No News = No Money
Posted by Fred Jandt
Mass Transit magazine editor
Have you ever heard the saying if a tree falls in the woods and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound? Lately I feel that way about transit. If a transit-related story happens and it’s not where you live do you pay attention to it?
This week another tragedy befell the public transportation industry with the rail accident in Washington, D.C. First, our thoughts are with those who lost loved ones in the wreck. You never want to see something like this happen anywhere.
Strangely enough, here in the Midwest it almost seems like it didn’t happen. I asked a few friends about the accident and they seemed to recall something about some train crash, but they couldn’t go into specifics. Now, I know I am tuned into the transit industry, but to not know about what happened?
Then I thought about the Metrolink accident from a few months ago. Have you heard about that lately? I am sure on the West Coast it was brought up again in the wake of the Metro accident in Washington, but for most other parts of the country life has moved on. It’s just another blip on the news radar.
Why is this? When the I-35 bridge in Minnesota collapsed it was national news for weeks. There was a national cry for immediate funding to fix bridges and the words “crumbling infrastructure” became an instant part of the public conscience. Is it because so many more people use cars than take transit? I don’t buy that. Is it media hype? That is more likely. It is easier to spin a story about a bridge collapse locally (our one bridge into town is in dire peril!) than a train crash when you don’t have rail lines in town.
Looking back at the I-35 bridge collapse, the federal government moved swiftly to ensure $195 million for Minnesota to replace the fallen bridge and $1 billion nationwide to repair others in just six weeks. There are already urgings to get Metro money to improve its system — improvements the NTSB says should have been done years ago — to prevent future accidents from happening.
Here’s the crux of this. When will transit ever get a fair shake when it comes to funding? After the I-35 bridge collapse a nationwide call goes out to improve bridge infrastructure, yet two rail accidents happen within months of each other and officials are arguing to be sure to put restrictions on any aid Metro gets so it doesn’t use it to pay off old debts. Huh?
Metro is just the tip of the proverbial iceberg here. There are plenty of other agencies out there that could benefit from a federal investment into positive train control systems rather than using systems that are decades old. But, you know, those have worked pretty good so far, so we could squeeze another 20-30 years out of them.
Think on that for a minute. We cry about our crumbling infrastructure and how we need to repair it. Now consider being told it hasn’t failed yet, so you won’t get any funding until it does. That’s what transit faces. No money until something goes wrong.
Thanks for reading the MT Position updated every Friday,
Fred
fred.jandt@cygnusb2b.com
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I’ve been thinking on this whole convincing people to get out of their cars situation we as a nation are faced with and I think instead of taxing and/or regulating, we need to put in some good old marketing know-how. Otherwise I just don’t think it will ever work.
Kete states that we are, “going to have to make driving alone or driving more expensive, make it reflect the environmental and infrastructure costs of supporting the driving economy.”