Being thrown under the bus?

The front page story in this morning’s paper about public transit makes one wonder if the author is on someone’s payroll to support unbelievable ideas about what we ought to be doing in this city.

The first paragraph reports her "...love to extol the virtues of having a robust, multimodal public transit system."  Her third paragraph tells us this will "cut down on urban sprawl...."

We’ll start by re-asking a question we have raised in earlier writings on this blog.  How does the addition of rail lines and multi-lane ribbons of concrete - making it easier to travel 25-30 miles to get downtown - actually reduce "urban sprawl?"

There is, of course, another side to that question.  If the city actually does become "...more dense and sustainable." because of the system, then do not the rail lines and superhighways become superfluous?  Who’s going to use them when we’re all living downtown?

The proposed ideas for financing such a project are equally fanciful.  The first is the well-demonstrated concept in this city of the public-private partnership.  The author says, "The taxpayers still have to pay, but they will see projects come to fruition much faster...."  If history is any guide here, that means they’ll spend the money with even less public input on priorities than usual.  (What is less than zero?)

The second suggestion is that we find some very large corporate and individual pockets from which private donations will be made "...without expecting a return on their investment."  (Our emphasis.)  Further, "After all, we’re the city that got private donations to help build Downtown landmarks such as Circle Centre mall, Conseco Fieldhouse, the RCA Dome and...the Cultural Trail."

Yes a couple of foundations tossed in half the cost of the RCA Dome - which, incidentally has still never been paid off.  But we weren’t aware that the mall and the fieldhouse were products of "philanthropy."  Yes, the city did play Lady Bountiful in giving the money away, but the original source was anything but voluntary - a usual factor in philanthropy.  We feel quite certain that the balance of any investment in the mall from private sources came with an iron-clad return on investment as part of the deal, and the city's paying the basketball team to use the taxpayers' fieldhouse!.

There’s another very small hitch in this part of the program.  The total cost of this dream is estimated to be $2.4 billion.  Half will be the local share.  The other half will be philanthropy on the part of the federal government which presumably will gladly print, package and FedEx to us the other $1.2 billion.  We all know that this is "free" money and we certainly are aware that the Feds are rolling in cash and desperately looking for ways to get rid of it.

Nowhere does the article mention the fact that we are currently blowing $12 million dollars of "transportation" funds to turn three blocks of Georgia Street into Boondoggle Boulevard to impress some February visitors.  Maybe we can turn that area into the central transfer point for all IndyGo buses!

We realize today’s effort was an opinion column, but since it was front page space, must we assume that the paper presented it as a serious story?

Comments

[Leslie Baker]

I had a feeling there would be a new post from you when I was barely into her promotion for all of this "investment" into transportation. Can I offer you a cold pack in between bouts of beating your head against a wall? I would so much like to know what Melina Kennedy's answers to your questions would be.

[PM Johnson]

Professor Stephen Dutch at the Univeristy of Wisconsin-Green Bay wrote an excellent analysis of mass transit back in 2005 and why it is an absolute boondogle in 21st century America.
Just Google: Why People Don't Use Mass Transit
After reading the article one will readily see just how ludicrous the notion of mass transit really is in cities such as Indianapolis.