“What drives Republican opposition to transit?” asks Governing magazine. I’ve often wondered the reverse of this question: Why do Democrats support transit?
Every rider gained by new light-rail lines in Los Angeles correspond to five or more lost bus riders. Photo by SounderBruce.
Governing‘s implicit assumption is that transit is a good thing and anyone opposed must have some warped reason to question it. The magazine’s answer is that opposition to transit reflects an urban-rural divide and since Republicans are more likely to represent rural areas that get less or no transit service than urban areas, they have little reason to support it. This belief may be why the Federal Transit Administration is so eager to support rural transit as it is a way to co-opt more political support for transit in general.
It doesn’t seem to occur to Governing that some people may have legitimate reasons to oppose current or increased subsidies to transit, such as that subsidies are way out of proportion to the benefits they provide and that in many cases increased transit subsidies have resulted in decreased transit ridership. Against all experience, for example, Los Angeles insists on building more light rail even though the more it builds the more riders it loses and it only recovered riders when it stopped building rail for ten years.
Democrats claim to care about low-income people. Yet less than 5.5 percent of urban residents who earn under $25,000 a year took transit to work in 2022. Urban workers in this income class were actually more likely to drive alone to work than urbanites who earn more than $75,000 a year. Since the taxes used to support transit tend to be far more regressive than taxes used to support highways, people who care about low-income workers should oppose, for example, dedicating general purpose street lanes to bus-rapid transit, which is an issue raised in the Governing story.
Democrats also claim to care about the environment and greenhouse gas emissions. Yet in 2022 transit emitted more greenhouse gases per passenger-mile than the average SUV, and much more than the average car, in every urban area except New York. Even before the pandemic, driving was greener than transit in all but a handful of urban areas.
Although transit definitely plays a huge role in New York City transportation, it plays trivial to insignificant roles everywhere else. Yet Democrat’s everywhere exhibit diehard support for transit. Even many Republicans have swallowed the transit Kool-Aid: Governing quotes an Indiana Republican who “acknowledges that bus service plays an important role in Indianapolis” when in fact only 1.2 percent of workers who live in the city of Indianapolis, and only 0.1 percent of suburban Indianapolitan workers, commute by transit.
So why do so many Democrats continue to support transit? The answer differs from person to person, of course, but for many Democrats the answer includes strong union support. The Amalgamated Transit Union represents more than 200,000 transit workers and the union contributes more than $1.6 million per election cycle to political campaigns, most of which no doubt goes to Democrats.
Support from the unions and environmental groups are really only political cover for many Democrats who get even more contributions from rail transit contractors. Engineering firms such as HDR, railcar manufacturers such as Siemens and Alstom, and construction companies such as Balfour Beatty collectively spend millions of dollars a year on lobbying and campaign contributions.
If the Republican Party under Trump has become the party of the working class, the Democrats have become the party of large (but not too large) corporations. This helps answer Governing‘s question: Republicans are skeptical of transit because they see their constituents asked to pay more taxes that go not to transit riders but to union workers and transit contractors.
With billions of tax dollars being spent on transit each year, there’s a lot of money that can be diverted to lobbying and campaign contributions. Unfortunately, opponents of transit subsidies don’t have ready access to a similar source of funds and thus can easily be painted as a quirky minority. In fact, transit support would dramatically decline if more people really understood how insignificant it is outside of New York and how much harm transit subsidies do to low-income people and the environment.
I said it a Long time ago.
“The chief demographic transit was originally meant for, the Poor, the Handicapped, the elderly and children.” Have largely seen their ridership ousted by direct services.
Why do Dems support transit
1: Because it’s viewed as a public good, besides people physically/legally incapable of driving, it serves needs of Whatever new protected class; The blacks, latinos, the Muslims, the urban folks, the poor.
Regardless NO price is too much to bear in name of equality. Transit is another form of “Gibs”
50-60 years ago, Government policy was black folks had sit in the back.
Second reason: It enriches enshrined politically well connected Labor unions. Put Biden’ terrible border management, the flow illegals into the US allows for huge quantity of cheap labor. THat influx it’s bigger than the SEIU, UAW and Teamsters put together.
But the unions who work on or build nations transit system are immune to this price gouging.
Study human behavior long enough you discover the Incentive principle.
The concept is called induced demand, which is economist-speak for when increasing the supply of something (like roads or chocolate or porno) makes people want that thing even more. Works in reverse. By incentivizing cities to adopt transit they don’t need.
Another reason for anti-car war is localized taxes.
Despite assertion CITIES subsidizing suburbia, opposite is real concern; suburanites represent larger growing portion of urban commuters. Living in suburbs and commuting to cities to work, been around since 70s. And has been parody’ in numerous movies/pop culture. Edward Scissorhands, Powerpuff girls, Bob’s Burgers.
Once you have an automobile you’re no longer locally geographically bound to a career and are free to pursue work or even a new residence elsewhere….which is what cities fear most; people fleeing. Or people who commute to city solely for work, and nothing else. There’s a perfect example of these “Commute Cities” Silver Springs, MD.
3: Planners and Govt stooges plan things LONG TERM.
There’s no long term consequences to a highway, a six lane highway can be turned into a four lane highway easily by ripping up the asphalt and planting trees again or having a Boulevard and Esplanade. Once you build rail and it’s accompanying infrastructure you’re stuck with it forever unless you let it rust into oblivion; which is what our transit agencies did; now bill it as needing new investment.
It’s an extortion racket in reverse.
California passed a State bill, eliminating it’s long practiced mandate on farebox recovery of Caltrains and rail transit systems. prior to, these systems were required to meet a minimum farebox recovery (35%) to comply for federal funding in their affairs. Since removed since advent of Construction of HSR in California. If California had no faith their trains could make any meaningful revenue, why’d they build High speed rail. It’s an extortion racket in reverse.
California then: LOOK at our economy, give us money for High speed rail it’s a great investment
Now: Were’ Broke/poor give us money for high speed rail as investment.
this is such a long statement without any sources its crazy. “Biden’s terrible border managment” you mean him trying to give republicans everything they wanted and them saying actually no cause trump said so? Its also crazy that you think a person needing a car to get everywhere is somehow less geologically locking than needing a train to get everywhere. Like how about we do neither. Also girliepop commuting to work has been a thing since the 40s??? Also im going to blow your mind, but cars wouldnt make any revenue either if they had to pay for the road under themselves. Also maintaining massive stretches of roads would be a much more stable and lucrative way to make money, since roads overall cost the most in maintenance, but I never see yall complaining about that.
Why does a new report from the Frontier Centre for Public Policy support transit? With transit having so much bipartisan support, it’s time to start building it!
https://ti.org/antiplanner/?p=21978
“the report urges cities to develop polycentric transit systems that serve other economic centers as well as they now serve downtowns.”
One significant reason why the transit industrial complex has such a stronghold has to be the lack of any organized support (especially public support) for highways. Hundreds of millions of highway users have become complacent with the status quo. Even AAA, the American Automobile Association, condones, even supports, the diversion of billions of highway user revenue for transit, seemingly blind to its impact on highways, which are allowed to deteriorate and become congested due to lack of funding.
Also culpable are the thousands of engineers, especially highway engineers, who know better but remain silent. Where are the voices of ASCE, NSPE and AASHTO? Why is there no outrage?!
Im gonna blow your mind but the reason why highways deteriorate so fast isnt lack of funding, its just that everyone *has* to drive on them! At least for midwestern and west coasts, highways are the only way to move around a region since there are no rail alternatives, so then everyone gets a car which wears down roads real quick. And there isnt any outrage because engineers WANT better transit, because better transit is GOOD FOR US.
Henry, although congestion is a problem, fortunately, road deaths are up in recent years, which should help get some of those excess drivers off the roads:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motor_vehicle_fatality_rate_in_U.S._by_year?useskin=vector#Motor_vehicle_deaths_in_U.S._by_year
Short answer: How democrats win votes
– Anything that is paid as public service however glitzy, is viewed as sociological public good
– Some people are dumber and easier to fool than others
– Cutting expenditure, especially on things perceived to be publicly good/useful, decries your political opponents as one of the -ists. (Racist, etc)
As long as you can manifest yourself as a benevolent provider… the voter base will eat of your hand
“Anything that is paid as public service however glitzy, is viewed as sociological public good”
Highways don’t count; those are for normal Americans, not dumb people or democrats.
Our streets/Roads serve same purpose they did for centuries; To convey wheeled vehicles to/from destinations.
Even before car, USA and Europe had 2 million miles roads used by horse/buggy. When cars were invented, Used same Infrastructure……..
When Mass produced automobile took off in 1906; sales rose rather quickly by 1916 10% US homesteads had one, by 1926, spread to more than HALF.
Post World War I inflation ruined value of US Nickel rendering transit fares on streetcars and various subways financially unfeasible to run effectively. On the other hand, 21 cents for a gallon of petroleum distillate; the oil industry was throwing away as waste (Gasoline) that got 20+ miles per gallon……
this is such a weird answer. Why would inflation ruin the financial viablility of streetcars? they could literally just up prices like everyone else. Besides it being cheaper would just drive more people to use it over an expensive automobile. Also I like how you purposefully left out rail, ya know that thing that they still use all the time in europe. Granted you did hit the target at one point, which was simply a cultural obsession with cars (I should look up why americans became obsessed with cars).
I need to see this man’s answer as to why transit works in new york but not anywhere else. would be very entertaining
Have you ever looked at a world population density map? The Boston – DC urban corridor is the only area in the US that comes close to western Europe’s.
Have you? Looking at a density map its pretty much as dense as europe is until the crossing of the Mississippi, then tapers off till you cross the rockies and then its solid density again. Besides regional density only matters for city-city transit not intercity transit, which in that regard pretty much every state would have cities equivalent to europe in size, the difference being the european ones have good transit and walkability and thus low rates of car ownership.
i tink nc and va together are about the size of great brittian. they have an average density of about 200 pp/psqm. GB has a density of about 750 pp/psqm.