Myth-busters: The poetry and politics of anti-transit rhetoric

Excerpted from Moving Minds: Conservatives and Public Transportation by Paul M. Weyrich and William S. Lind.

Anti-transit myth #1: Light rail has been a failure everywhere. The estimated costs always prove too low and the ridership projections are too high.

If transit was a declining industry for decades, it isn’t any more. One of the most important reasons for the turnaround is the spread of high-quality rail transit to more and more cities.

Most new light systems are built on or under budget and carry more riders than projected.

The first 11 miles of Dallas’s 20-mile DART light rail system opened on June 14, 1996, on time and within budget. Initial ridership was projected at 15,000; actual ridership in July 1996 averaged more than 18,000. Current DART weekday ridership, with all 20 miles in service, is 42,000.

Why do the anti-transit troubadours keep repeating charges from a flawed 1989 report and ignoring more recent evidence? Perhaps because, as entertainers, they are more interested in Dichtung [poetry] than in Wahrheit [truth].

The United States General Accounting Office released a report in 1999 evaluating the performance of transit projects in terms of meeting budget and deliverability guidelines. The report found that most transit projects were completed on time and on-budget – or, slightly over-budget. While some projects did experience significant cost overruns, the report concludes those cost overruns can be attributed to other factors, such as (1) higher-than-anticipated contract costs, (2) schedule delays, and (3) project scope changes and system enhancements.

Another study by University of Florida finds that highway projects are subject to cost overruns for similar reasons.

Moving Minds: 12 anti-transit myths

(Above) Lind delivers the conservative case for transit at the June Sustainable Atlanta Roundtable. Along with 12 anti-transit myths, Lind outlines 3 common conservative misconceptions about transit.

During his presentation to metro Atlanta transit advocates earlier in the year, conservative transit advocate Bill Lind predicted the “anti-transit troubadours” would come and lend a voice to the political forces determined to see the transportation tax referendum fail.

Now that the Atlanta Regional Transportation Roundtable executive committee has released the draft project list, the anti-transit whispers have become more strident, according to Atlanta-Journal columnist Jay Bookman.

Lind, and his former colleague and Republican political strategist Paul Weyrich,wrote Moving Minds: Conservatives and Public Transportation  with the idea that the transit movement could use some conservative voices. In fact, as Lind asserts in his book and in speeches, transit is fundamentally a conservative issue.

“All we [conservative transit advocates] want is what we once had,” Lind said at the June Sustainable Atlanta Roundtable. “We had it all and threw it away.

What our society once had was a great deal better than what it’s got now. And, one of those things was our wonderful streetcar system.”

The Livable Communities Coalition invited Lind to Atlanta to help transit advocates make the conservative case for transit as the region prepares to vote on the transportation sales in a referendum scheduled for next summer.

The Livable Communities Coalition launched the Fair Share for Transit initiative in March to develop broad support for enhancing and expanding transit in Atlanta through the proposed 10-year sales tax. The draft project list proposes reserving 55 percent of the $6.1 billion the tax is expected to raise over its lifetime for transit projects.

“This is transit’s best shot at significant new funding, according to Livable Communities Coalition executive director Ray Christman says. ”We can’t afford to miss this opportunity.

Polls, surveys, focus groups and town hall meetings have all shown our region’s appetite for more transit.  Tired commuters know that we can’t change traffic congestion in metro Atlanta if we don’t change what we’re doing to address it.  We have to do something fresh and different if we hope to make a difference.  The time to expand rail transit is now.”

The Transportation Investment Act requires the full 21-member roundtable to deliver a final project list by Oct. 15. There will be 12 public meetings, allowing roundtable members to get additonal public input. The first will be held in Douglas County on Sep. 7.

Twelve anti-transit myths, excerpted from Moving Minds: Conservatives and Public Transportation

1. Light rail has been a failure everywhere. The estimated costs always prove too low and the ridership projections are too high.
2. Transit is a declining industry. Despite massive increases in transit funding since 1980, transit ridership has declined. Rail transit has a very high subsidy per passenger, and transit use has declined as much in cities that have built light rail as in those that haven’t.
3. Commuting by rail is slower than commuting by car or express bus.
4. Transit does not relieve congestion. Congestion has actually increased in cities that have built light rail, and building more highways will relieve congestion better than building rail systems. A rail line has less capacity than a single lane of freeway or even a major arterial.
5. Where transit is needed, buses are better than rail. Buses cost less and provide the same or better service.
6. Most new jobs are in the suburbs, but rail transit can only serve urban cores.
7. Rail transit does not spur economic development.
8. Transit brings crime into a community.
9. Most light rail riders are former bus riders.
10. Transit is a blight on the economy, while highways are a net public benefit.
11. On average, most of the seats on a bus or train are empty.
12. It would be cheaper to buy or lease a new car for every rider thant to build a new light rail system.

Over the next two weeks, the Livable Communities Coalition will post Lind’s deconstruction of these myths.