The Corner and Light Rail
Posted by Matt Zeitlin on January 5, 2008
UPDATE Welcome Corner readers!
Like Dana Goldstein and Yglesias, I was heartened by Richardson talking about land-use policy and transportation policy as components of a long term climate change strategy. At the Corner, however, Mark Steyn and Mark Hemingway just thought it was funny. While we should all expect partisans to make fun of the other party’s candidates, Steyn and Hemingway’s reactions to the mention of light rail denote a lack of seriousness that is depressingly common in the conservative commentariat and the GOP nomination. When Richardson was talking about light-rail and land use, he isn’t pandering to any meaningful interest group, unless you count wonky bloggers. Instead, he was making a nuanced a meaningful proposal to deal with a serious problem. And Steyn and Hemingway, who appear not to care about climate change or urban policy at all, just dont’ know to react to such a suggestion.
This same pattern was repeated at times in the debate. During the discussion of foreign policy, there was a bunch of petty accusations of candidates not supporting the surge early enough, and then a compettion to say that terrorists hate our freedom and that we need to ramp up military spending. Only Giuliani, who talked about adding ten combat brigades, had anything close to a comprehensive foreign policy vision with policy detail — even if it was totally deluded. The others talked about how great and strong we were and then invariably started kissing Bush’s ass. When the candidates stated what they believed in, they largely said absolutely nothing. Again, only Giuliani and Paul provided a vision for what type of America they want with the according (in Rudy’s case) policy principles. On the Democratic side, you had an intense debate on how best to achieve progressive change. The GOP had nothing close. With a set of candidates who don’t really seem that engaged in a vision for the country or on policy specifics, it’s no wonder you have such a sneering, immature set of partisans and observers.
UPDATE There’s something of a debate going on in the comments about mass transit and light rail, which I’m not really get into the weeds of. Instead, I’ll just link to this Ryan Avent post and piece of Campus Progress that both explain the case for mass transit very well. Secondly, a lot of the commenters bring up various examples of light rail boondoggles that are expensive and don’t work very well. While that may be true , it’s not a killer argument — Lots of public transit is very effective (DC Metro, BART) and one reason light rail doesn’t work well in LA is because its sprawl makes it very difficult for there to be any sort of effective mass transit options. But Richardson didn’t just talk about mass transit, he also talked about land-use policy and in general getting Americans to live in denser areas, which would make mass transit and light rail more feasible.
January 6, 2008 at 10:49 am
Concerning urban planning issues, I recommend you read this:
http://ti.org/og.html
It strikes me as undeniable evidence that while sprawl has its problems, New Urbanism and the light rail obsession do not lead in a positive direction.
I’m sure Mark Steyn and friends have read similar essays and that is why they laugh at light rail. The case against light rail and similar projects is serious and should not be ignored.
D
January 6, 2008 at 10:55 am
If Obama is elected, my friend Geena says there’ll be a ton of trains and stuff built, which is awesome. Geena also says Obama will make the car companies stop building smelly cars, they will all be hybrids. I took a poll last night, and everyone of us who works at the Olive Garden is totally behind Obama, except Ricardo the assistant chef, but he’s a jerk and he pinched Geena’s butt once. If Obama wins, health care will be free and maybe iTunes too, at least that’s what Janelle said, and she’s an assistant manager.
January 6, 2008 at 11:02 am
The progressive position on light rail seems to be that if a lot more money was spent on it and we could coerce people to use it (by more urban planning and land use restrictions) that light rail would be a good thing. For conservatives the refrain of “it’s failing because we aren’t DOING ENOUGH OF IT!” is always humorous.
Primaries are all about appealing to the base so it shouldn’t surprise you that you find the Dem candidates who are trying to appeal to Dems (e.g. you) much more appealing than the Reps who are trying to appeal to Republicans (e.g. not you). And vice versa.
January 6, 2008 at 11:30 am
We’re picking the leader of the free world at a critical juncture in history, and the Democrats are talking about… light rail. Please. All this demonstrates is a basic unseriousness among the Democrats, coupled with a head-in-the-sand approach to the important issues.
And “[o]n the Democratic side, you had an intense debate on how best to achieve progressive change.” Again: please. All we’ve heard so far is that Edwards’ father worked in a mill, Hillary was around for all the good parts of the Clinton administration and none of the bad, and that Obama likes “change” and “hope.”
January 6, 2008 at 1:01 pm
Light rail is a public menace. Here in Minneapolis, it was intentionally designed to interesect and obstruct normal traffic. IIRC, light rail kills at least 2 people a year here.
That said, I like public transportation, and at various times, have depended on it. The problem is, though, it really only “works” where it is the only means of getting from A to B, like in Manhattan, Boston and Chicago (where the R-O-Ws entirely bypass the congestion). I’ll leave “works” undefined for now.
In addition, light rail is not really serious public transit, but an expensive exercise by the bien pensants to keep the backward yokels yapping about the one significant public works project that got past the NIMBYs and BANANAs.
Finally, the thing about public transit generally that cause me agaita is how the discussion is always about commuters, rather than the broader commercial necessities of the transit system. And no matter hom much light rail you build, it does not make for inadequate and deteriorating infrastructure for commercial transit.
January 6, 2008 at 1:27 pm
You are so right So Into Politix, I get so angry when people are negative like that about Obama, it’s good that there will be light rail. If the trains are too heavy they could cause a lot of damage and safety is important! One of the bartenders I work with got hit by a bus and was in the hospital for a week, and I bet he would have been OK if it was lighter! I bet Hillary doesn’t like light trains either. She was being such a bitch to Obama last night, like she’s so special because she has to work harder! Does anybody know if she’s a Scorpio? The old front of the house manager was, and she was just like that! She yelled at me so much when I broke the dishwasher and I bet she would yell at Barack Obama too!
January 6, 2008 at 1:35 pm
Light rail kills 2 people per year in MSP huh? How many people do cars kill per year there?
Everything has a cost, and everything and I mean *everything* is subsidized. Or is the military now a for-profit operation? Of course not.
When we can talk transportation like adults instead of resorting to political rhetoric it will be a good day for the nation. However elections — Dem or Rep — are not won on logic, but on appeal to baser instincts.
January 6, 2008 at 1:55 pm
From NRO:
Perhaps the reason the Marks (Steyn and Hemingway) deride the idea of light rail is that it is worthy of derision. Let’s have a look at how light rail worked out for Los Angeles:
Three light-rail lines have been added to L.A. county’s transit system in the last 20 years. Together, these cost $2.5 billion in capital costs, they serve about 125,000 passengers per day and account for a fiscal loss of approximately $252 million per year — if one acknowledges that capital costs are real, something that transit operators and boosters often neglect.
So if you do the math, The capital costs alone come to $20,000 per daily rider (and that’s making a generous assumption about how many “regular” riders there are). Add in the annual operating loss, and it would have been cheaper to buy each rider a Dodge Neon and a full tank of gasoline each week for the rest of his life.
All of this for a negligible decrease in traffic congestion.
January 6, 2008 at 2:17 pm
Jeez old coot, are you intentionally thick or just pretending to defend a dumb point? The $20,000 per daily rider stat comes from the most frustratingly incorrect method of massaging numbers on this issue. In business, you amortize capital costs. That $20,000 strung out over 20 years drops the per-rider cost to $1,000 per year. The new Woodrow Wilson bridge in VA cost $2.5b and carries 250,000 cars per day. That’s $10,000 per car and it’s just one bridge! The average suburban commuter benefits from more than one of these massive interchanges and bridges in the average commute.
Apples to apples, folks.
January 6, 2008 at 2:17 pm
Hi, David H. Dennis,
I found that photo essay fascinating. Not least because, you see, I actually grew up and went to high school in Oak Grove. I actually lived just two blocks from “downtown” Oak Grove. I gotta tell you, that photo essay is junk. “Downtown” Oak Grove is … nothing. It contains a rundown convenience store… a comic book/baseball card store… and that is about it. All of the zoning laws would have done Oak Grove a world of good. The economics of Oak Grove are horrible. And, btw, the photo essay is _completely_ _full_ _of_ _shit_ where it suggests farms are being removed from Oak Grove. There are **ZERO** farms in Oak Grove. Nothing close to the old rail line or near “Downtown”. That is a joke.
Sorry to break it to you, but Northwest Portland is actually one of the most desired places to live in all of Portland. Oak Grove? It is a backwater with struggling families and little going for it. Sorry.
January 6, 2008 at 2:52 pm
Change08, we are soooo on the same wavelength! Obama is all about positivityness, and Hillary is like this mean history teacher. I live in Peterborough, NH, and me and Geena saw this crowd today so we went up and it was Mitt Romney. Ew! He’s like an old guy who used to be cute and thinks he still is and he kind of is but let’s face it, he’s old. So Geena wanted to be on TV so she asked Mitt Romney if he could get us more pay at Olive Garden and he kind of laughed and then he said if we applied ourselves we could do anything we wanted, we could ownOlive Garden. Can you say “ultra-lame”? If Obama’s elected he’ll double our pay and take it from rich old oil people. I hate work. But me and Geena met two cute UNH guys, so it worked out.
January 6, 2008 at 4:07 pm
I have two words to write: “Rail Runner”. Bill Richardson’s light rail program that is already a fiscal drain on the state of New Mexico, that is so badly planned that no thought has been given to the multiple major streets the trains will cross in Santa Fe. It is “light rail” in action: expensive, potentially lethal to drivers and pedestrians alike, and unable to reduce street traffic congestion. The taxpayers of New Mexico are going to be stuck paying off Richardson’s white elephant — or perhaps “pyramid” is a better term — for years.
January 6, 2008 at 6:10 pm
Rj3 is correct. Furthermore, a real calculation has to include opportunity costs. Some portion of those 125,000 riders are not, as a result of taking mass transit, driving in cars. This provides a benefit to everyone else in Los Angeles in the form of cleaner air. The health benefits can be monetized. It also provides a benefit to every other car commuter (ironically) by taking a certain number of cars off the road, reducing traffic and thus commuting time. Again, this results in increased productivity which also adds value.
That said, I don’t think light rail is necessarily the best way to provide transit, certainly not in every city. But keep in mind that freeways have huge operating costs, huge capital costs, and huge externalities. So when pricing a light rail, you have to add back in the money saved by not building or operating some number of freeway miles. This is a really hard calculation–which, I assume, is why the NRO chose to completely ignore it.
January 7, 2008 at 1:33 am
Your own examples (DC Metro and BART) are both excellent but they are HEAVY RAIL, not Light Rail, as is the NYC subway, Chicago’s excellent rail network, etc…
a healthy suspicion about light rail is not as ridiculous as you seem to believe, most of the big transit boondoggles are light rail because they are initially cheaper which encourages much more half baked schemes, usually justified to voters because after all the Feds are taking up half the tab. Something they don’t do for far more practical Heavy Rail systems.
January 8, 2008 at 7:49 am
People actually use freeways, while light rail has under 5% market share everywhere.
Speeding up traffic through more and better freeways would provide a much higher return on investment in terms of transportation provided to the public.
Light rail is slow. I remember trying out the Los Angeles Blue Line and seeing cars whipping past on the adjacent road at at least double the speed I was making. It did speed up once it got to dedicated sections not shared with cars, but the overall trip was about the same speed as the express bus which cost far less to operate.
I think the Oak Grove residents’ desire to maintain their neighborhood with large lots as opposed to the ugly, parking-free zero lot line condos is wise. All the rhetoric I’ve read on the planner’s side say that it would be better if people took transit and lived at higher densities. It doesn’t look like most people out on the ground want to live that way.
I would rather see warmer weather than people less satisfied with their neighborhoods and life, packed in like sardines in a can.
(What am I saying? I’d rather see warmer weather no matter what. But that’s a discussion for another time.)
D