Pushing back on transit critics
A recent website column by William Lind, director of the American Conservative Center for Public Transportation, discussed ways transportation agencies can combat the criticisms of “professional” transit critics.
Lind writes: “One of the nice things about the libertarian transit critics, aka the anti-transit troubadours, is that they make the same arguments wherever they go. … Their arguments have changed little over the years, and our replies are still relevant … but cities that want to expand rail transit need to do more than reply when the anti-transit troubadours come to town. … Over and over, I have advised cities facing transit referenda to get out in front of the critics. …Tell the voters, ‘Here is what these guys are going to say, and here’s why it’s wrong’ before they get there. … If you wait until they have come and gone, your replies never catch up to the charges, and they can do you a lot of damage.”
Lind goes on to cite the “creative and effective way” to pre-empt critics being deployed in Charlotte, N.C.. He writes: “The Charlotte Area Transit System (CATS) has taken the libertarian’s arguments, answered them, and turned the answers into simple graphics people can easily read and understand. Now, it is finding ways to draw attention to the graphics, which so far have just been used online and in flyers. They are easy enough to grasp that someone can do so as a bus goes by. This is exactly the sort of thing other cities that want more rail transit need to be doing. It is an excellent way to pre-empt the critics, to answer their flawed arguments even before they can make them. In politics as in medicine, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.”
Here are some examples used in Charlotte's ad campaign. (To see the graphics and design, go to: http://bit.ly/14KeK9V)
Myth: Transit doesn't solve traffic congestion.
Response: One bus with 60 riders equals 270 square feet; 60 single-occupant cars equal 7,240 square feet.
Myth: Light-rail initial ridership projections are inflated.
Response: Actual light-rail ridership versus projections in the first year of operation: Charlotte +53 percent; Denver +29 percent; Dallas +20 percent; St. Louis +58 percent; Phoenix +90 percent.
Myth: Charlotte's $7 billion transit plan is enough to buy a new car for every household in Mecklenburg County.
Response: $24 billion — actual cost for every household to get a new car (personal vehicles are replaced every 7-10 years). $7 billion — transit plan (includes capital, operating, regular maintenance and replacement costs).
I asked Baruch Feigenbaum, an Atlanta-based transportation analyst at the Reason Foundation libertarian think tank (and who has contributed to these pages), to respond to Lind’s charges. His response:
“Transportation should be about mobility, moving people and goods efficiently and cost-effectively. Instead, far too many transit proposals are based upon expensive fantasies of getting people to give up their cars for light-rail systems. Reason Foundation is libertarian and has frequently argued in favor of transit. My recently released mobility plan for Atlanta includes comprehensive, region-wide express and bus rapid transit networks that could be built for a fraction of the cost of light rail. Sprawling Atlanta is different than New York City or Tokyo or Paris. Atlanta’s transportation plans need to be based on that reality.”
