is much, much easier to effectively subsidize for low-income riders (as we see in programs to provide those in poverty with bus or subway passes in any number of American municipalities).
There’s also the simple fact that we should prize efficiency for its own sake when we are spending public money, and there’s just no contest when it comes to the per-traveler price of transport; mass transit is far, far cheaper than car travel.
Mike at The Big Stick Reply:
February 24th, 2010 at 10:48 am
The low-income population in my city gets around adequately on public buses. It’s infinitely cheaper than installing light rail. As for mid-range interstate travel that would be covered by high-speed rail…there’s Greyhound, which I used with no problems in college (relies on existing infrastructure, etc.)
As for efficiency, again, it’s great in cities like NYC where the lines went in first or in the early stages of development. I see little or no efficiency gain in post-development installation of mass transit.
David Schaengold Reply:
February 24th, 2010 at 11:27 am
Depends how you define “adequately.” It’s not really adequate in most American cities if you have a job where you need to show up at a certain time reliably. May I ask what city you live in?
Mike at The Big Stick Reply:
February 24th, 2010 at 11:33 am
I live in Louisville. Getting to work on time (or to school like I did using public buses in the 90′s) is mostly about getting oneself out of bed and getting to the bus stop when you need to. It might involve taking the 7:30 bus verses the 8am bus.
David Schaengold Reply:
February 24th, 2010 at 11:38 am
I haven’t been to Louisville, I’m sad to say (I hear it’s a beautiful town), but I think that it must be exceptional in that respect. Even in Chicago there is basically no way to show up at a given place at a given time with any reliability if you’re on the bus unless you budget for a multiple-hour buffer.
Mike at The Big Stick Reply:
February 24th, 2010 at 12:48 pm
My reply would be that it would probably still be a LOT cheaper to budget some additional funds for more buses or simple efficency studies.
B^4 Reply:
February 26th, 2010 at 7:40 pm
You really should read up on history
Mike at The Big Stick Reply:
March 1st, 2010 at 10:34 am
B^4, I’m very familiar with the old elevated lines (I’m a historian by training and I read Broken Sidewalk). Are you trying to say that they would be preferrable to the combination of TARC/ autos today? It replaces them adequately. As you must know, Louisville’s economy is no longer centered around the downtown area.
charleychoochoo Reply:
February 24th, 2010 at 11:29 am
I think you are drastically underestimating the size of the area once covered by streetcars in this country. There was a pretty dense network in even small cities from the east coast to Wisconsin, and then individual systems throughout the west. The “electric interurban railroad” systems of the early 20th century, if magically resurrected, could service at least a quarter of our current population. If added to and extended, they could still service a large population more efficiently and safely than cars alone. I thought America was about providing choice to people, not dictating through federal resources one form of transportation for all, as is currently the case by the huge imbalance between highway and other forms of transit funding.
Mike at The Big Stick Reply:
February 24th, 2010 at 11:39 am
Inter-urban railroads made sense at a time when roads were terrible and people were driving Model T’s. They aren’t practical for today’s society.
This speaks to the larger point of interjecting some realism into the conversation of transit. For those supportive of new forms of mass transit aimed at reducing automobile traffic, the appeal has to be one that will actually persuade Americans. When Joe Commuter can get in his car in the garage and drive to work at his own speed, isolated from the annoyances of shared commuting and then have a 100 foot walk to his office verses walking two blocks in the rain or cold to a transit stop, then walking two blocks to his office, etc…how do you persuade them?
David Schaengold Reply:
February 24th, 2010 at 11:43 am
This is just the point. What enables joe commuter to get in his garage, go straight to work on high-speed roads, and park for free at his place of employment are massive structural subsidies specifically designed to enable this lifestyle. These subsidies are both direct, in the form of free roads, for example, and indirect, in the form of minimum parking requirements whose costs get passed on to everyone in the form of higher costs for goods and services. Maybe we as a society do want to subsidize this lifestyle. But we should recognize that this is indeed what we’re doing.
Jaybird Reply:
February 24th, 2010 at 11:53 am
I’d be fearful of what any project to do this will look like after a generation.
I suspect that it would result in more Baltimores and more gated communities and create more of a gap.
Mike at The Big Stick Reply:
February 24th, 2010 at 11:55 am
I recognize it but I also remain unconvinced that there’s any need to subsidize anything new in the form of mass transit of people.
David Schaengold Reply:
February 24th, 2010 at 12:18 pm
It would definitely require some significant deadweight costs to shift from a single-mode society to a multi-modal society, so opposition on that ground — that we’ve already “chosen” and it would be too expensive to switch — makes some sense to me. I do think, though, that it would be worth it nonetheless.
Matthew Schmitz Reply:
February 24th, 2010 at 12:08 pm
Sorry to keep prodding you, Mike, but isn’t this picture of the typical commute rather incomplete? How many people spend hours of each day stuck in bumper-to-bumper traffic. The mythology of cars (and where I’m from in rural Nebraska, the reality) is that they give one access to the open road. But for many commuters they are simply the place where hours are wasted while inching through traffic.
Mike at The Big Stick Reply:
February 24th, 2010 at 12:50 pm
When we talk about hours spent in bumper to bumper traffic – how many places are we talking about? The places where most congestion occurs already have mass transit (which begs the question – why is there still so much traffic?) Most Americans live in cities like mine with commutes that are relatively painless.
Shannon's Mouse Reply:
February 24th, 2010 at 12:11 pm
Having used both “decent” public transit as well as an automobile for my daily commute at various times in my life, I don’t think the annoyances of driving vs. transit necessarily come out in your favor. The clearest advantages to commuting by car is (potential) flexibility and a bit of extra space in your personal vicinity. This is offset by the havoc that heavy traffic plays with one’s stress levels and schedulability. You can’t get anything productive done while driving during a commute. I can answer email or read a book even on a crowded train. If you’re commuting to a work location that is served by transit, it’s likely a dense area with easily accessible retailers and service providers that makes lunching and errands ridiculously convenient. Not so much if you’re working in a non-descript Office Space style office park.
Mike at The Big Stick Reply:
February 24th, 2010 at 12:53 pm
So that’s great for an office work who has a laptop or an iPhone to use for that commute and wants to hit Starbucks and Barnes & Noble after work. What about the folks in those office parks you mention? Most industry is decentralized now. If they put a mass transit stop at the point where I now get off the freeway on my way to work I would still have a 2 mile walk ahead of me. That is the reality of most people’s jobs. Mass transit doesn’t address that.
David Schaengold Reply:
February 24th, 2010 at 1:11 pm
Land use and transportation do indeed work together, so I would suggest that any mass transit projects should also involve rezoning the area around stations to allow for denser development. You’re right that with freeway and office-park-based land-use patterns transit will never be anything better than an option for those with no other choice.
Mike at The Big Stick Reply:
February 24th, 2010 at 1:15 pm
If we zone for greater density then you land-lock companies which is prohibitive to the types of businesses that employ lots of people (manufacturing, logistics, etc).
Jaybird Reply:
February 24th, 2010 at 1:17 pm
Surely we’ll be able to make exceptions for sufficiently large donors.
David Schaengold Reply:
February 26th, 2010 at 12:44 pm
I’d be in favor of doing away with zoning all together. Right now plenty of companies that would like work in dense settings cannot. The cost of rent in dense areas is artificially inflated because it is broadly illegal to build any more of them.
Aaron Reply:
February 24th, 2010 at 11:32 am
“Adequately” seems like an awful vague word for describing one of the essential tools of poor peoples’ livelihoods. I’ve lived in a medium sized city (Columbus, Ohio) that had a bus system, and depended on it to get to work — and believe me, it was only “adequate” at the best of times — it was often totally unreliable, stranding people at bus stops for great lengths of time, making people late, and making it almost impossible to get to work and live their lives.
And, I just checked on Greyhound — for a one-way trip from New York City to Columbus, Ohio, a 570 mile trip, it’s a fifteen hour bus ride and costs $78. It takes about eight hours by car. And as someone who has taken ten plus hour bus trips and ten plus hour train trips, I can tell you that the bus system is hands-down worse.
Mike at The Big Stick Reply:
February 24th, 2010 at 11:35 am
Comfort is hardly a factor great enough to justify the expenditure on other forms of mass transit.
Aaron Reply:
February 24th, 2010 at 11:41 am
It certainly seems to have worked out for the people driving giant SUVs on enormous highways.
Mike at The Big Stick Reply:
February 24th, 2010 at 11:48 am
SUVs have nothing to do with highway expenditure. Private travel was at the bottom of the list of reasons why the system was created.
Travis Reply:
February 24th, 2010 at 2:32 pm
The “defense” thing was a sop to get it past Congress. Interstate highways constitute a massive federal subsidy directly benefiting the auto industry and private car owners.
Kyle Reply:
February 24th, 2010 at 10:58 pm
Those aren’t mutually exclusive and IIRC Americans’ experience with the Autobahn inspired a desire to build a modern, efficient transit system that would improve access, invest in the movement of goods, and, if need be, military men and material.
Travis Reply:
February 24th, 2010 at 11:31 pm
The fact is, it constitutes a huge federal subsidy to the automobile industry.
Federal subsidies to mass transit are a drop in the bucket by comparison.
Kyle Reply:
February 24th, 2010 at 11:42 pm
that’s fine, one fact of many that aren’t remotely as dubious as “The “defense” thing was a sop to get it past Congress.”
Sam M Reply:
February 24th, 2010 at 12:03 pm
“car ownership, when you including purchase cost, registration, insurance and fuel, is extremely expensive and essentially excludes the poorest Americans. The interstate highway is essentially a massive government venture that is inaccessible to millions for that reason. ”
Doesn’t this counter the argument that transit is comparable to autos in terms of subsidies?
Once the road is built, the subsidy is done, apart from maintenance, right? The user is required to cover ALL of the operating expenses, the capital investment in the car, the insurance, the gas, etc. On top of this is the gas tax which at least helps pitch in for the roads. (Some of which also goes to rail investments.)
Do rail user pitch in anything close to that? It would seem not, since poor people tend to take rail and other forms of transit. That’s a feature, not a bug, I think. But it seems like you can’t have it both ways. If it’s true that transit is great because it allows poor people with no money to ride it… doesn’t that mean it is more heavily subsidized than transportation systems that cater to people who have to pitch in a pile of money?
David Schaengold Reply:
February 24th, 2010 at 12:10 pm
Well, such are the physical inefficiencies of automobiles that it costs more for governments and individuals alike.
David Schaengold Reply:
February 24th, 2010 at 12:12 pm
Such are the physical inefficiencies of automobiles that maintaining a road network and providing ubiquitous free parking costs more for individuals and governments alike than would maintaining a transit network.
Sam M Reply:
February 24th, 2010 at 12:34 pm
Ubiquitous free parking? Astonishing. I have lived in several cities over the years, both with a car and without, and I have never, even once, lived in a city with ubiquitous free parking. Where do you live?
Every city I have lived in or visited required me to pay for parking.
As for the rest of it, I don’t think that you have demonstrated that automobiles are inefficient across the board. In a place like NYC, I can see that. Other places not.
David Schaengold Reply:
February 24th, 2010 at 12:40 pm
I think something like 95% of all car trips in this country begin and end at a free parking space (I’d have to get back to you with the more precise figure). That’s pretty ubiquitous by any measure.
Sam M Reply:
February 24th, 2010 at 5:35 pm
“I think something like 95% of all car trips in this country begin and end at a free parking space”
Interesting statistic. I’d be interested in seeing the source to explore the methodology. Does the parking at my house count as “free”? I don;’t pay for it day to day. But I paid for it when I bought my house. And the fact that someone, back in the day, had a section of the lot paved for parking was priced into the house.
Similarly, the grocery store where I shop does not have a metered lot. But the owner had to pay for the lot, and to pave it. The price of this is priced into the groceries. The fact that it is not itemized on the receipt doesn’t make it “free.”
When I lived in the city, I had to pay for a parking permit for my neoghborhood. Etc.
Granted, some places use rules to lead to an oversupply of parking. In DC, for instance, in my old neighborhood, they just built a shopping center near a metro. City rules required a minimum number of parking spaces for the development. They are almost all empty all the time. You could argue that these get priced into the rents, too. And I am sure they do. But clearly, regulations play a huge role in the availability and prive of parking.
But I pretty sure that I have paid for WAY more than 5 percent of the parking spaces I have used over the years.
Do you live in a city? Is parking free downtown?
Didn’t think so.
David Schaengold Reply:
February 24th, 2010 at 6:52 pm
OK, actually the figure is apparently closer to 99%, according to the Nationwide Personal Transportation Survey of 1990, though I haven’t looked through the recent data (have a go: nhts.ornl.gov).
Your point about how parking you don’t pay for when you park isn’t really free is exactly the point I’m trying to make. I don’t own a car and thus never pay to park, but the businesses I frequent are all subject to minimum parking regulations, which, as you say, play a huge role — in fact a determining role, I would argue — in shifting the cost of parking away from people who are actually parking at a given time onto society as whole, and thus when I make purchases at those businesses some fraction of the transaction goes to subsidize those who drove.
Sam M Reply:
February 25th, 2010 at 6:28 am
“when I make purchases at those businesses some fraction of the transaction goes to subsidize those who drove.”
Far worse for the vast majority of people who don’t shop there at all, as they get to capture none of the subsidies and tax breaks larded into redevelopment projects.
Besides, this is hardly an issue in many places in the country. I live in a small town. The owner of the local grocery store recently purchased, with his own money, an adjacent lot to add parking to the store. Our area is not dense enough for any kind of reasonable mass transit.
Yet I suspect that your statistic maker would view this me driving from my free parking at home, to free parking at the store. Which is false. I paid for both.
David Schaengold Reply:
February 26th, 2010 at 12:47 pm
My point isn’t really that parking requirements are unfair (though they are), but rather that they distort development in favor of auto-centric places and provide an economic incentive to drive more. This is true even in places where everyone drives (though really, if you look at the demographics, there are almost no such places in this country; just places where people who don’t drive are thoroughly ignored).
Kyle Reply:
February 24th, 2010 at 10:53 pm
Ubiquitous free parking = vegas.
Koz Reply:
March 11th, 2010 at 9:00 am
Ubiquitous free parking = most of America
Koz Reply:
March 11th, 2010 at 9:00 am
“Such are the physical inefficiencies of automobiles that maintaining a road network and providing ubiquitous free parking costs more for individuals and governments alike than would maintaining a transit network.”
I don’t believe that for one minute (though truth be told I don’t follow it that closely). I do vaguely remember Ryan Avent and Megan McArdle going back and forth on that for a while. IIRC, Ryan (like every other rail/mass transit enthusiast) can’t come anywhere close to making the numbers work for a rail-based transport system that is anywhere near as functional as our current roads-based system for America.
Matthew Schmitz Reply:
February 24th, 2010 at 12:15 pm
I am wary of attempts to use transit as a redistributive program. Which is why I favor private luxury cars and other un-egalitarian, but highly sensible, measures. A successful transit system will be as useful to the middle classes, maybe even the upper class, as it is to the poor.
Travis Reply:
February 24th, 2010 at 2:50 pm
“Once the road is built, the subsidy is done, apart from maintenance, right?”
“Maintenance” is far more than patching a pothole now and then. Roads and bridges do not have infinite useful lives. They must be periodically torn down and rebuilt, at costs which are, today, several multiples of what they originally cost to construct. California is spending $10 billion to rebuild the 75-year-old Bay Bridge, a structure which cost $77 million in 1933. This is an extreme example, but the concept holds true across the nation. There’s huge backlogs of deferred maintenance to U.S. highways.
As for the price of gasoline in America, it’s heavily subsidized by the trillions of federal tax dollars spent on foreign wars of aggression aimed at securing Middle Eastern oil supplies.
Travis Reply:
February 24th, 2010 at 3:39 pm
And yes, I know, inflation and all that — but even using adjusted dollars, we’re talking a price tag nearly ten times the original.
Kyle Reply:
February 24th, 2010 at 11:02 pm
“As for the price of gasoline in America, it’s heavily subsidized by the trillions of federal tax dollars spent on foreign wars of aggression aimed at securing Middle Eastern oil supplies.”
See you say that and yet somehow it seems doubtful, how do the mechanics of that work? Historically, wars make things more expensive, not less. Also, that vastly overstates the importance of oil reserves in the middle east, which are far more crucial to Europe and Japan than they are for us.
Travis Reply:
February 24th, 2010 at 11:33 pm
You’re right, the mechanics of that don’t work. They’re really wars to assure multinational oil companies of giant profits.
As for the access issue, you ignore the fact that oil is a globalized commodity. If Middle East oil supplies are disrupted, prices will rise sharply across the globe, not just where those supplies are most heavily relied upon. Because if Japan and Europe are willing to pay more than we are for Mexican oil, or Canadian gas, for example, that oil and gas isn’t coming here. It’s going out on LNG carriers or supertankers.
Kyle Reply:
February 24th, 2010 at 11:55 pm
you know what would convince me, proof. as it stands, I’ve heard CNOOC is getting more out of Iraq than American firms.
Now I really don’t get what you’re saying. Somehow, America has spent trillions of dollars in “wars of aggression” (as opposed to what, wars of passivity?) to keep global prices down, to subsidize it for American consumers…it’s so elaborate it could be a Bond plot.
Moreover, war = instability = greater chance of disruption of oil prices = higher insurance costs = higher commodity costs. So not only is it an elaborate plot, it’s a strangely counter-intuitive one as well.
Oh wait, you’ve already said that’s wrong, instead it’s to insure multinational companies their profits. About them:
The oil industry’s profit margin is about 7.6 percent, not much higher than the 5.8 percent profit margin for all U.S. manufacturing. If you exclude the financially troubled auto industry, the oil industry actually appears less profitable than most manufacturers. As an industry it is less profitable than food & beverage, telecommunications, software, diversified financial services, banks and big pharma. The latter two have profit margins nearly double that of oil & gas.
Yes, giant profits indeed, unfortunately for this rather superficial analysis, it’s an industry that requires giant investments in capital too, much as Russia learned to its detriment.
I just don’t buy into the boogeyman theory of blood for oil. Things like geopolitics, treaties of alliance, and that sort of thing make more sense.
RTod Reply:
February 24th, 2010 at 11:15 am
Mike:
The carbon footprint seems to me to be a very sexy and timely, but ultimately minor argument for mass transit. The bigger, better argument is simply one of efficiency. New York is a pretty extreme example, but nonetheless: can you imagine the negative impact on productivity to the city if the bus and subway systems were shut down?
Regarding light rail, it seems to me like these types of things are, in fact, more free market choices than we conservatives often let on. For example, I live in Portland, Oregon. We have an adjacent sister city across the state border – Vancouver, Washington. Huge numbers of people live, work, shop, dine, etc. back and forth between these two cities – an outsider might well perceive that they are in fact a single city. Portland has a pretty kick-ass (but expensive) transit system that includes buses, shuttles, community bikes, and, yes, the dreaded light rail. Vancouver has a bus system, but it’s pretty crappy, as the city isn’t really meant to be set up as a mass transit community. The taxes in Portland, because of this and other things, such as a higher value placed on public green spaces, are MUCH, MUCH higher than Vancouver. So what happens is this:
People who can afford to live in Portland, and value the admittedly expensive benefits of a great transit system (and green spaces, etc.) live in Portland. THose that think things like great mass transit and green spaces are a waste of money and find little to no value in them live in Vancouver, and save on taxes in order to do so. My question to fellow conservatives is this:
How is this not a free market system? How is it that a group of people deciding that everyone should be OK with their positive views on mass transit, green spaces, zoning and basic aesthetics (or lack thereof) is tyranny; but it’s ringing the bells of freedom when deciding that everyone should be OK with imposing their negative views regarding the same?
Mike at The Big Stick Reply:
February 24th, 2010 at 11:21 am
RTod – I’m with you on free choice. If a persuasive case can be made for mass transit in a given locale and the public votes on it…by all means let them commit their tax dollars in whatever way they see fit. What I don’t like is mass transit through legislative fiat.
Aaron Reply:
February 24th, 2010 at 11:36 am
Would you include maintaining the highway system in that?
Mike at The Big Stick Reply:
February 24th, 2010 at 11:53 am
New roads or major changes to existing roads should certainly be put through the public approval process. If you’re talking about a referendum on the highway system I’d bet the farm on that one. No way ever is that going to get voted down.
http://www.amazon.com/Moving-Minds-Conservatives-Public-Transportation/dp/0982527306
I found this site most helpful
Mike, you’re quite right to point out that transit won’t be the best option in many cases, but my point here wasn’t that transit is always and everywhere the best option. It was that Ponnuru and Lowry are being incredibly sloppy and, to boot, are slandering the dead. Weyrich, who helped build the movement they now lead, would surely be insulted by the implication that he is a socialist.
Mike at The Big Stick Reply:
February 24th, 2010 at 11:09 am
To be exact, mass transit is indeed a socialist program. That fact alone doesn’t make it bad and that may be where Ponnuru and Lowry stumble in their implications. But the larger point they were trying to make is that the Left too often points to successful institutions in other countries (be they socialist or simply a particular battery of laws) and says, “We should be like that!” For a million should-be-obvious reasons that is bad reasoning.
It feels like your taking a passing comment and exaggerating it’s importance. I certainly don’t think they are saying that support of mass transit makes one a socialist in the same way that my support of the Dept of Education doesn’t make me a liberal.
Matthew Schmitz Reply:
February 24th, 2010 at 11:16 am
There’s a two-step going on here. Lowry and Ponnuru are indeed using the word socialist as a slander. To suggest that they are (technically!) correct is to ignore the way that the language is being deployed.
You have come out and said what Ponnuru and Lowry can’t quite bring themselves to state: namely, that there is something wrong with examining alternative approaches in other countries. This is nonsense. How do you think the founders crafted the constitution? By studying history and examining current constitutions. Not only does studying others allow us to mimic their successes, it also enable us to avoid their mistakes. How, exactly, is this bad reasoning?
Mike at The Big Stick Reply:
February 24th, 2010 at 11:26 am
There’s absolutely nothing wrong with looking at other countries and thinking about the application of those ideas in the US (or on a smaller scale, looking at a successful program in Missouri and seeing how it would work in Ohio). What conservatives rightly rail against is the liberal tendency to say, “It works in Germany so it will work in the US” We argue that often they under-estimate the vast cultural and institutional differences between the two countries that often (not always) makes great European ideas bad for America and vice versa.
Matthew Schmitz Reply:
February 24th, 2010 at 11:43 am
This reminds me of another interesting aspect of the Ponnuru-Lowry essay, their assertion that America is a creedal nation. I’m not sure if this definition is correct or not, but minimally it is very problematic. Daniel Larison has pointed out some, but by no means all, of these problems in the past. One that comes to mind here is a neo-conservative, and distinctly un-conservative, tendency to minimize the importance of culture. Anyway, glad to see you don’t object to us plundering Egypt.
Mike at The Big Stick Reply:
February 24th, 2010 at 11:51 am
I think both sides of the aisle are guilty of minimizing culture when it suits them. Liberals do so when they over-sell the ability to implement foreign ideas in the US. Conservatives do so when they resist cultural progression in US society.
Matthew Schmitz Reply:
February 24th, 2010 at 11:58 am
Interesting. I would say that in cases of “cultural progression” conservatives tend to stress culture as it stands. This is what I was hinting at in my post on “Data & Don’t ask don’t tell.” Conservatives say, well, army units just won’t do well with gays. And conservatives say, comfort be damned, this is a demand of justice. Debating on these terms in this case, liberals are probably right. But in many cases conservatives will be.
Where I think the conservatives have been more prone to error (though for reasons that are rather complicated) is in foreign policy, where they have underestimated the resistance of foreign populations to American power and ideas.
Matthew Schmitz Reply:
February 24th, 2010 at 12:00 pm
* “liberals say, comfort be damned . . .”
Freddie Reply:
February 24th, 2010 at 11:18 am
I can see defining mass transit as socialist in the way you have, but only if, for example, the army and navy are too.
Mike at The Big Stick Reply:
February 24th, 2010 at 11:29 am
I agree they are. By definition I would call any govt-created institution to be socialistic. I guess we could coin a different term (federal?) but the gist is the same. The military and welfare checks are both examples of the state doing something they think is best for the citizenry. Liberals and conservatives just disagree on what’s the responsibility of the state and what isn’t.
RTod Reply:
February 24th, 2010 at 11:18 am
I think that you are correct in your assessment of their point, and it is at times valid. The obvious unspoken flip side to that however is that I’m pretty sure I’ve heard them dismiss ideas simply on the basis that those people over there in Europe do it. Don’t know that I see a difference.
The highway system, funded by user fees via the Highway Trust Fund, is generally considered one of the more targeted and reasonable subsidies. Most forms of transit, on the other hand, are taxpayer- and non-user-reliant. While there a variety of ways to make transit more competitive without taxpayer money, it would not survive if users were forced to pay the entirety of the cost (and, in that scenario, low-income users would be hit even harder). However, I’d characterize most forms of transit as a stupid investment, not “socialism!”
Clint Reply:
February 24th, 2010 at 11:07 am
and of course i forgot to check the always-enlightening, underappreciated Antiplanner before commenting: http://ti.org/antiplanner/?p=2199
David Schaengold Reply:
February 24th, 2010 at 11:35 am
The interstate highway system perhaps comes closest of any road network to paying for itself with gas taxes, but it’s still not close. Anyhow, arguing about relative subsidies is actually beside the point, I think. Transportation infrastructure is a public good, and it makes sense to invest in different modes depending on what public needs they meet.
I live out in the sticks (Colorado Springs). “Mass Transit” here means something significantly different from what it means in real cities. Here it pretty much means buses and buses. (It used to mean “buses, buses, and more buses” but there had to be serious cutbacks in service when Colorado Springs refused to raise taxes to cover budget shortfalls).
Part of the problem of light rail for Colorado Springs is that the city has grown… If we put light rail here in town in 1990, it’d have been over Academy Boulevard. Take you from Chapel Hills Mall to The Citadel Mall. Indeed, Academy was so awful, I did everything I could to *NOT* drive on it. It was easier to drive to Powers (nobody drove on Powers… it was the street you drove on when you were test driving a car and wanted to see what it could do) or take the highway and then Platte or take Nevada or *SOMETHING*. Just don’t drive on Academy.
Now? Well, Academy ain’t so bad. It doesn’t see anywhere near the traffic it once saw. Sure, it’s bad around Chapel Hills or The Citadel, but it used to be *AWFUL*. Now it’s just another street. Kinda like Nevada. Powers is the one you’d pull teeth to avoid driving on. If we were going to install light rail today, it’d probably have to go along Powers and Academy would be an afterthought.
I have no idea what Colorado Springs will look like in another 20 years.
Too god damn big, probably.
I’m a frequent bus rider and the argument for public transit, to my mind, is who rides the bus: the isolated elderly people who can now cheaply get out of the house and go see their doctor; the people in the poor part of town who can go work downtown, bring back their pay, and thus prevent their neighborhood from becoming a ghetto; the handicapped riders who also work downtown; someone like myself who can save about $400/ month and put it towards my family’s future; the drunk guy who’s a bit annoying, but at least he’s not driving home. In other words, public transit is good for social stability and the public good. It reinforces the social fabric. Which is why, if you put it to a vote, the public is not going to vote to get rid of public transit and replace it with more expensive private lines. So, ironically, if you want to end this “infringement on the people’s liberty”, you’re going to have to do so without their permission.
Does “Mike at the Big Stick” realize that the buses he extols are, in fact, mass transit?
Of course I do – but that is existing infrastructure. I oppose spending billions on new infrastructure to support light rail which would serve roughly the same function.
Anyone against mass transit has never taken the train from Tokyo to Osaka.