Lewis makes some good points, but leaves out a critical aspect of transportation. Public transportation ties people to it and puts them at its mercy…and it is now almost exclusively the territory of liberal city governments and labor unions.

Unions have tremendous power in Europe because a strike can literally shut down a city or cripple a country. In the USA? Hop in your car and drive to work.

That individual freedom is precious to Americans, and has contributed greatly to the growth and prosperity of the country as a whole.

The contradiction conservatives (and liberals) should address though is the Constitutional duty of the government to provide infrastructure, and the problems inherent in the government intentionally or unintentionally choosing winners and losers by building that infrastructure. I've never seen much conservative thought in addressing that problem.

Public Works Not Working, Mass Transit Not Moving: A Conservative Perspective

Ooooo, another hyperbolic title for a blog post. D-Vega will surely scream and yell about this one.

Where is this guy from where roads only last a decade?

Public transportation is crucial is big population environments. They are sustainable and extremely important to the local economies.

And traffic. Go to Los Angeles and deal with the traffic and smog. In NY, without public transportation, the roads would grind to a perpetual halt.

Vega,

But, the example of New York provides us perhaps the premium example of the failings of public transit. A bankrupt MTA has its main union (the TWU) demanding still more tribute at the bargaining table and is engaged in a multi-billion dollar project to build a new subway line…a whole two blocks away from the existing lines. While absolutely necessary for New York at this point, the MTA isn't a curse I'd wish on any city.

I'm going to throw a monkeywrench into this discussion and state flat out that fully half of the infrastructure we should be building needs to be massive fibre-optic cabling to support wide-bandwith communications. Rather than continuing to flog the same old paradigm of "going to work" to death, some forward-thinking leader needs to step up to the plate and make widespread ultra-broadband connectivity happen. A large percentage of our workforce don't really need to travel to their offices and back home every day – they could do what they do from home if they had enough reliable bandwidth to handle the data, voice and video connectivity they need. Let's deal with the infrastructure issue smartly and with an eye to the future, not just trying to salvage the things from the past which haven't worked or worked with minimal success.

I like that idea, martin.

A national grid that consists of fiber-optics and electrical cables. Kill two birds with one stone.

I can't argue with that, Bill. Its a corruption bonanza always. It's a tough issue to contend with. The prime example would be that of rebuilding Ground Zero. Barely started after already 8 years of bureaucratic, political and legal wrangling.

"What, so government employees can download p*rn at light speed from home instead of the office?"

Yeah, well the funny thing about people is that they're going to have the same character (or lack thereof) whether they're at home or at an office. Now, they might download more pr0n while at home, but given that at least some of them have figured out how to download it at work and not get caught, who knows? Their supervisors certainly have been acting as though they weren't in the same building as the people they supervised, so why would a few more miles make any difference?

As one conservative to another, I don't want to come on too strong here when I say BOTH OF THESE ARTICLES ARE LUNATIC.

As a tedious transportation policy wonk, this is an issue I am INTIMATELY familiar with. The notion that conservatives don't have a compelling transportation philosophy but liberals do is simply not true. Like everything else, the conservative (and libertarian) philosophy is as little government as possible involved in transit. The liberal view is as much as possible.

Melissa and Matt Lewis think they're meeting liberals in the middle by discouraging auto use and sprawl and encouraging mass transit like rail. You guys: you're not meeting in the middle — YOU'VE JUST ADOPTED THE LIBERAL VIEW OF TRANSIT. And FWIW, Lewis' article is without a modicum of fact. He "challenges the Libertarian notion that trains often have empty seats"? He claims that it fosters community? Curbs sprawl? All of these are liberal myths with no relationship to fact. Not only are there no compelling bodies of data to support his trifecta of ridership/community/antisprawl mythology, there is compelling evidence to the contrary! Anybody interested in this subject MUST read The Best-Laid Plans by Randal O'Toole, particularly the Rail chapter.

Mass transit used to be privatized but was eventually taken over by government. Anyone who wants to see the effects of such a comparison should investigate Santiago, Chile's recent nationalization of transit. Every element of the decision was a boondoggle: they turned a $50 million per year private wealth generator into a $500 million annual tax liability; put more than 2000 private operators out of business; disincentivized drivers by giving them schedule quotas instead of ridership incentives; offered fewer stops at more infrequent times with longer rides; ordered the most expensive buses (which were too big for the roadways and ended up with higher-than-private fatality rates) due to a patronage deal; etc etc etc. You can listen to a brilliant podcast about this at EconTalk, a free market show. Google their site and read about this boondoggle there, too.

As far as rail, THERE IS NO MORE EXPENSIVE MODE OF TRANSIT YOU COULD HAVE CHOSEN. Because rail costs so much more than it's worth, planners must lie about the costs and benefits. Consider this quote from the aforementioned book BLP:

“A group of Danish researchers led by Bent Flyvbjerg found that U.S. rail transit projects cost an average 41 percent more 10 and attracted fewer than half the riders than originally projected. In contrast, U.S. road projects went only 8 percent over budget and actually underestimated use. Rail cost ‘underestimation cannot be explained by error,’ says Flyvbjerg, ‘and is best explained by strategic misrepresentation, that is, lying.’ ‘Undoubtedly, most project proponents believe their projects will benefit society and that they are thus justified in cooking costs and benefits to get projects built,’ Flyvbjerg adds. ‘The ends justify the means, or so the players reason.’ Even after cooking the books, planners’ analyses nearly always show that rail is the least cost-effective transportation solution. Yet cities and transit agencies usually propose to build new rail lines anyway."

To anybody who's interested, I have SCORES of information about false cost and ridership claims made by planners in DOZENS of cities, not a single one of which ever came close to accuracy. In rail-intensive NYC, rail of ALL types carries less than 8% of transit — vehicles carry most of the other 92%. That means your city is even less impressive, whereever it is.

Melissa — these urbanist fads you have found so attractive are among the most insidious and malignant tools of social coercion in the liberal playbook: Smart Growth, rail, high-density, anti-auto, anti-suburb/sprawl, and so on and so forth. The vestiges of similar programs are visible EVERYWHERE in former Soviet territories. Hatred of the car and of sprawl is an anti-individualist liberal groundswell; they want you in collectivist communities riding non-individualist forms of transit where you can be taxed, manipulated and controlled. PLEASE do some research on this before moonlighting in the transportation realm next time; this stuff is poison for the uninitiated.

Everybody can get an amazing start by going to:

http://ti.org/antiplanner

Read up right there, and get the Best-Laid Plans e-book. For anybody as tedious about transit as me, it will BLOW AWAY these liberal myths that we can all "meet in the middle" by adopting anti-individualist, public transit-rich welfare states. And to anybody else reading this tedious post, do yourself the favor.

You don't know what the hell you are talking about when it comes to NYC, chip.

Okay veg, let's see what I said about NYC:

In rail-intensive NYC, rail of ALL types carries less than 8% of transit — vehicles carry most of the other 92%.

Anyone who has ever been to NYC and taken the subways can clearly understand how many people it really is.

So I give you quantitative statistical publications and you offer me an anecdote. COMPELLING. But you've made a mistake: you rode a train there, saw it was at full capacity, and assumed rail carries all of the transit share. NYC has 8+ million people, veg — the fact that your 90-person car was full says nothing about transit share.

The MTA system (bus & trains) transport more than 1 million people per day. That is not 8% of all transit.

Congratulations — you have made the greenhorn mistake of confusing boardings with riders. 1 million boardings is not 1 million people. Boardings double-count most people since they have to get home at some point in the day, and they do not adjust for multiple trips. That's why, unlike you, I'm talking about transit share. Trust me — as someone who wants to believe rail is a panacea and NYC its golden city, you don't want to talk about "uniques."

There is arguably nowhere else in the world that a case can be made for rail as strongly as in NYC, which was built around it. The point for rail nuts is that, even in NYC, its transit share cannot trump the automobile, and it STILL loses money! Here are a few facts for you to dwell on:

Many rail transit lines cost as much to build, per mile, as a four- to eight-lane freeway. Yet, mile for mile, the New York City subways are the only U.S. rail transit lines that carry as many people as a single freeway lane.

252, BLP

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) needs $30 billion to rehabilitate its subways over the next 5 years, for which it has designated $13 billion. The other $17 billion, they hope, can be paid for by inconveniencing riders and taxpayers with higher-capacity standing-only cars and higher taxation. Naturally, even when it does gather this revenue, it must be rebuilt again in 30 years. If they are having problems accounting for this money now, it is difficult to imagine a different scenario 30 years from now, with perhaps a higher debt.

ROT/AP

If density and proximity to transit cured congestion, then walkable, transit-rich New York City would have the best mobility and least congestion of any American city. In fact, while the average home-to-work commute in American cities is about 22 minutes, the average home-to-work commute for new Yorkers is 36 minutes, according to U.S. Census data, one-third longer than the average. No other city, not even Boston, Chicago, San Francisco, or Philadelphia, comes close. ‘Sprawling’ low-density cities like Phoenix and Albuquerque, meanwhile, have commute times below the national average. So why would anyone want to embrace a ‘solution’ that will make the problem of congestion worse?”

Steven Hayward, National Review

Veg — I'm still marvelling at your claim that I don't know what the hell I'm talking about. Heretofore, I've got my facts and you've got your emotions.

Oh, I know this trick. The “Transit Share” trick employed by so many conservatives. “Transit Share” can mean many things. A ride to the store. Kids on a school bus. A bikeride in the park. A drive to the nightclub at 11pm. Any vehicle at any time is part of transit share. That is why “Transit Share” is skewed. Look that the numbers in terms of RUSH HOUR.

Calling transit share a “conservative trick” is manifest intellectual bankruptcy. Transit share is all of transit. The idea that it’s somehow more fair (!) to selectively evaluate just one category within an entire field (e.g., rush hour) is a preposterous, poker-like confidence game. Speaking of tricks, you’re not the first person I’ve spoken with who tried the sleight-of-hand move of saying, “Hey folks! Don’t look at all of transit – just look at the category I’m directing your attention to!”

If 1 million take mass transit per day, that is more that 9% because the entire population of NYC doesn’t commute every day. The children, etc. don’t commute.

You have conveniently “forgotten” that NYC residents are not the only commuters in NYC. You’ve left out millions (or more) of boardings from: tourists (and NYC is at the top of national and international tourist destinations), commuters from the suburbs (and some from rural areas), national and international business travelers, etc. So no, it’s not more than that.

Uh, no I am not. I said riders. The MTA average more than 2 million boardings per day. 1 million riders.

Actually, you’re right – my mistake. By the way, do you mean rail boardings or all of MTA’s transit? If you’ve been reading me closely, my claim has been about rail’s relative cost-ineffectiveness – not about the MTA. In any case, this doesn’t make its transit share significant relative vehicle-borne modes. But it sounds like you don’t want us to look at what your other hand is up to…

No one said anywhere that transit trumping automobile. They are both crucial. But without transit, there would be perpetual gridlock.

Then we agree that public mass transit can complement, but not trump, the automobile, even in NYC. As to the “without transit…” thing, this is a caricature of my argument. I never said, “let’s get rid of ‘transit!’” I am specifically against building new, tax-funded rail infrastructure in areas where roads or other modes of transit would carry more boardings and be more cost-effective.

Emotions? I didn’t express any emotion. I stated a fact. That you don’t know what you’re talking about.

So far you've provided one fact with no source. I have provided many facts and am instantly able to provide you any sources I have not already provided. I have VOLUMES more. On this basis you consider yourself to be on the side of facts? One request before you open up that can of worms, though: let's determine, in a single sentence, what your disagreement is with me. On what quantitative, quantifiable claims do we differ?

Elsewhere, in your initial response to me, you offered the same cliché I’ve heard a million times: “anybody who has been there knows…” Do you know how many people I know who “know” that rail transit works in PDX, even though it consumes 2/3 of the Metro’s transportation budget to carry 2.4% of daily boardings on fixed axes not to but close to work or school? Do you know how many people “know” European rail is the model cure-all we need so badly in this country, “if you’ve ever been there”? (It’s not.) I mistook your riders for boardings, but I don’t think I mistook the rest of your post for facts.