By Ben Adler, April 7, 2014
Will Tennessee’s Republican-controlled state legislature kill this proposed bus rapid transit line in Nashville?
As more cities come to terms with Americans’ shifting desires
to get out of cars and onto mass transit, we are beginning to see bus
and rail projects in some unexpected places. Mass transit isn’t just for
your Europhile socialist coastal enclaves anymore. Cities in the
Midwest and the Sun Belt are trying to develop well-planned transit
systems such as light rail and bus rapid transit.
But there is a hitch: States tend to control both how
transportation funds are raised and how they are spent. Even federal
transportation dollars are mostly disbursed to states rather than
localities. Many states, even liberal California and transit-rich New
York, prohibit cities from levying most kinds of taxes without state
permission, making it hard for metropolitan areas to raise funds for
their own projects.
And, you’ll be shocked to discover, Republican state
legislatures aren’t so keen on mass transit. In Indiana, for example,
the counties in the Indianapolis region need state approval just to hold
a referendum on whether to fund mass transit projects. And the state
legislature would not give them that permission unless they dropped a
light rail system from the proposal, and also dropped a corporate tax to pay for it.
The irony is that the
business community itself had lobbied for the mass transit system, since
they appreciate its economic value. But God forbid businesses should be
asked to contribute to building the public goods they will benefit
from! They lobbied against the corporate income tax that would have
covered a mere 10 percent of the system’s cost, and it was removed.
Conservatives, of course, then attacked the bill for shifting the cost
onto taxpayers. But at least it finally passed.
Nashville may not be so lucky. The city wants to build
a bus rapid transit line on one of its major, traffic-clogged
corridors. The system would cut commute times, but suburbanites worry
that by taking one of their precious car lanes it would cause traffic
and safety problems. Americans for Prosperity, the Koch brothers–funded
anti-government advocacy organization, has rallied support for a
Tennessee state Senate bill that would prohibit dedicating any lane of
traffic to buses, and late last month it passed. The bill’s fate in the state House is unclear.
Meanwhile, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio’s effort to rein in dangerous drivers to protect
pedestrians and bicyclists may be thwarted by the state government. He
needs Albany’s approval to post speeding cameras around the city, and
the legislature did not include it in the state budget that just passed. It may be added later.
To some extent, these pro-car, anti-transit, and
anti-pedestrian policies are just the natural byproduct of our bizarre
federal system. In European or Asian countries with better subway
systems and inter-city rail service, infrastructure policy is
nationalized. National governments tend to appreciate cities and their
vital economic importance. State politics, on the other hand, can be
dominated by reactionary rural or suburban legislators who resent the
prominence of their state’s biggest cities.
But some reforms are possible. Federal transportation
dollars, for example, can go more to localities than states. President
Obama has started to do this a little bit with his competitive TIGER grants
program. And as more Southern and Midwestern cities push for transit,
suburban and conservative resistance to it may soften. Until then, there
is a lot of work to be done in statehouses.