Citiwire.net

For Release January 25, 2009
Citiwire.net

The federal stimulus package that President Obama and Congress will craft in coming weeks could do immense and permanent good by bringing better balance to this country’s outmoded transportation policies.

For the last 50 years, since President Eisenhower spearheaded the creation of the Interstate Highway System, Uncle Sam has nurtured the construction of new roads and highways. The economic and social benefits for our country have been immense.

But in recent years, the costs–global warming, dependence on foreign oil, sprawl, long commutes, lost productivity, and even social isolation–have also begun to become clear.

To most Americans, the dominance of the automobile may seem completely natural. Automotive transportation offers unparalleled convenience, especially in a country, like ours, where low density, single-family housing predominates.

From this perspective, some of the basic facts of transportation in my community–St. Louis–seem entirely predictable. A much-needed, “design-build” $535 million reconstruction of our major east-west highway is well under way. Progress is being made on another much-needed project — the construction of a new $640 million bridge across the Mississippi River. But sadly, by a slim margin, voters last Nov. 4th rejected the further expansion of the area’s 46-mile, national-award-winning MetroLink light-rail system.

In reality, however, this confluence of circumstances cannot be predicated on the “natural” preference of an automobile-centric culture. First, a substantial–and growing–sector of the population actually prefers transit. Fifty-three percent of Americans tell pollsters they would take more public transportation if it were available near where they live and work. While some cannot afford a car or cannot drive a car, many more simply prefer transit, for reasons ranging from the nature of the experience to an environmental commitment. The preference for transit appears especially strong among the young knowledge workers that regions like mine are working so hard to attract.

Second, the entire funding process is effectively rigged. Casey Stengel used to say that the New York Yankees won all the time because they were so well-schooled in baseball fundamentals, that the ball tended to roll in their favor. In transportation, government has done for highways what intensive schooling did for the Yankees. At the state level, many transportation departments that would actually like to use gas tax revenue for transit are actually forbidden from doing so by their outdated state constitutions.

At the federal level, the playing field on which highways and transit compete is tilted in several ways. First, there’s the federal “match.” Uncle Sam pays 80 to 90 percent of the capital costs of new highways, with the key decisions left to states. In the case of the reconstruction of I-64 through the heart of St. Louis, Washington is paying 80 percent through the federal excise tax on gasoline and diesel fuel.

By contrast, the federal government pays for no more than 60 percent of mass transit projects, and more often just 40 to 50 percent. These funds are the object of intensely competitive political “earmarking” battles for precious few dollars–battles that most communities lose. Further, these battles must be refought annually, as Congress makes its appropriations. The federal playing field is in no way level. With increased transit demand (and transit-oriented development) evidencing itself throughout the country in response to higher gas prices and environmental concerns, logic says we should make fundamental adjustments. But, today the ball still definitely rolls on our tilted playing field in favor of highways.

With the feds paying most of the freight and the states usually paying the rest, municipalities–and voters–usually regard highway funds as “free money.” In contrast, transit systems require separate local funding – and lots of it. When we expanded our St. Louis MetroLink light rail system here several years ago, at a cost of $678 million, we paid for it 100 percent with an increase in local sales taxes. When we considered another expansion this past November, we asked the voters to support it with another half-cent sales tax increase. In the teeth of a recession, they turned it down by a margin so narrow it could be seen in some ways as a moral victory.

St. Louis, of course, is only emblematic of a situation that plays itself out in too many American regions. In the economic race of the 21st century, these regions are left to compete with one foot stuck, almost literally, in concrete. And, as the Brookings Institution’s Blueprint for American Prosperity has shown, the well being of these metro areas will drive the well being of the nation. Unfortunately, in our cities, mass transit is on life-support. Go to China, go to Spain; you will see that United States as a whole is being lapped.

The answer is not to stop building highways. On the contrary, we need to keep improving our highway system.

But in the allocation of our public funds, we need a level playing field for highways and transit. We need to reform the funding process even as we invest in stimulus. Why not a blended, single multi-modal formula for highways and transit? Only then can we make rational decisions for our regions’ future and give communities the alternatives they want.

---

Richard C.D. Fleming is president and CEO of the St. Louis Regional Chamber & Growth Association and chairman of the board of Partners for Livable Communities. His e-mail is rfleming@stlrcga.org.

Citiwire.net columns are not copyrighted and may be reproduced in print or electronically; please show authorship, credit Citiwire.net and send an electronic copy of usage to webmaster@citiwire.net.