Driving back to the Stone Age

by | Sep 22, 2015 | Editor's Blog, Transportation | 14 comments

In the News & Observer this morning State Representative Paul Stam said, “Light rail is sort of a dinosaur of the 20th century or the 19th century.” Well, that sure is the pot calling the kettle black. Stam is certainly a leading member of the GOP Flat Earth Society but I figured even he would tell you that dinosaurs were at least 6,000 years old or so.

The larger story, though, is the Republican take on any sort of transportation that’s not an automobile. They’ve staunchly opposed light rail in the Triangle for years. They even tried to pass a provision that would make it harder for cities and towns to build bike lanes. What was that all about?

Over the next twenty years or so, the Triangle will double in size, reaching close to 3 million people. The region will continue to be the state’s leading economic engine and moving those new residents around efficiently is certainly in the best interest of the state. If everybody is driving cars, this region will be a mess.

In the summer of 2012, we lived in St. Paul, MN for a month. The state was building a rail line that stretched from Minneapolis to downtown St. Paul. The rail line was incomplete but it followed a major road that was lined with dilapidated buildings and abandoned houses. This summer, we road the train from Minneapolis to St. Paul and the transformation was dramatic. At almost every rail stop, shops and stores had opened up. New apartment buildings lined the tracks. There were still some areas that were struggling, but it was clear that the rail system had spurred economic development in these areas.

The Twin Cities are a metro area of 3 million people, about where we’re heading now. There was a lot of complaining about building the rail system when I first started going there about 12 years ago. The arguments sounded like the ones we hear in the Triangle today. Nobody is complaining much now.

The people moving into the Triangle are going to want various modes of transportation. The millennial generation, in particular, is less attached the automobile than any generation in the past 50 years. Some will want to bike. Some will want to walk. And a lot will look for public transportation.

For some reason, the GOP wants to discourage any of this behavior. Some people would argue that they are driven by the Koch brothers and their attachment to oil. I think it’s far less sinister than that. I think they have very little foresight because they are too busy trying to take us backward to the Stone Age. Talk about dinosaurs.

14 Comments

  1. Norma

    NTC’s mass transit system(bus and subway) move millions every day. For a pittance compared to the cost of dealing with a car in Charlotte. Are there problems — sure, any transit system of any kind will have snags, but rarely are they more than a frustration. New Yorkers love to complain, but the statistics show most subway close to on time, or on time, and hours long foul ups are the exception.

    I am not sure how you build an adequate system in a city or region already devoted to cars, but I can guarantee you that if you want to compete in the future, someone has to get a handle on the nonsense of thousands of car (one person to each car) trying to leave mid-town Charlotte for their homes. Light rail is probably only a part of that. A better bus system, meaning more routes that work for people, smaller buses, and more frequent service is needed, would help.

    Would I swap my car for a subway and bus system that worked. Emphatically, yes.

  2. Russell Scott Day

    And one more thing. Light rail is doomed since the rights of way they needed have been destroyed over years and years in favor of cars. The only way to overcome the situation as it exists is to make buses act like trains, which does have advantages. If you have lost, you have simply lost. You were too late, spent too much time talking, and missed the opportunity to put in Light Rail in the Sixties.

  3. R. Paul Wilms

    According to a UNC-C study (Hartgen, D.T., and D.O. Curley. 1999. Beltways: Boon, Bane, or Blip? Factors Influencing Changes in Urbanized Area Traffic, 1990-1997. UNC-Charlotte), public transit has no significant impact on congestion; the only factor influencing congestion being jobs. Only five percent of American workers take mass transit to work, and the number has been dropping. While the use of personal vehicles has increased more than 85 percent since 1970, the use of mass transit has dropped three percent.

    The simple fact is that light rail and other forms of mass transit cannot meet the ability of roads to move passengers. US light rail lines carry 88 percent less volume than a single freeway lane couplet and 50 percent less volume than a single arterial lane couplet.

    Availability of light-rail does not reduce automobile use. Each of the four cities that built light rail in the 1980s – Buffalo, Portland, Sacramento, and San Diego – by 1990 had experienced a decline in the percentage of workers using public transit to get to work. What’s more, the actual number of riders on light rail fails to meet pre-construction forecasts by 65 percent. The majority of light-rail riders transfer from buses, not automobiles.

    Mass transit, and particularly light-rail, are a solution in need of a problem in North Carolina, and for the reasons set forth in this and my previous comment, should be avoided.

  4. R. Paul Wilms

    Actually, Rep. Stam is correct regarding the need for mass transit in North Carolina.

    We have already seen that mass transit does not ease, but in fact, can exacerbate traffic congestion. Additionally, commute times, commuter safety, energy efficiency, public service costs, and open space all suffer in densely populated, compact, transit oriented communities.

    Commute times for light rail are more than double those for automobile. The average light rail commute time is 45 minutes, but only 21 minutes by automobile.

    Rail transit is less safe than automobile travel. The number of fatalities per 100 million passenger miles in the US is significantly higher for commuter rail (1.310) and light rail (1.317) than for automobile and trucks (0.745).

    Mass transit is less energy efficient than automobile use. Energy consumption per passenger mile for automobiles (3467 BTU) is less than that for transit buses (4650 BTU), rapid rail (3790 BTU), and light rail (3919 BTU).

    A grand jury in Orange County, California, investigating the claims of proponents of light rail, examined the 12 urban light rail systems most recently built in the United States. The grand jury found , among other things, that: (1) light rail has a negligible impact on traffic congestion because it attracts few automobile drivers from their cars; (2) even the most cost-effective light rail systems have required subsidies of $5000 or more per new ride (drivers moved from cars to the transit system); (3) light rail does not spur development; rather, development along light rail corridors is spurred by tax subsidies; and (4) light rail does not improve commuter travel times, energy conservation, or commuter safety.

    But, of course, these are just facts.

    • Apply Liberally

      Thank you for those dated (15-25 year-old) bullets points picked straight from the NC Home Builders Association website (http://www.nchba.org/wp/legislative-news/the-truth-about-traffic-and-mass-transit/) and other sources cited there, Mr. Wilms.

      I’m sure the NCHBA check is in the mail.

      Home builders like those in NCHBA (who, BTW, donate generously to the political campaigns of GOP members of the NCGA) would hardly support a form of public transportation that doesn’t spur more sprawl and more building in the suburbs and exo-burbs, now would they?

  5. Linda spallone

    Mr mills. I would be glad to support light rail if it went though dilapidated areas but if you took the time to educate yourself you would see it has taken its route through our public watershed areas and is intent on clear cutting areas full of trees not dilapidated buildings . It does not connect the triangle, goes no where near airports or males, drops students a mile and a half away from their colleges does not go to Raleigh , does not serve hillsborough me babe and other outplaying areas. Please know what you are talking about and also you could give yourself some education on the power of Bernie sanders
    Linda Spallone

  6. Joy Hewett

    Not only with transportation and light rail are Republicans driving us backwards, but they want to turn our rivers back into sewers for industry and developer profits rather than keep buffers and thus allow runoff to pollute our waters and our health.

  7. Lawrence Gilbert

    The main problem in our state is not the republican party but rather the electorate which votes against its own self interests. It is unbelievable to me that the poor and middle class voted in these clowns who are now giving tax breaks to the relatively wealthy, like me, and destroying our public school system so that our children will be less educated adults and will vote for them out of ignorance.

  8. Bob

    I, for one, am beginning to feel a little hopeless about my home state. I do not see these bozos getting the boot for years to come. They have facilitated our slow slide into the next Mississippi, but most people do not pay attention to details and vote based on some form of identity politics. The only thing we can hope to do is slow them down by robbing them of the veto-proof majority and perhaps electing a Democratic governor. But both of those options seem remote. I had hoped to retire here in about 12 years, but that is looking less likely every day. I’m about ready to start looking elsewhere. Years of centrist and center-right governance is caving under the weight of the ideologues. I will continue to give and continue to get out the vote, but I am less convinced now than I was two years ago that it is going to make a difference. Sad times.

  9. Cosmic janitor

    The problem for you Mr. Mills is that you are an appeaser, and what is unfolding before us is serious in the extreme. The republikan zealots in control of the NCGA intend the greatest harm imaginable, and they make no pretense of that. Even more telling is that regardless of their authoritarian bent, unconstitutional legislation, stocking the courts with ideological cronies, privatization of public assets and extreme austerity for the less fortunate, these neanderthal zealots continue to take-over more and more state houses with each election, no matter how vilified nor held in contempt they are by the general public of those states – yet this does not alarm you, not even the militarism being espoused by the republikan presidential hopefuls? This is how societies fall under the iron fist my friend.

    • Progressive Wing

      Really, Cosmic? You turn your understandable distaste for and concern about GOP “zealots” and troglodytes into grounds for calling Mills an “appeaser”? What would satisfy you—-a physical assault on anyone registered as a Republican? Have some perspective, please. And you might want to look up the meaning off the word “ally” in the dictionary before you next have the urge to rip into Mills……..

      • Cosmic janitor

        Did you read this article ? Did you read Mr. Mills article where he discussed the Democratic presidential candidates; where he dismissed Bernie Sanders outright while proclaiming only Hillary or Joe Biden could be considered proper contenders? I did not ‘rip’ into anyone, but I did let Mr. Mills know what I think of the opinions he expressed in these articles.

        • Progressive Wing

          Yes, I read the article. Reading these blogs is what one does when subscribing to this blog.
          And BTW, I disagreed with Mills’ take on Sanders/Hillary/Biden.
          But I did not call him an appeaser, and did not imply that he was aiding and abetting the GOP opposition and the fall of our society under “iron fists.” You did that.
          And when you name-call as well as accuse someone of undermining American society, I say that qualifies as ripping into someone.

          • Russell Scott Day

            It is a good idea to rip into some strongmen every way possible short of violence, and they may well not be that far off. Nothing works that you don’t believe in and as William James said, “Democracy is delicate.”
            Gerrymandering is one tool in the toolbox that seems to twist the will of the majority out of their hands.
            Then there are lies, and tricks of the parliamentary procedures altered for power from Roberts Rules.
            Look there, now we have to have a budget right now, school is started already.
            Look at every issue now and decide if it will benefit the corporation, or the nation.
            Targets for renewables without Tax Credits, throws small independent installers out of business but the legacy powers have had decades to have legislation written in their favor.
            In not a single one of the former Confederate States of America are wages for labor higher than in Northern States.
            The founding fathers equated money and freedom.
            Working people don’t have the option of tax avoidance whereas the rich do.
            “We just corrected the calendar.” Said McCrory.

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