Every now and then, I like to check in on how the MTA’s competitors in other cities are doing. Today, we journey down I-95 — or is that Amtrak’s Northeast Corridor? — to our Nation’s Capital where the WMATA is facing its very own funding crisis.
For the last ten days, we’ve watched in New York as the state Assembly dealt a blow to the MTA’s financial situation, and we’ve seen the agency begun a fund-searching review in order to meet goals for its next five-year capital plan. Things could be worse.
In Washington, the WMATA is in the unenvious position of receving one-third of its funds from the Federal Government, and one of the Senators who holds the purse strings — Sen. Tom Coburn, a hard-line Republican from the car-happy state of Oklahoma — is threatening to block a $1.5 billion federal grant for Metro.
Now, this isn’t just chump change for the Metro. It’s money the WMATA needs to bring their old and decaying system up to a state of good repair. Considering that environmental movements are all the rage, the government — both in New York and in DC — is strangely hesitant to help out the greenest of green options: public transportation. WTOP Radio’s Adam Tuss has more from DC:
Rep. Tom Davis, R-Va., has authored a bill which would provide $1.5 billion for Metro over the next 10 years. If the bill passes, Virginia, Maryland and D.C. have agreed they will match the $1.5 billion. The funds would go a long way for Metro, which is the only major transportation system in the nation that lacks a dedicated source of funding.
But the Davis bill, as it is currently constructed, will likely never make its way past Coburn. “I’m happy to be a roadblock to that bill,” Coburn tells WTOP. “It’s $1.5 billion they want, we (the government) don’t have the money to pay for it, so where are we going to get the money?”
Coburn doesn’t think one penny of funding for Metro should come from American taxpayers. “How dare us say we are going to steal opportunity from our children so that we can have a ride on the Metro. I think the vast majority of Americans would disagree with that.”
Isn’t it cute that all of a sudden a Republican in the Senate is concerned about spending? And where, oh, where could the government find the meager sum of $1.5 billion for a transportation network that has a ridership of millions of federal workers and tourists? Considering that we’ve spent trillions of dollars on overseas wars — and, yes, Coburn supports those efforts without noting any effect whatsoever on our children — I’d think $1.5 billion wouldn’t be tough to find.
Coburn, ignoring that self-sustaining public transit would be too expensive to attract any ridership, wants the Metro riders to pay. “My position is, if you want to ride the Metro, pay what it costs to ride the Metro,” he said. “Riders will pay for the upkeep and the capital improvements that are needed.”
Coburn’s opponents on both sides of the aisle are ready to fight him for these funds, and I’d have to believe that Metro will get its money. But yet again, politicians are doing all they can to obstruct funding for mass transit. One day, maybe mass transit will get the respect it deserves as a major driver of urban economics. One day, politicians might be willing to go out on a limb to fund it.
But as we’ve learned in New York and as we see in DC right now, mass transit proponents are fighting and losing an uphill battle right now. We’ll just have to keep on trekking ahead as the cars continue to win.
5 comments
Coburn is a joker to nth degree. Oklahoma is a receiver state(probably near the top) and Maryland and VA are donor states and DC doesn’t even have any freaking representation. Metro is already too freaking pricey and DC traffic is horrible. I would block every federal project I could in Oklahoma until Metro got its money if I was the Congressional Delgation. If these small government Republicans from red donor states want to play this game, cut the cord and have proportional spending based on taxes paid by into the system. Same goes for McCain and Amtrak.
Well, Tom, if you want to drive on I-40, why don’t you pay what it costs to drive on I-40? Stop stealing opportunity from our children!
People love their cars and are willing to sit in traffic for an hour rather than be on a train or a plane. Even if that impact is clearly shown in business and in the environment, we are hard pressed to get out of our cars.
When traffic in NYC (and I will guess DC and other places) get so bad like London, then and ONLY then will we decide to invest in our transportation infrastructure and more specifically our trains and planes.
Maryland and Virginia are receiver states; in fact, Virginia is the biggest receiver state in the country, on an absolute rather than per capita basis. DC is the biggest receiver on a per capita basis, by far more than the runner up, New Mexico.
This becomes even more egregious when you consider metro areas, rather than states. The DC suburbs in Maryland and Virginia are the biggest receiver counties next to DC itself. In contrast, every county in the New York metro area is a net donor except Mercer, New Jersey, and possibly some of the Outer Boroughs (spending data is only available for NYC as a whole, and doesn’t break down by county; the city is a net donor).
[…] Pity the poor WMATA, operators of Washington, D.C.’s Metro rail service, whose budget is being used as a political toy by a Republican Senator from Oklahoma. [Second Ave. Sagas] […]