Harvard economist Edward Glaeser offered one of the more asinine metropolitan policy editorials I’ve ever read in Friday’s Boston Globe. Glaeser argues that federal transportation funding should be focused on places that “need it”—namely, dense localities with congestion problems. The Obama administration’s plans to construct regional transportation systems in the South don’t fit Glaeser’s criteria for necessary transit, since, I guess, they aren’t in the densely populated Northeast.
But the goal of public transit isn’t simply about alleviating congestion—or, at least it shouldn’t be. This is a terribly passive strategy of urban planning, simply following residential patterns and retroactively rigging the structure of transportation to maximize efficient mobility. It denies the reality that some people need better access to transportation because they have no other means to get around. If you don’t live in a densely populated or resource-rich neighborhood, there’s a high probability that you don’t have great access to public transportation. And there’s an equally high probability that your socioeconomic status and social/geographic isolation necessitates sound public transportation options in order to find employment or other social services.
Public transit exists to transport the public, and should therefore reflect the transportation needs of the populace. So, if residents in under-populated urban neighborhoods are without adequate access to public transportation, these are the exact areas where light rail lines need to be built. This really isn’t a difficult concept to grasp. Public transportation should be expanded to areas where the public needs transportation. Glaeser’s analysis, ignorant to this basic definition of mass transit, represents utility maximization gone horribly awry. Something is very clearly—and very noticeably—missing in his writing.
Let me put this bluntly: The economic solutions that Glaser proposes are ethically and morally vacant. They deny actual people humanity beyond the realm of statistical variables. With Glaeser, social realities are made into vague abstractions. Discussions of “housing” somehow lose sight of the fact that, well, “housing” boils down to “people that live in houses.” Similarly, his discussion of “mass transit” in the Globe is without an acknowledgement of who exactly the “masses” that require “mass transit” are.
Glaeser opens with the line “Mass transit needs mass to work,” implying that mass transit construction follows the masses and should simply reflect where the most people are. With the initial growth of suburbia in the 1950s, and the continued pioneerism into exurbia today, we know this to be unequivocally false. Federally subsidized highway construction created a structure that filtered housing and commercial development into certain (racially exclusive) regions. Mass transit didn’t respond to some nascent need for suburban sprawl. No, transit construction manufactured popular demand. Historically, transit has rarely been a response to popular need, and has instead laid the groundwork for residential patterns and determined the geography of opportunity.
As Richard Layman details in his blog Rebuilding Place in the Urban Space, metropolitan transportation policy shouldn’t be considered a zero-sum game. We need mass transit to alleviate congestion, sure, but we also need it to connect socially isolated folks to middle class institutions and areas of employment. Glaeser’s proposal would further marginalize communities with already low baselines of collective efficacy and political power. It’s places like Detroit—a city with severe social isolation and a profound disconnect from its neighboring suburbs—that desperately need public transit options and energy efficient light rail systems. But, of course, Glaeser would never support mass transit in Detroit. He doesn’t even understand why anyone still lives there.
If we take Glaeser’s suggestions at face value—following the masses and easing their mobility—we will undoubtedly reinforce the current ecological structure of stratification and inequality. In other words, such a policy would keep poor, isolated populations poor and isolated.
At the end of his editorial, Glaser succinctly argues, “A rational transportation program would target money to the areas that have the most congestion [emphasis added]." Maybe so. But that certainly isn’t the most equitable policy decision we could make.
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I think we have to be careful about how we frame this debate. As you may know, I’m all for transit infrastructure, but I’m not for throwing it up willy-nilly. I don't think it’s wise to ignore the political game surrounding transportation policy. If you build a mediocre rail transit system in a city like Detroit and it bombs, transit opponents and road/car/highway boosters have politically convincing (though not necessarily logically good) evidence that these systems don't work, are a waste of money, and shouldn't get built in places that have local governments willing to put the necessary resources into developing them. To some extent, Glaeser is onto something. Which places get federal funding shouldn’t just get pulled from a hat, and the existing density might not be a fair indicator, but some local governments will be more committed to making this stuff work, and that’s where federal money should be funneled.
ReplyDeleteOoh... I like it when you're riled up! But, seriously, it seems to me that Glaeser isn't really the boogeyman you make him out to be on this one. I honestly don't see a problem with his argument that the limited pool of federal transportation dollars isn't best spent on intercity light rail in places where cars largely do just fine. I also agree that the federal transportation allocation formula should not give more per-capita dollars to sparsely populated states than to densely populated ones.
ReplyDeleteI read Glaeser's argument as saying we should focus transportation dollars on urban transit systems that (a) have the potential for high levels of utilization, and thus higher public good returns and (b) are at least "modestly progressive," in that they tend to serve poorer populations than the business-traveling intercity rail set. Seems both reasonable and not actually at odds with your own priorities.
Public transport is expensive, and requires substantial ridership if it is to be sustainable. Take, as an example, the 83 bus that comes by my apartment once a half-hour (once an hour past 7 pm). On the off-chance that I happen to time it right and the bus isn't more than 5 minutes early, do I sometimes like to ride rather than walk? Sure. But demand on the route is so low that even on that limited schedule there are rarely more than 10 people on the bus at a time. As much as I hate walking in an icy New England winter, sometimes I wonder whether the money invested wouldn't better be spent elsewhere.
You are both right; we do indeed have limited dollars for spending in this arena, and there are serious efficiency and political factors to consider.
ReplyDeleteStill, I'm highly...I don't know...skeptical of the arrow of causality (did I really just write that?) here. At least with highway construction and the growth of suburbia, transit preceded population increases. Transit actually beget/caused/facilitated population increases (along with a litany of other federal subsidies for commercial development and housing). If the 83 ran more efficiently, property values in your neck of the woods might go up, N (at least, according to the Atlantic): http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200803/subprime
Glaeser may be fully correct in his assessment that highly congested areas need better mass transit. I'm totally with that. I just also think we are all misunderstanding the purpose of public transportation, and why regional solutions would be so effective.
Where I live in Cleveland there is a rapid transit line that was built in the 1950s that has been badly neglected by local leaders. Almost none of the stations underwent proper development. Unlike other cities, there is no real estate premium around the stations (there might even be a real estate discount). It's really quite sad to see so much potential go to waste. A lot of the literature I read about the value of transit tends to highlight the successes and ignore the failures. Regardless of the issue, it's an intellectually bankrupt way to prove a point. Cities typically get one shot to do these things right. If they invest in a transit system that doesn’t initially do well, it becomes a tough political sell that spending even more money to expand it would, in fact, make it useful.
ReplyDeleteAlso, to NMD’s point, there is very little evidence that busses have any impact on property values. For whatever reason, only rail seems to create potential value to be captured.
In many respects, this is why I'm a graduate student in sociology, and not economics or urban planning (though I like both disciplines). It comes down to the fact that I think the goal of public transportation is to transport the public, and to provide subsidized transportation options for groups without access to private transportation (read: cars). As such, I believe in the principles of regionalism not because of the overall economic or environmental benefit, but because metropolitan policies serve the needs of poor and/or disadvantaged urban and suburban residents best.
ReplyDeleteIn the event of limited funds, should we concentrate on areas that can help the most people most efficiently? Sure. But that doesn't mean I'm going to stay silent when we continue to neglect isolated groups of marginalized folks.
I think the comment that "cities only have one shot to do this right" is particularly salient in the rust belt. But all that means is that we shouldn't be haphazard with our planning; it doesn't mean we should abandon metro transit systems and other regional policies in these areas altogether.
"there is very little evidence that buses have any impact on property values. For whatever reason, only rail seems to create potential value to be captured."
ReplyDeleteI have noticed that buses tend to be viewed as "only for poor people/minorities/etc" whereas rail lines seem to be much more socially acceptable to those who are are white, college-educated, and who have higher incomes. This trend would certainly explain why rail boosts property values but buses to not.