The MT Position

Posted by Fred Jandt
Mass Transit magazine editor

Last week I railed against George Will’s column taking a slanted view of secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood’s plan for increasing public transportation in the United States. Sadly, the secretary didn’t hold up his end of the bargain and stop himself from proving Will right.

It wasn’t 24 hours after I wrote last week’s blog that I read an article touting, “Transportation Secretary Endorses Anti-Car Agenda.” The deck claiming the secretary said coercion and government intrusion would be used to force people out of their cars made me think this was just another slanted article. Of course, the secretary did say those things.

Secretary LaHood was speaking at a National Press Club event last week about the DOT’s stimulus initiatives and to be honest he got off on the right foot by noting that transit agencies need operating funds to go with the new buses and trains they are getting with stimulus dollars. But then it kind of went wrong when he admitted that making driving less attractive was the intent behind new fees and regulations.

Hold up there a sec. We just listened to Will rant last week about how LaHood was the “Secretary of Behavior Modification” and just like that the secretary practically admitted to it. Of course, taking the choice quotes out of context is an old trick. LaHood was discussing how creating opportunities for people to get out of their cars through livable communities, which is a good thing. And he should have stopped there.

“It is a way to coerce people out of their cars, yeah,” LaHood admits at one point. Taken out of context or not, using the word coerce in this statement just gives George Will every right to sit back, fold his arms, nod his head and smile. You’ve proven his point. The government is using coercion to get people out of their cars. They are taking away freedoms through underhanded means. Game. Set. Match.

If this were Vice President Biden, people would be proclaiming this as a gaff. Is it? To be honest, no it’s not. I think the secretary was being brutally honest as he seems to have a penchant for. You want a better environment? You want less congestion? You want lower gas prices? Then there just simply has to be fewer cars on the road. It’s a part of the solution – not the whole solution, mind you – but a significant part. And if it takes government legislation to get it done, then the government needs to step in and do that.

Here’s the thing that neither Will nor LaHood nor anybody else is talking about – this has happened before, there was just a lot less complaining about it. We didn’t have the 24/7 Un-media (to coin my own Orwellian phrase) endlessly examining and discussing every nuance of the government during the last depression. Think about what Eisenhower would have to go through to create the interstate highway system today had he had to deal with all the “pundits” discussing his plan and how it was going to affect your life.

LaHood didn’t say anything wrong and he said the worst thing he possibly could have. In today’s day and age it’s politically incorrect to be honest because somehow even the truth can (and Will) be used against you.

Thanks for reading the MT Position updated every Friday,

Fred
fred.jandt@cygnusb2b.com
Check out our LinkedIn page!

Posted by Fred Jandt
Mass Transit magazine editor

The new trend in media it seems isn’t reporting the news, but sticking up for your guy and yelling at other media members for saying bad things about him. That folks is how you get ratings. Whole careers have been built around it. And frankly, I’m sick of it.

George F. Will is arguably one of the most learned and skilled authors writing in America today. While his views don’t always align with mine, he has the right to his views just as much as I do to mine. But sometimes, sometimes you just have to stand up and say enough is enough.

In a recent column Will discussed Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood’s views on public transportation and how they are just one example of a “far-seeing and fastidious government” who seemingly wants to control everything from sea to shining sea.

Please. It’s this type of political fear mongering that is so rampant in the media these days. Does Will actually believe that the current administration is out to control all aspects of everyone’s lives? Or does he think it’s just the liberals (i.e. Democrats) that are to blame?

As Will puts it, “Long before climate change became another excuse for disparaging America’s ‘automobile culture,’ many liberal intellectuals were bothered by the automobile. It subverted their agenda of expanding government — meaning their — supervision of other people’s lives.”

Are you kidding me? Ask anyone in a major metropolitan area in the United States whether they feel the government is supervising their lives through the use of public transportation. The idea that a transit system timetable is a means of ordering society in neatly controlled masses is Orwellian claptrap at best and conservative propaganda at worst.

So, what is the alternative? Just give up on the idea of public transportation? Drop the whole plan for a series of intercity high-speed rail lines? Just keep adding more lanes to an already choked and crumbling highway system instead? Public transportation continues to grow despite lack of government support in many places. That is the public making a choice, not being forced into a bus or train, their cars abandoned at the side of the road.

George Will is doing nothing different than Rush Limbaugh, Keith Olberman or even former Vice President Dick Cheney — he’s sticking up for his side and tearing down the other guys to do it. Have we devolved as a nation to the point where that’s all we get from our writers, commentators and leaders?

Thanks for reading the MT Position updated every Friday,

Fred
fred.jandt@cygnusb2b.com
Check out our LinkedIn page!

Posted by Fred Jandt
Mass Transit magazine editor

Transit has a stigma — well more than one — attached to it. More likely, it has a stigma attached to its riders. That its riders are rude, poor and that nefarious “bad element” no one seems to be able to define clearly. I’m skipping the latter two today because the first one is undeniably true and I think we bring it on ourselves.

Now, when its riders are rude, I don’t mean all riders. But there are a significant portion of riders whose bad behavior has become the fodder for a lifetime of stand-up comedy routines. Let’s take the guy who puts his feet up on the seat across from him. Or how about the loud cell phone talker who gets mad when they are asked to tone it down. Or the person who uses transit as their personal office spreading themselves out over several seats who is imposed on when the vehicle fills up. Or my personal favorite, the person with the earphones and music so loud you can hear them two seats away anyway.

All of these people are truly rude and again I think it’s our fault. I recently got an agency newsletter in the mail that included letters from riders complaining about other riders. Unfortunately, almost universally the agency response was what do you want us to do about it.

You know what? That’s a stupid stance to take. If someone takes the time and effort to contact an agency about a problem (and they’re not a crank — those you usually can spot right away), then they’re the tip of the proverbial iceberg when it comes to a problem. For every person who has contacted an agency about someone playing their music too loud, numerous others have just sat there and suffered in silence.

And what do we do about it? Largely nothing. On a bus, we can complain to the driver who will politely tell the person to stop whatever rude behavior they seem oblivious (or feel entitled) to. On the train the conductor fills that role. And what comes of it? Hopefully the person will stop whatever they are doing, but a brief admonishment is no guarantee.

When that conductor on the train walks away you’re left with two people who might as well be kids in a teacherless classroom, the tattler and tattled on. That never goes well. I’ve heard more than once of a passenger berating another about asking a conductor or driver to have them stop being rude.

Why don’t we boot these people off the bus or train? Have them move to a different car or just pull the bus over and tell them to get out? So many agencies have told me their vehicles are “self-policing.” Why is that? Why must we put up with rude people?

I understand that for a long time transit was happy for every rider it could get. But now with booming riderships do we need to maintain this policy? Wouldn’t transit be better served making the car/bus full of riders happy by kicking the one rude guy off rather than just putting up with him until his stop?

As transit’s popularity grows, I think we need to adapt our thought processes from being thankful for every rider to making patrons thankful for every ride.

Thanks for reading the MT Position updated every Friday,

Fred
fred.jandt@cygnusb2b.com
Check out our LinkedIn page!

Posted by Fred Jandt
Mass Transit magazine editor

I’ve said it before (probably here); it’s nice to go to shows. This year’s APTA Bus & Paratransit Conference was no exception. We’re an industry that is very connected and yet, can be very isolated. So it’s nice to get out to the same location with a couple hundred of your industry peers and just compare notes on how good (or bad) things are in their neck of the woods.

I know from my perspective that I tend to get tunnel vision this time of year. Our schedule is front-loaded so combining that with all the shows in the first six months and I tend to go from one issue to the next and when I get a breather I look up and don’t realize how the year went by so fast.

As I look down at the fast-approaching halfway point for 2009 bearing down on us, it was nice to take that breather this week at the Bus & Paratransit Conference. Seattle is a great city and I had a great time sampling some of its local cuisine and checking out some great places to shop. As expected, the King County Metro did a fine job as the host agency.

I also had the chance to catch up with a lot of people I knew in the industry and see how things are going for them. Frankly, times are tough everywhere. I didn’t hear a single transit exec tell me things were rosy for their agency. Nearly unanimously what I heard was the stimulus (sorry, ARRA) money was (much) welcomed, but it didn’t help assuage the operating deficits they were facing. Those worst off seemed to be agencies who relied on sales tax revenues for funding. The poor economy is cutting into their bottom line in a major way.

It wasn’t all doom and gloom, though. As I said, the stimulus money was a glimmer of hope for those agencies receiving the funds and most hoped this pointed to a continued commitment from the current administration towards transit. Things are bad, but they could be a lot worse.

That glimmer of hope may just be the dawn breaking through as transit slugs through the darkest part of this economic downturn. Everyone I spoke with was keeping their chins up and vowing to work to keep the buses and trains moving. It’s transit, that’s what we do.

And one last shout out for our Top 40 Under 40. We’ve got more than 100 nominations from across the transit landscape, but I’d love to see that double before the deadline next Friday, May 15. I know everyone reading this has someone under 40 in their organization they could nominate. This industry has a ton of great young talent in it, and it’s time they got the recognition they deserve. Please take the time to go nominate someone you think is deserving.

Thanks for reading the MT Position updated every Friday,

Fred
fred.jandt@cygnusb2b.com
Check out our LinkedIn page!

Posted by Fred Jandt
Mass Transit magazine editor

For every step forward transit takes, it seems mainstream media is there to blow the whistle and tell it to take two steps back. Last night I was watching the ABC World News while cooking dinner and a story come up about how people are driving less due to the economy. OK, that’s fair, but there was no mention of transit. Instead Charlie Gibson’s point was, “If you have a job you can get there quicker.” How hard does transit need to work to get a little respect?

In the report, which you can view here, Gibson claims a “clear sign” of growing unemployment can be found on roads where there has been a significant reduction in congestion. The story basically covers the recent Department of Transportation (DOT) report that total vehicle miles travelled dropped by 3.6 percent in 2008. Of course, it also stops there, telling you the economy is bad so people aren’t driving making it better for everyone else on the road.

It fails to pick up the APTA information that in the same time transit trips increased by 4 percent — and this despite the plummeting gas prices. So, once again, the public only gets half the story.

Hey, you’re commuting? You’ve been using the bus? Ah, a bunch of people are out of work, go on get back into your car!

I’m banging my head against the wall again on this. I know I shouldn’t. It’s the same situation transit has been facing for, well, ever.

Last summer when gas prices soared the media covered the boom in transit ridership and left you with the implication that it all had to do with high gas prices. When gas prices dropped and ridership stayed the same or increased in some locations where was the media? Off covering the latest juicy story.

Now the economy is in the tank and the number of cars is down. Is it really because all of these people are out of work, or is it because people are taking transit? The story discusses metro Atlanta and how traffic has dropped there by 36 percent. And MARTA ridership? Its subway system alone had an 8.6 percent ridership increase in 2008.

I can’t help but feel that transit continues to get the short shrift when it comes to news coverage. When I hear people complaining about how ineffectual a high-speed rail system will be, I wonder have they heard the whole story when it comes to transit or just what the media wants them to hear.

Check out Mass Transit’s new Top 40 Under 40 promotion on our Web site. We’re looking to recognize transit’s best and brightest under the age of 40 in an upcoming issue. Click on the link and you can read more about it and nominate yourself or any of your colleagues.

Thanks for reading the MT Position updated every Friday,

Fred
fred.jandt@cygnusb2b.com
Check out our LinkedIn page!