|
"All
governments survive on theft and extortion, called
taxation." -- Fred Woodworth, American journalist
and author
More
than 30 years ago, the Washington Metro subway
system was envisioned as the solution to the
Washington Metropolitan area’s traffic
gridlock—yes, contrary to popular belief,
traffic gridlock in this area is not a unique
phenomenon of the 21st century. The subway was
seen as a way to connect the suburbs with downtown
Washington, D.C., where most of the jobs were
located.
The
subway promoters envisioned an efficient
transportation network that would move commuters
fast and in comfort. But more importantly, the
entire system was sold to the public as the
ultimate example of sound public financing. With
federal and local governments investing initially
in building the subway rail network, Metro was
predicted to become profitable and self-sustaining
by the mid- to late-1980s.
Based
on the prevailing commuting patterns of the late
1960s and early 1970s, Metro was built to ferry
daily commuters from collector locations in the
outer suburbs into the heart of downtown
Washington, D.C. As it turned out, the “outer”
suburbs of four years ago, located just outside
the Washington Capital Beltway, now qualify as
“inner” suburbs.
Contrast
the early predictions for the Metro system to
today’s reality: Metro never achieved
self-sufficiency, never mind making a profit.
Metro’s 2005 budget is $1.29 billion, but only
$459 million of that comes from fares. Contrary to
assertions made by rabid Metro proponents like
Gerry Connolly, chairman of the Fairfax County
Board of Supervisors, that 70 percent of Metro’s
operating costs come from fares, the meager
amounts raised through fares cover barely 35
percent of Metro’s operating costs.
The
repetition of such errant statistics by Connolly
and other Metro proponents gives credence to the
old adage about the ability of figures to lie.
Worse, Metro is now asking local governments to
foot the bill for infrastructure improvements to
its aging rail network that will require
additional investments exceeding $1 billion to $2
billion dollars.
Besides
the fact that Metro will never become a
financially viable enterprise — meaning that it
will have to continue relying on taxpayer
subsidies — our commuting patterns have changed
drastically over the last three decades.
Population projections in the late 1960s were
generally accurate in estimating the population
growth for the closing days of the 20th century in
the Washington Metropolitan area. But the
projections went haywire in forecasting future
development patterns. The projections envisioned
that population growth would take place in and
around the capital beltway, where population
densities would increase greatly.
The
plan envisioned that most of us would be living in
the condos that would litter the close-in suburbs
like Arlington County. And the commuting patterns
would stay pretty much the same, meaning that
commuters from outside the beltway would continue
seeking employment inside the city of Washington.
That’s
a strange thing about projections: Reality tends
to defy the predictions, no matter how studious
their underlying assumptions. No one foresaw
either the sprawl to the outer suburbs—a sprawl
that has turned outlying counties like Loudoun and
Prince Williams into bedroom communities for
commuters—or the development of major employment
centers along the Washington Dulles corridor.
The
development of employment centers in the outer
suburbs has transformed the area’s employment
industry from a single-government and defense
oriented employment center to a high-tech
metropolis. The growth has been phenomenal. Even
with the setback caused by the dot.com recession,
Northern Virginia has become a major data and
telecommunications center, controlling more than
70 percent of today’s Internet traffic.
So,
while Metro with its inflexible rail tracks
continues ferrying commuters from the close-in
suburbs into the center of downtown Washington,
commuters employed in employment centers in the
outer suburbs have no choice but to drive to work.
The new commuting patterns have added tremendous
pressure to an already overburdened highway
system.
Instead
of proposing new solutions to tackle our 21st
century problems, politicians like Connolly and
newly elected Gov. Timothy M. Kaine propose
sinking billions more into expanding the Metro
white elephant. They and the Metropolitan
Washington Metro Authority (MWAA), the federal
managers of the Dulles Airport, want to extend the
failing Metro system, ostensibly to connect the
airport with downtown.
Never
mind the fact that extending Metro will do nothing
to alleviate the traffic gridlock or provide for
Metro’s crumbling infrastructure needs. Heavy
rail subway systems are a 19th century solution
developed to address commuting patters of BIG
cities.
It
makes little sense in this day and age to build
such mass-transit dinosaurs in suburbia, because
they are expensive and inflexible. Today’s
technology offers us Bus Rapid Transit (BRT)
alternatives that can be built at a fraction of
the cost and which are extremely flexible in
meeting the shifting demands of 21st century
commuters.
The
folly of the MWAA’s single-minded preoccupation
for bringing rail to Dulles was exposed in a
recent study conducted by the Metro Washington
Council of Governments (MWCOG)—keep in mind that
the MWCOG is generally staffed by reliable
supporters of the Metro subway system. The MWCOG
study concluded that a mere 1,300 passengers per
day would use a Dulles airport rail station in
2030, out of a total of 238,000 daily trips to the
airport. In percentage terms this represents a
miniscule one half of one percent of the projected
daily trips to the airport. Alternatively put,
1,300 passengers translate to 1 of 200 daily trips
to the airport.
At
an estimated cost of $4 billion to $5 billion to
bring rail to Dulles, taxpayers would be better
off if the MWAA provided free curb-side limo
service to those 1,300 passengers. But
bureaucracies like the MWAA do not sweat the
funding details, since they know that in the end
the unsuspecting taxpayers will have to foot the
final bill, no matter how frivolous or
irresponsible the funding outlays.
As
long as irresponsible politicians beholden to
special interests continue to promote fiscally
irresponsible ideas, commuters in Northern
Virginia will continue being stuck in gridlock and
paying for a subway system that does very little
in meeting today’s commuting needs. In other
words, we will continue throwing good money after
bad, trying to feed a bottomless pit’s
insatiable appetite for taxpayer dollars.
-- March 20, 2006
|
