Cleaner buses can create jobs, improve the environment
January 14, 2010By Stephen Lee Davis
A new study by Duke University illuminates the fact that thousands of green jobs are waiting to be tapped in transit bus manufacturing — if the federal government will make a sustained commitment to investing in public transportation.
The Duke University Center on Globalization, Governance and Competitiveness released a new report this morning during a briefing at the Natural Resources Defense Council that evaluated the many U.S. job opportunities that can reduce carbon emissions in public transit buses. Jobs in and related to public transportation are some of the lowest hanging fruit in the push for green jobs, so what’s keeping the domestic manufacturing industry from ramping up?
The U.S. market for heavy-duty transit buses is small, currently delivering 5,000 to 5,500 buses per year. U.S.-based firms dominate the North American bus market, with an 88% share in total buses and a 51% share in heavy-duty transit buses. Under current U.S. transportation policy, which favors highway spending and de-emphasizes public transit, bus orders are small and sporadic; this makes it difficult for the bus industry to grow.
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| Non-comprehensive chart of the domestic supply chain for buses. From the Duke CGGC report, p.30 |
The report is well worth a read, but for a much simpler case study of what this means in real life, consider one piece of the complex supply chain for transit buses that we tend to take for granted: seats. On a crowded bus or train, you may not get the chance to sit in one, but when you do, you probably don’t think about the design or innovation that went into that seat. It probably didn’t occur to you that seats can add hundreds or thousands of pounds of weight that the bus needs energy to carry.
David McLaughlin, vice president of the American Seating Company, a U.S.-based manufacturer of seats for buses and railcars (among many other things), made it clear at this morning’s briefing that increased investment in transit would be good for business. But he also stressed that those benefits are not limited to American Seating alone. As a result of the stimulus bill from 2009, McLaughlin’s company calculated $2.9 million in new business, the bulk of which resulted from seat orders for buses and railcars ordered by transit agencies across the country with stimulus dollars.
“$2.9 million means 11 new jobs for us at American Seating,” he said. In another internal study, His company discovered that 1 job at American Seating sustained roughly 6 others in their immediate supply chain.
Take those two facts together and you begin to see the economic impact of the small public transit investment in the stimulus — and what could happen on a much larger scale. American Seating, just one manufacturer of one particular component that goes into transit vehicles, created the equivalent of 11 jobs through the stimulus. Those 11 jobs create or sustain 66 more at the company that supply them.
Stimulus spending will not be enough, however. Although the economic activity resulting from the stimulus was important, McLaughlin said his business needs investment that is reliable, consistent and predictable — like the funding that could result from a full six-year transportation bill. Stable funding sources will fuel the research and development that can cut seats weights even further and enable buses to use less energy.
“The stimulus package has been a good thing, but what we really need is sustained predictable investment, so we can make the investments we need to make to ensure our viability. This isn’t just a public issue, it’s a public-private issue. …It’s jobs,” he said.
The message from all fronts this morning was consistent. To spur job creation through manufacturing cleaner transit buses, the industry needs reliable, predictable investment and government policies that encourage innovation. Increasing the available federal funding for new transit lines and rolling stock is one aspect. Ensuring operation of these new transit lines remains affordable is another. Both are needed. As the report says:
If federal, state and local policy were to shift to a clear, sustained commitment to public transit, the nation would have the manufacturing capability to meet the resulting increased demand for transit buses. However, the transit bus industry is unlikely to have significant market growth in the absence of several major changes: better management of public transit funds and improved coordination with manufacturing firms; significant, sustained public funding; and perhaps most important, a comprehensive transportation policy shift that encourages public transit use.
Or, in other words, give transit agencies money to buy new rolling stock — and the money to operate them — and you’ll be creating green jobs on Main Street all across America. Buy new hybrid buses for New York City or San Francisco to reduce emissions there, and support new jobs in towns like Grand Rapids, Michigan that need jobs more than anything.
SGA analysis reveals transportation projects create the most jobs at the lowest cost
January 5, 2010By Sean Barry
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| Seattle Streetcar Lake Union Park Originally uploaded by paulkimo90 |
A new analysis of federal stimulus spending confirms what many of us have suspected for months: investment in public transportation gets more people to work, faster, in just about every sense.
The report’s analysis, co-authored by Smart Growth America, the Center for Neighborhood Technology and U.S. PIRG, reveals that during the first ten months of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), investments in public transportation produced twice the jobs per billion dollars as did highway projects.
This is a critical lesson as the Senate takes up a jobs-creation measure passed by the House late last month, based almost entirely on the previous ARRA formula. If the Senate jobs bill were to instead invest equally in public transportation and highways (rather than the uneven split of ARRA), an additional 71,415 job months would be created, equivalent to year-round employment for nearly 6,000 additional workers. And this could be done without spending a dime more than the House.
It is imperative that Senators utilize this opportunity. As Smart Growth America President Geoff Anderson put it: “If we are serious about creating jobs and bringing about the economic recovery our nation desperately needs, members of the Senate will insist on investing a greater percentage of the transportation funds in public transportation.”
Why do public transportation projects put more people to work dollar-for-dollar? First, public transportation projects invest more in labor than in land acquisition. Second, the projects tend to be more complex, resulting in greater employment diversity in both job numbers and required skills.
Public transportation has also proven itself to be just as “shovel-ready” as roads. Compared to highway infrastructure projects, public transportation projects are spending money at roughly the same rate nationwide.
In addition, every job saved or created for America’s bus drivers, rail operators and station agents is valuable in and of itself. But we often forget public transport does not just provide work, it also gets people to work. Millions of Americas rely on buses and subways each day for employment and essential services, especially during tough times. Investing in public transportation is an investment in their lives and livelihood too.
Read the report for yourself here, or read the full press release.
Debate panelists split over buses, broader impact of transit investments
December 16, 2009By Sean Barry
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| Albuquerque1 Originally uploaded by Transportation for America |
| The new Rail Runner commuter rail service in New Mexico has been hugely popular, drawing new riders and luring former drivers to the service. |
Monday’s online debate on conservatives and public transportation was billed as a back-and-forth on why the ideological right should embrace public transportation. While differences persisted between our conservative and libertarian panelists about the impact of transit investments, another schism developed over how big a role buses should play.
Monday’s debate hosted by Transportation for America centered around the book Moving Minds: Conservatives and Public Transportation, written by conservatives William Lind and the late Paul Weyrich.
Lind used his opening remarks to summarize the book and refute the oft-repeated right-wing argument that public transportation requires government subsidies while automobiles and the roads required to support them are somehow a free-market outcome.
“In fact, the dominance of the automobile is a product of massive government intervention in the marketplace,” Lind said, citing decades of federal support for the interstate highway system as streetcars remained privately operated — resulting in crushingly unfair competition. “Conservatives above all people should know what happens when you subsidize one competitor and tax the other.”
“You’re either investing in (both highways and transit) or subsidizing both,” agreed panelist John Robert Smith, president and CEO of Reconnecting America and former mayor of Meridian, Mississippi. “You can’t have it both ways.”
Sam Staley, director of urban and land use policy at the libertarian Reason Foundation, was the designated mass transit critic of the debate, which he conceded was “probably accurate” but in need of further clarification. Staley is skeptical about the ability of transit to drive economic development or result in major lifestyle changes.
“I definitely think that transit has an important role to play,” Staley said, “but I think we need to be paying a lot more attention to the conditions under which transit works and when it doesn’t.”
Staley cited the Washington D.C. Metro’s Orange Line, saying transit has succeeded in dense, developed areas like Ballston in Northern Virginia but is less effective when those conditions are missing in places like New Carrollton, on the Maryland side of the District. (Didn’t the changes along the Orange line in Virginia come about largely due to that transit investment?)
Despite his misgivings about mass transit in general, Staley found himself in the unlikely position of defending buses from Lind’s attacks. Lind argued most Americans “don’t like riding buses” and that only trolleys or streetcars would persuade choice-riders to give up their cars, to which Staley responded: “If we discount buses, we’re really doing a disservice to transit generally.”
The final panelist, American Public Transportation Association (APTA) president Bill Millar, also defended buses, saying the industry is rapidly adopting new technologies like bus rapid transit and dedicated lanes, which will appeal to drivers.
Panelists answered a number of interesting questions from listeners on topics such as public-private partnerships, rural transit needs and winning over anti-tax conservatives. Overall, despite differences over the role of buses and transit’s ability to influence broader change, panelists agreed on the general importance of public transportation and the need to make practical decisions not rooted in partisanship.
Smith put it well: “As mayor, I never found a pothole or a railroad crossing that identified as a Democrat or a Republican.”
If you missed the webinar or want to listen again, you can do that with any of the links below, or on the webinars page:
- Audio/video of session with presenter slides (click to launch in a new window)
- Full audio file (.mp3)
- Full downloadable video file (.mp4)
- Read more about the Moving Minds book.
- Buy the book from Reconnecting America
Still time to register for today’s discussion on conservatives and public transportation
December 14, 2009By Sean Barry
What is the conservative rationale for providing efficient public transportation? Some conservatives would likely suggest that the entire concept is an oxymoron. Conservatives William Lind and the late Paul Weyrich believe otherwise.
This is the final post in a three-part series on Moving Minds: Conservatives and Public Transportation, the subject of an online debate later today (at 3 p.m. Eastern, register now!) Panelists include co-author Lind, mass transit critic Sam Staley, director of urban and land use policy at the Reason Foundation; John Robert Smith, president and CEO of Reconnecting America and former mayor of Meridian, Mississippi; and Bill Millar, president of the American Public Transportation Association (APTA).
The authors identify four elements to their conservative vision for good public transport: coverage, frequency, ease of connection and a preference for rail over buses.
In a previous post, we noted the community-building element of public transportation and how that exemplified a conservative value few would fault. There is also the element of preserving — or, in some cases, reviving — what has worked in the past. Many of America’s greatest cities not only have a tradition of robust transportation infrastructure, but they also contain a historic built environment with untapped potential.
“As conservatives, we want to revive America’s older, industrial cities,” the authors note. “Older cities have lots of infrastructure that can be built on. Conservatives prefer building on what exists to creating vast systems from nothing (at vast cost).”
While lining up with many traditional conservative principles, the notions of preserving resources, building on existing traditions and making good use of what we have are goals most can support.
As conservatives, Weyrich and Lind do not speak the language of visionary social programs and even say they “desire no new technology.” Yet they reach the same conclusion as others in increasing public transportation investment as a means to achieve both economic and social ends.
We hope you’ll join us at 3 p.m. today.
Pew: “Self-sustaining” highways are increasingly subsidized
December 11, 2009By Sean Barry
Critics of public transportation often cling to the canard that government should not subsidize a transportation option that cannot pay for itself. These naysayers reference “self-sustaining” roads and highways, which receive funding from user-fees – in this case, the federal gas tax.
A new study conducted by SubsidyScope, an initiative of the Pew Charitable Trusts, reveals that not only are roads and highways not self-sustaining, but the amount covered by gas taxes has been declining — leaving an increasing amount of their massive cost to be subsidized. Pew projections – using Federal Highway Administration numbers – show user fees contributing a slim majority of the revenue to the Highway Trust Fund, with the difference made up through bonds and General Fund dollars. Public transportation does, as the critics assert, operate “at a loss,” but so do roadways (see chart below, courtesy of Subsidyscope).
The researchers wrote: “In 2007, 51 percent of the nation’s $193 billion set aside for highway construction and maintenance was generated through user fees — down from 10 years earlier when user fees made up 61 percent of total spending on roads. The rest came from other sources, including revenue generated by income, sales and property taxes, as well as bond issues.” Forty-years ago, they noted, user-fees generated 71 percent of highway revenues.
Of the 18.4 cent federal gasoline tax, 2.86 cents – about 15 percent – is directed toward mass transit projects, and an additional 0.1 cent toward environmental clean-up, according to the report. That leaves more than 80 percent strictly for highways. Even if we spent 100 percent of gas tax revenues on highways, only 65 percent of their total cost would be covered. There would still be a need for significant outside revenue – in other words, subsidies. Does that mean highways are “government waste?” Or are transportation dollars an investment to provide access to jobs and movement of goods?
One reason for the decline of the user-fee’s contribution is that the gas tax has not kept pace with inflation. Today, there is limited political appetite for a gas tax increase. Americans are also driving cleaner cars than they used to, due in large part of federal action on fuel economy. Less gas purchased means lower gas tax revenues.
So, to the critics who seem to be against all subsidies — unless they’re going to cover highway projects: let’s drop the claim that highways “pay for themselves” and have a debate rooted in fact rather than myth.
Walkscore innovators turn to improving public transportation
December 10, 2009By Stephen Lee Davis
Front Seat, the civic software company responsible for the massively popular Walkscore service, launched a new project today aimed at encouraging public transportation ridership. The project makes transit agency schedule data available, accessible, and open to developers so they can create applications to make it easier to ride. CityGoRound.org is a new portal where you can find the many applications developers have created to ease and increase the convenience of riding transit. Their mission, outlined on a newly launched site today, is very simple:
Our mission is to help make public transit more convenient. For example, an app that lets you know when your bus will arrive is way better than standing outside waiting for 20 minutes. If we can make public transit more convenient, more people will ride public transit. More people riding public transit equals less driving. Less driving equals a healthier planet.
To accomplish that, they’re doing three things: cataloging the hundreds of smartphone/web applications people have created to make riding public transit easier, putting pressure on agencies across the country that have not released their public data, and raising awareness of the need for government agencies to open up their data.
By typing in your zip code at CityGoRound.org, you may find, for example, apps that have taken publicly available transit agency schedule data and turned it into a slick iPhone or web app you can check on the go to find out when that next bus is coming, or when the next train will be headed your direction. One major barrier to riding transit is the learning curve that comes with unfamiliar schedules or service. If you’ve never ridden the bus home from work, are you going to wait in the snow at 8 p.m. for your first try, hoping you understood the posted timetable correctly?
The openness of government data might sound like something that only techies need to worry about, but more openness in government both increases accountability to the people and makes services more available and convenient for the public. Just this week, President Obama announced a new comprehensive open government plan, establishing parameters for all federal agencies to open up their operations — and their taxpayer-funded data — to the public.
“We are calling on transit agencies nationwide to open their data and follow the lead of the Open Government Directive issued this week by the White House,” said Mike Mathieu, Founder and Chairman of Front Seat. “City-Go-Round’s transit apps are a concrete example of how open data can improve citizens’ lives on a daily basis.”
Go check out the site today. If your city’s agency doesn’t provide open data for public transportation, they have a petition there you can sign to find out how to get involved in making that happen.
Front Seat created the service with the Transit Developers Group, generously supported with a grant from the Rockefeller Foundation.
Conservatives and public transportation — join us on Monday the 14th
December 2, 2009By Sean Barry
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| Sign up to listen to the free online debate next Monday, 12/14 |
UPDATED: This session has been rescheduled for 12/14. If you already signed up with the link below, you won’t need to do a thing, and should get an email from us.
“As conservatives, our first principle is the reality principle,” wrote William Lind and the late Paul Weyrich in Moving Minds: Conservatives and Public Transportation. “Public policy must be based on reality, not on the fairy-tale wishes so beloved by liberals.”
Left-leaning transit advocates need not be insulted.
The authors are simply trying to talk about public transportation in ways that appeal to right-of-center allies. If your interest is piqued, you’ll definitely want to join us for an online debate next Monday, December 7, December 14th in which a handful of experts, including co-author Lind, will discuss — and debate — the ideas contained in the book. Register for the debate here.
Reality-based planning can find appeal across political persuasions because everybody relies on America’s transportation system in one form or another. Even people who don’t use public transportation on a regular basis receive numerous benefits from its expansion, the authors point out. The reason? More rail passengers means less traffic congestion and faster commute times, a win-win.
In Salt Lake County, Utah, for instance, supporters of a referendum on light rail developed a campaign aimed at non-transit riders with the simple message: “even if you don’t ride it, you use it.” One ad focused on an automobile wheel moving along faster because of less crowded roads, while another emphasized the advantages of less traffic congestion, the authors noted.
They offer three concrete reasons in the book for why transit is good for non-riders. The first is the reduction in road gridlock. The second is “the big football game” or the car being in the shop or some other circumstance that creates the need for an alternative. The third reason is that lower congestion and better transit access actually raises property values and improves quality of life.
The authors make several peripheral points as well, such as the influence of heavy subsidies and market distortions on the prevalence of auto-oriented, low-density growth — a concept getting some notoriety in the last week.
“Every urban and suburban area should offer two alternate building codes, one the current ‘sprawl’ code and the other a code that allows traditional neighborhood design, where living, working and shopping are all close by each other,” the authors argue. “Which code will prevail? Let the market decide!”
Weyrich and Lind also reject the oft-prevailing wisdom that the “obvious” solution to traffic congestion is building more roads or lanes. When more lanes are made available, people who would not have driven otherwise make additional trips, inducing demand and resulting in yet more gridlock — the exact problem that the lanes were supposed to solve.
There is no unanimity about public transport among conservatives. One right-leaning mass transit critic is Sam Staley, director of urban and land use policy at the Reason Foundation. He will appear alongside Lind in Monday’s debate, along with John Robert Smith, president and CEO of Reconnecting America and former mayor of Meridian, Mississippi; and Bill Millar, president of the American Public Transportation Association (APTA).
We hope you’ll join us too. Register today.
Health advocates blanket Congress with health & transportation message
October 19, 2009By Sean Barry
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| 139 Originally uploaded by Transportation for America |
| Dr. Richard Jackson speaks at the podium, flanked by Dr. Georges Benjamin, left, Shireen Malekafzali, Dr. Joe Thompson, James Corless, and Julia Lopez. More info about the speakers can be found in our press release. |
Our transportation investments and the built environment — what we build and where — have an enormous impact on our health and the cost of our health care.
With the debate over health care reform dominating the news daily, Transportation for America and coalition members from across the country took that powerful — yet often ignored or neglected — message to Capitol Hill leaders.
T4 America’s “health fly-in” last Friday connected health professionals and advocates from across the country with their Congressional representatives to highlight the impact that transportation has on our health and wellness.
T4 America kicked off the day with a briefing from campaign director James Corless and four other nationally recognized experts on health and transportation. Then, participants from across the country, from the Pacific Northwest to New England, split up and took the message to their representatives, visiting a total of 37 Congressional offices.
Among the 25 participants in the fly-in, six hailed from national groups and 19 from state and local organizations. Several, including fourteen-year-old childhood wellness advocate Julia Lopez and UCLA professor Dr. Richard Jackson, traveled all the way from California. (Look for a full list of organizations at the bottom of the post)
During the meetings, advocates discussed how the built environment — where we live, work and play — has a profound impact on obesity rates, diabetes, asthma and other quality of life measures. And they discussed policy prescriptions that can increase walkability, grow transit ridership and make physical activity a normal part of our daily routine.
“As a pediatrician and child advocate, my job is to do what I can to make sure as many kids as possible live healthy lives, and the biggest threats to them at this time are injuries — both violent and unintentional — and obesity,” said Dr. Katherine Kaufer Christoffel, a medical and research director at Northwestern University.
“This active transportation stuff really gets at all of those things.”
Dr. Joe Thompson, Director of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Center to Prevent Childhood Obesity, participated as a briefing panelist but did not attend Congressional meetings. Thompson serves as the Surgeon General of the State of Arkansas, where an alarming 22 percent of children are obese and 40 percent are overweight. Thompson said the built environment is a critical component of America’s livelihood.
“If we don’t solve the upstream causes of health problems, we won’t be able to hold health care reform together,” he said.
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| 207 Originally uploaded by Transportation for America |
| 14 year-old health advocate Julia Lopez chats with attendees of the health fly-in after making a few remarks. |
Noelle Dobson, Director of the Healthy Eating Active Living initiative at Portland’s Community Health Partnership, has been stressing the link between health and transportation through her work preparing health impact assessments for new development projects.
“This is all public health has ever been about for me,” she said.
T4 America and participating advocates were promoting three important pieces of legislation that address the health and transportation connection.
One is CLEAN-TEA, a Senate bill that would allocate ten percent of revenue from climate legislation toward clean transportation, walking and biking, and other modes that can help reduce emissions. The second is the National Transportation Objectives Act, which would create explicit, specific targets and benchmarks for the transportation bill, including goals like reducing CO2 from transportation by 40%, eliminating at-risk exposure to pollution, and tripling the amount of walking and biking we do. Lastly is Complete Streets legislation to make our streets safe and accommodating for all users and people — bus riders, bicyclists and pedestrians.
Most fly-in participants met with their representatives’ transportation staffers, but a few were able to meet face-to-face with the representatives themselves. Heidi Klein, a board member for the Vermont Public Health Association, got a few words in with Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, and two fly-in participants from Montana had the chance to meet their junior Senator, Democrat Jon Tester.
Other office visits included Sen. Barbara Boxer of California, Sen. Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon, Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois, Sen. Robert Menendez of New Jersey and Sen. Max Baucus of Montana.
Our thanks to the many advocates and supporters who worked very hard to take this crucial message to Capitol Hill.
Participating organizations:
- National Recreation and Park Association
- National Coalition for Promoting Physical Activity
- Campaign to End Obesity
- American Public Health Association
- American Lung Association
- PolicyLink
- National Complete Streets Coalition
- Trust for America’s Health
- America Bikes
- Safe Routes to School
- State and Territorial Injury Prevention Directors Association (STIPDA)
Republican Senator says more transit = better health
October 8, 2009By Sean Barry
Last week, an offhand comment by Republican Senator John Ensign about the link between health and transportation policy didn’t make the headlines, but it did make an interesting connection.
Ensign was wrong in asserting that the United States has the highest life expectancy among developed countries when gun and automobile accidents are ignored. But he was on target when he mentioned America’s auto-dependent ways and how that negatively impacts our health.
Compared to Europe, “we’re just a much more mobile society,” he said. “We drive our cars a lot more, they do public transportation. So you have to compare health care system with health care system.”
While misunderstanding mobility as just traveling a high number of miles, Ensign correctly implies that driving more and walking less contributes to poor health and makes us more prone to death (in a car) than our European neighbors, which the data suggests to be true. The most obese cities in the United States — Miami, Oklahoma City and Ensign’s own constituents in Las Vegas — are known for their auto-oriented sprawl.
A recent study in the Journal of Physical Activity and Health confirms a correlation between the more active walking habits of Europeans and lower obesity rates, backing up American research from earlier this decade by Smart Growth America and others showing that residents of sprawling places are more likely to be obese.
If we want to boost mobility while bringing health costs down, we need our transportation policy to create more travel options for everyone and make it safer and easier to walk and bike.
Mobility isn’t an end of itself, nor is it just about going long distances on a regular basis. Mobility is about access to destinations and opportunity. We’re spending hours in the car not because ordinary Americans think that having high “mobility” is important — we’re doing it out of necessity just to get around our increasingly spread out cities.
No one would argue that our transportation priorities are the driving force — no pun intended — behind lower health outcomes. But there is enough evidence to suggest they should be a serious part of the discussion.
Have transit cuts left you stranded? You’re not alone. Share your story.
August 19, 2009By Stephen Lee Davis
After the release of Stranded at the Station yesterday, stories started flowing in of how people have been affected by the cuts across the country at public transportation agencies — leaving some stranded without any options for getting around. The report showed that 90 percent of transit systems across the country have had to raise fares or cut service in the past year. And among the 25 largest U.S. transit operators that millions depend on every day, 10 of those agencies are raising fares more than 13 percent.
It’s not too late to share your own story. Here are excerpts from just four of the many stories that have already been shared.
Jean Cramer (Columbia, Maryland): I spend 3-4 hours a day commuting from Columbia MD to Washington DC by MTA commuter bus. Earlier this year, despite nearly full buses, MTA reduced the number of runs each way. Now, my bus regularly leaves riders behind when the bus fills up. Buses run regularly but when you have to wait for the next one, it just adds to the length of an already crazy commute. We need dedicated bus roads/lanes and sufficient bus runs for all riders. Then maybe we could get enough cars off the roads to ease the congestion.
Barbara Miller (Franklin, NJ): I work for the paratransit system in Sussex County, New Jersey, which is struggling to continue to provide service in spite of funding cuts. We have had to reduce the number of days we provide transportation for out-of-county non-emergency medical appointments for our senior citizens, people with disabilities and veterans from five days a week to two. We have also had to cut back on the overall number of trips per day to maximize our existing resources.
On a personal level, however, I have my own story to share. I recently broke my right ankle and cannot drive. Even though I work for the transit department, I cannot get here using transit services. The deviated fixed route service can pick me up at my home in the morning, but only goes within three miles of my office. The demand-response JARC service is maxed out and cannot get me to work before 9:30 (I start work at 8). If I start work later in the day and work until 6:30 instead of 5:00 which is my normal time, I cannot get home.
In addition, the surgeon who set my ankle only does x-rays on Friday starting at 4:30p.m. Our medical transportation has been limited to appointments between the hours of 10 and 1:30 in order to allow adequate time to get people home in our very rural county. I cannot get to my doctor for x-rays using public transportation, and have to have a family member drive 25 miles to pick me up and take me two miles from my home to get my ankle x-rayed.
It is somewhat ironic that as a Contract Administrator for the public transit system, I cannot get to and from work or the doctor while temporarily disabled. I have learned firsthand how our customers struggle to manage their appointments and transportation needs with diminishing transportation services available to them.
Ruth Leavitt (Everett, WA): I have lived in two states with a commute that leaves me stranded after my shift. In Naples, FL, I had to bike three miles to work, risking being soaked to my skin if a storm blew up while I was out there, and riding on the sidewalk half the trip because there was no bike lanes. I was hit once, nearly hit four other times – I wiped out dodging a car who didn’t care that I was coming up, and was nearly injured so I could not do my job. The bus system was lacking in so many ways as to be indescribable: Long delays, short routes, no connections, early days-end. It was a full day effort to take the bus out shopping, limited to four stops at most – if you started at ten, once the shops opened, and finished before six…
…Now, in Everett, WA, I face a similar dilemma even with a far superior transit system that is only lacking in one significant detail: It doesn’t run late enough. Someone, somewhere, missed the memo that the mall closes at 9 o’clock, and the bus stops running from there eight minutes before closing. All the workers are left wanting. On a Saturday, a busy day, it stops at six. I am limited to a wonderful interurban trail that is so dark as to be extremely dangerous for a woman alone, even on a street bike. I also know the fares on that bus were increased recently. It didn’t affect me — I have a monthly pass for the system with a higher fare and wider range — but I have never gotten on a bus in that system that was empty — even late at night…
Melody Hodge (Maywood Park, OR): About two months ago I began having car trouble, and until I can afford the repairs I’ve had to walk to and from work, about two miles each way. The weather is nice now, so I haven’t minded walking (and the exercize is great), but I was glad to know there is an easy bus route I can begin taking as soon as the weather turns cold. But just today, the day I saw this email link in my message box, a notice was posted saying bus route 15, the one I was so relieved existed, is going to be cut along the very route I take to work. I’m actually quite scared, not just for me when the weather starts to turn, but for my son who uses it regularly, and for so many of my neighbors who depend on it’s existence.
Portland is known for its user-friendly and ubiquitous public transportation system. It’s one of the things that drew me to this city, and the convenient bus route was at least partly the reason I chose my current neighborhood. I know cuts are being made everywhere, but I’m surprised the transportation system is one of them. This will disrupt the lives of so many people who have no other realistic options.
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- U.S. Transportation Department makes good on promise to ensure our streets are made safer
March 16, 2010 - Obama’s livability programs help rural America too
March 16, 2010 - Transit grants out the federal door, but what about the cuts?
March 8, 2010 - Transit riders in Atlanta face massive cuts, “wholesale restructuring” of service
March 5, 2010 - Opposition to Senate extension results in looming shutdown of federal transportation programs
February 26, 2010
- U.S. Transportation Department makes good on promise to ensure our streets are made safer
The United States of Transit Cutbacks
Driving is down and transit ridership is at record highs. Yet transit agencies across the country are considering layoffs, service cuts and fare hikes. Find out more and learn what you can do to help at t4america.org/transitcuts
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