Response to Lukas Diaz's "Powerful Argument"

Lukas Diaz wrote a post at his blog a couple weeks ago called "A Powerful Argument for a Good Mass Transit System" at which I left some comments. My final comment did not get posted for some reason and I've decided to address Diaz's last reply to me here after having re-read everything and reconsidered some things.

The post itself is very short and our exchange ended up being about commuter rail.

Here's the our exchange in the comments section:

Mich: Why do you want to use rail? From this comment alone you come across as someone who thinks we need rail simply because it’s cool or some kind of symbol of urbanity.

Can you make the case that commuter rail would work for Madison? If “The focus shouldn’t be on a specific technology but what makes the best mass transit system”, then why is rail the best for you? What criteria are you using?

LD: "From this comment alone you come across as someone who thinks we need rail simply because it’s cool or some kind of symbol of urbanity."

It’s a silly thing in some ways, but there are people who would use rail but not a bus. The more people using the system the strong the system.

Mich: Thanks for the reply.

Do you know anything about transportation issues, out of curiosity? Do you know under what conditions rail works well and under what conditions buses work better? You don’t seem to have put a lot of thought into this issue other than, well, for tens of millions of dollars, we can get some riders.

LD: And thank you for your tough questions :)

I would classify myself as an interested amateur. I have some ideas about how transit works and how it should work, and when I’m not sure, I rely on some people I know who are transit experts and who I generally agree with, to fill in the gaps.

Have I ever implemented or run a transit system? Well no…

My reasons for supporting commuter rail, aside from the potential to expand mass transit by bringing in new riders, in no particular order, are:

1. I like the technology, overall I think it offers the most potential for speedy transit.

2. I like using commuter rail (kind of a personal reason, but yeah, I think it’s a great system to use).

3. I think it’s cleaner than buses, although there is some debate about that.

4. A political consideration: As far as I can tell and judging from the way the people on the committee on talk and who is on the committee, the RTA is going to include commuter rail. Since I want a regional transit authority, it’s critical to defend the commuter rail part of it.

5. The potential to spur economic development.

I’m curious, what is your preference for what the RTA should look like?

OK. Here's the first sign that discussing a topic with Mr. Diaz will only end in tears: "I rely on some people I know who are transit experts and who I generally agree with, to fill in the gaps." So people with whom Diaz disagrees just aren't worth his time. Nothing to be had, nothing to be learned from other viewpoints. I give him credit for being honest about his closed-mindedness and love of confirmation bias.

In a reply to a comment by Susan De Vos of the Madison Area Bus Advocates, Daiz says, "The focus shouldn’t be on a specific technology but what makes the best mass transit system" yet he singles out rail in his post. What perturbs me about his rail-related posts is that he sees the current situation (no rail) and a nebulous utopia of the future (with rail) but never address anything in between. Furthermore, I am scared at the prospect that he thinks that liking the technology and liking using commuter rail should be prime factors in raising taxes and spending millions of dollars to direct urban planning here.

"5. The potential to spur economic development."

He makes it sound like trains are people and can just pull development out of its locomotive ass. Sure, trains can be a part of development but they, trains, are neither necessary nor sufficient for development to occur. There has been a lot of development here in Madison without passenger rail. Things such as, oh, government policy have a big impact on development. When you are willing to throw $16 million of TIF money in for a patio, that helps development. As transit planner Jarrett Walker notes:

"Stimulate," remember, doesn't mean "cause to occur all by itself." It just means "help to occur, in conjunction with a lot of other favorable factors."

That's something rail supporters here avoid, in my experience. Factors. Many simply look at places like Portland and immediately think that Madison can replicate all the good things by simply bringing rail here. Population size and density are two factors I rarely hear pro-commuter rail folks talk about. Can we learn anything from studies such as that done by Nathaniel Baum-Snow and Matthew Kahn - "Effects of Urban Rail Transit Expansions: Evidence from Sixteen Cities, 1970–2000" even though their study looked at cities which already had rail? (I'm not expecting Diaz to do so as the authors don't agree with him, hence their research is of no use to him.)

"Consistent with the conventional wisdom, we also find that, overall, new rail lines have been more successful at drawing new riders in denser, more centralized cities." Otherwise new train routes tended to draw bus riders. And there's that density thing. Is there good reason to believe that a train here will draw new riders to public transportation?


Trains may or may not be a good fit for Madison. But, for Diaz, they deserve to be a foregone conclusion that requires no discussion. He has listened to people who say things he likes to hear and they say it's good so what more could a community need? Unlike Mr. Diaz, I want someone to make a nice, detailed case for me. My fellow Madisonians should demand this too, because if Madison gets light rail and it's a complete boondoggle, then it will be all the more difficult for future public transportation issues to get a fair hearing. Madison Metro will surely suffer if the rail system doesn't work well. Furthermore we should be concerned about the potential of the reallocation of funds from buses to rail. When costs go up, and they will, do we just keep raising the sales tax? Or do we shuffle money around rather than raising taxes again and again?

As for what I think the RTA should look like: I'd like the RTA to engage in more (and more constructive) PR. In addition to having to overcome the image of being solely a method for introducing light rail, I think the RTA needs to do more (in conjunction with others) to provide information about public transportation generally. Let's start a conversation about parking.

Let's collectively brainstorm making bus service here better. Let's address new development in the RTA zone and how cul-de-sacs and streets that look like a pile of spaghetti on map are not conducive to buses. (Or trains, for that matter.) Check out Fitchburg's 2008 transit survey. There are people who say they would take the bus but that it isn't convenient. And look at page 9 - where respondents live. Public transportation can't effectively reach those people who live far from a main road in those suburban cul-de-sacs. The RTA should, at the very least, be discussing planning options so that street layouts like Fitchburg's aren't replicated near Madison.

Look at University Research Park II. Does that look public transportation friendly to you? It looks like suburban sprawl to me. Once that has been built and development really kicks in west of Junction Road, do you think it's going to be done in a manner that is amenable to running buses out there? I certainly don't. And I think the RTA should be on this issue telling the University that it is fucking up big time by building a suburban business park that is resistant to public transportation. Unfortunately I suspect that it's too late to change anything barring an executive fiat from the governor. That place is projected to have 10,000-15,000 people working there. Traffic will surely get exponentially worse. And, from what I've heard about how land was procured for this project, I have no doubt that more farmers will be made offers they can't refuse so more subdivisions and more PDQs can be put in.

In short, I want the RTA to be a catalyst for discussion about transportation generally not to be simply a way to raise taxes for buses and trains. There's more to transportation than vehicles. I'd like to see the RTA lobby for urban and suburban development that is amenable to public transportation instead of street plans that place homes and places of work far from arterial roads.

And can we hear from Wisconsin & Southern Railroad? They own the tracks that are going to be used by commuter rail trains here unless we decide to lay our own track. How does commuter rail fit into the scheme of things? If gas prices rise to $4+/gallon and freight moves from trucks to rail, how much wiggle room does WSOR have to accommodate the new business? Now that the Charter Street plant has gone biofuel, it requires more trains consisting of more cars to deliver the mercury-laced wood chips. Will commuter rail have to contend with these trains? Lastly, the freight rail industry has begun to push back against high speed rail so let's not count our chickens before they're hatched.

In the end, it is deeply disappointing to hear Diaz say that the issue of whether commuter rail in Madison makes for the best transit system or not has already been decided. He seems to have no interest in any questions about commuter rail here other than when it starts.