Invest in Transit, not Cars, Says PIRG
by Lloyd Alter, Toronto on 03. 4.08
Klaus Bürgle, Retro-futurismus
The U.S. federation of Public Interest Research Groups (PIRG) is releasing a report that criticizes the latest Bush budget, which moves $3.2 billion in transit money to, guess what, highways.
“We’ve got everything from worsening oil dependency and urban traffic congestion to rising gas prices and a booming demand for public transit,” said John Krieger, a transportation advocate at the group. “Moving in the wrong direction is tremendously irresponsible.” ::Wall Street Journal
From the Press Release:
Washington, D.C.: Bush Transportation Budget Moves in Wrong Direction, Hides Problems
U.S. PIRG strongly criticized President Bush’s proposed 2009 budget for reducing transit spending and raiding the Mass Transit Account at a time when national trends show the need for aggressive new investment in public transportation. The President’s FY09 budget proposed cutting $202 million from transit spending and transferring $3.2 billion from funds dedicated to transit.
With more than 10 billion trips taken annually, the growth rate of public transportation has outpaced the growth rate of the population and vehicle miles traveled on our nation’s roads over the past decade. According to a Zogby poll released last month, a majority of Americans (53%) say they would use mass transit if it were easily available where they live and work. Forty-seven percent (47%) of those who travel alone by car to work hold the same opinion.
How about raising the price of gas to $6 per gallon, then ask them again if they would take public transit?
Don't worry, it'll get to 6 bucks in no time.
NPR did a story on public transportation in Boston last week. I wanted to scream when I heard people complaining about the T. Sure it can be improved, but to hear the selfishness of some people's complaints was disheartening.
Sure I could drive to work, but I find that walking clears my head, I get exercise, and I don't have road rage.
"We must become the change we want to see"
Maybe Buddy, but on this side of the pond it has made virtually no difference to people's habits!
By the end of the year we will be parting ways with the Bush administration, but it's horrifying how much environmental damage can be done in such a short period of time.
Mass Transit was not the only thing that suffered deep funding cuts in Bush's latest budget. Read more about the environmental tyrant's backwards policies here:
http://st4tic.wordpress.com/2008/02/10/a-proposal-of-contradictions/
The next president has a lot of work to do ...
We all live in larger cities where mass transit projects would immediate benefit large numbers of people, right? Nowhere in my state would anything other than the bus system (which already is in place) be improved with funding. We do have a number of old bridges that cross the Mississippi which do need attention (I'm on the bridge daily thinking of the bridge collapse in Minneapolis).
Sorry, this is the way 90% of our country is laid out.
Building bigger and more wider highways is stupid. That's definitely NOT the way to solve congestion problems. In the end it's far more costly for everybody.
The only reason public transit doesn't really work, is because the current system is cruddy in most areas of the country. Some big cities don't have the nice option, a lot of stations look filthy and dirty, the transit itself looks dirty from time to time, and there's only limited places you can reach.
Fix that, and you've got more people using it.
Gas would have to increase to approximately $20/litre for me to waste an hour of my time taking the bus every day.