Constructing the Truth About Transit

(12/8/2008) - Wendell Cox and Ronald D. Utt have written an article for the Heritage Foundation entitled “Transportation Policy: Getting the Facts Straight.”  They conclude:

“Congress may soon be embarking upon a massive spending program that is without precedent. And while the purposes of such a package will be both to stimulate the economy and "lay the groundwork for long-term economic growth," as President-elect Obama promised, the facts presented above suggest that money devoted to technologically obsolete transportation schemes that the public does not use will undermine both of these goals, and America will be a poorer place because of it.”

The basic idea Cox and Utt are pushing is that transit receives more funding than its ridership warrants, and that there are more efficient ways to reduce greenhouse emissions related to transportation.  To make this case, they throw up a lot of facts, but little context.  I think its important to examine some of the false choices Cox and Utt construct, as they have become prevelent in a large portion of society.

Transit vs. Cars

This probably won’t come as a shock, but the fact is that America is a car-centric country.  With drive-through everything, cul-de-sac suburbs, and ten lane freeways, we have been the most car-loving nation since at least the 1920’s, if not since the invention of the internal combustion engine. 

Cox and Utt want you to believe that this way of living has developed soely from consumer choice.  And its true that consumer choice has played a crutial part in the construction of the current system.  But it is also true that government policy at every level has been just as crucial.  Zoning laws, parking requirements, tax policy, and massive subsidies for roads are just a few of the government policies that have helped lead us to a car-centric culture.

The fact that it didn’t have to turn out this way - or continue to be this way - is lost on Cox and Utt.  Their argument is based upon the logic that transit should only receive federal spending equivalent to ridership.  The fact that the federal government spends about 20% of “federal surface transportation” funds on transit, but that only 4.9% of commuters use transit, is cause for alarm and evidence of subsidizing something the “market” doesn’t want. 

Of course, "federal surface transportation" doesn't include the $20.8 billion dollars the government spends on the FAA and TSA every year.  Nor does their article mention that the majority of spending on roads comes from the state and local governments, while most transit money comes from the federal government.  In 2006, states spent $2.2 billion on mass transit, in addition to $9.8 billion at the federal level.  That same year, spending for state-administered highways totaled almost $60, compared to $34 billion spent by the Federal Highway Administration.  I'm not sure if this includes spending on local roads as well.

As a result of these subsidies, most roads are free to drive on, while transit systems are expected to be self-supporting, and demonized when they "rely on subsidies."  One could argue that both or neither forms of transportation should be subsidized, but the current system does definitely not qualify as a free market.  Cox and Utt’s argument is based on the idea that the people have chosen cars above transit in a free market.  But like all markets, the transportation market is not free.

Calculating Transportation Expenses

While Cox and Utt focus on things like how much federal money is spent on specific types of transportation, they ignore many, many other costs associated driving that lead to a decline in the welfare of American citizens.

First, the authors ignore costs borne directly by drivers.  Bill McKibben writes in Deep Economy that in cities that emphasize biking/bus/walking etc., 4-5% of income is spent on transportation, compared to 17% in freeway dependent cities.  Granted, cities that emphasize biking/bus/walking etc. tend to be a lot more expensive to live in.  Cox and Utt ignore this sign that transit - good urban design - is something people want. 

In an attempt to argue that transit isn’t widespread, Cox and Utt write, “In 2007, 74 percent of U.S. transit ridership took place in just seven metropolitan areas: New York; Philadelphia; Washington, D.C.; Boston; Chicago; San Francisco; and Los Angeles.”  These seven metro areas combined have about 20% of America’s population – not a trivial amount.  Is it something in the water or a love of the “obsolescent” (the word Cox and Utt use to describe transit) that compels citizens of these cities to ride transit in disproportionate numbers? 

Not likely.  A combination of dense populations and extensive rail (subway or light rail) and bus networks are the factors that have lead to the popularity of transit in these cities.  For the United States, these cities have good public transportation.  If anything, this is an argument for, not against, more funding for public transit.  One of the reasons transit in the United States is more expensive in terms of tax dollars spent per passenger mile than driving is because American transit sucks.  Amtrak is slow and trains get stuck waiting behind freight because there is no dedicated track.  Red lights and traffic make buses unpredictable, and they only run every half-hour anyways. 

Driving benefits from a certain economy of scale that isn’t found much in the United States outside of the big, transit-friendly cities.  If we put more money into our rail system, I think we’d get a lot more out of it on a per-dollar basis, though I don't currently have the numbers to back that up (I'm working on it). 

Here's one example of how the spending-to-benefit ratio is not a straight line when it comes to transit.  A lot of money has been spent on the Acela “high-speed” line that runs from D.C. to Boston.  I say “high-speed,” because the train averages 86 mph (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acela_Express) on the trip from D.C. to Boston, a six and a half hour ride and only an hour faster than the regional train.  By comparison, the Japanese Shinkansen line operates averages 125 mph, France’s TGV averages 173 mph, and Germany’s ICE averages 153 mph.  The reason Acela is called “high-speed” is because its expensive trainset is capable of speeds up to 200 mph.  But because we haven’t invested enough money in transit, its forced to operate on older, curvy tracks. 

Investing lots of money in new trains and repairing existing tracks has thus far yeilded marginal benefits.  France has recently opened up a new high-speed line from Paris to Strasbourg.  The project has been very expensive - about $1 billion dollars for every 25 miles of track. To put this in context, however, we could take just half of the $6.3 billion we spend on useless airport security every year and build a high-speed line from Boston to D.C. in under six years.  San Francisco to L.A. in five.  Dallas-Austin-San Antonio-Houston-Dallas in nine.  St. Louis-Chicago-Detroit-Cleveland-Pittsburgh-Columbus-Cincinnati-Indianapolis-St. Louis in twenty.  Instead, we plug along, investing a few hundred million at a time.  It's this kind of partial funding that has hamstringed American transit. 

Second, Cox and Utt ignore externalized costs resulting from a pro-driving transportation policy.  According to this article, the Texas Transportation Institute says that congestion costs Americans $78 billion every year from wasted fuel and lost productivity.  Accidents cost $220 billion dollars a year in damages.  Car-related pollution adds another $20 billion.  There are negative externalized costs associated with transit as well, but they are much lower.  A 2000 study (http://www.uic.asso.fr/html/environnement/cd_external/pages/introduction...) by researchers at the University of Karlsruhe found that, in seventeen E.U. countries the average externalized costs for cars were 76 Euros per thousand passenger miles, compared with 22.9 for rail and 37.7 for buses.  There's no reason why this would be different in America.

Constructing the Truth About Transit

Cox and Utt ignore these related facts because their narrative focus is one completely based around streamlining federal government spending in relation to the contemporary market.  Anything that falls outside this narrow focus is left by the wayside.  When it comes to the discussion about transit (as well as many other issues), framing is of the utmost importance.  By presenting a specific set of facts, Cox and Utt frame the transportation question in terms of what Americans want in the present, and how they “vote” by driving more than taking public transportation.  This isn't how it is, and it isn't how it has to be.