Maryland Visionary Attacked by Republicans
Maryland, outside of the few DC metro lines, is impossible to get around without a car, and the commute is often unbearable. Bal-Wash is a parking lot during the extended rush hours.
Ken Ulman, of the Baltimore Regional Transportation Board, wants to change that. He wants to help.
Instead, he wants to designate “$340 million in future state transportation funding for mass transit projects.”
But as the Baltimore Sun reports, some Maryland Republicans have a better idea. Just build more roads. Because that is working so well.
But last week, officials who represent Howard’s rural areas decried the change, saying it was unfair for their constituents to pay gasoline taxes to fund mass transit that they rarely use.
“It sounds like some Marylanders are going to get a free ride at the expense of others,” fumed Del. Warren E. Miller, a western county Republican who says gasoline tax money ought to go exclusively to highways. Transit should be funded separately, he said.
Miller, Del. Gail H. Bates and Sen. Allan H. Kittleman, all Republicans, said that despite high gas prices and growing demand for bus and train service and parking, transit passengers should pay more through higher fares, which cover less than half the cost of the service.
“Oh, come on. We’re going to be putting in more mass transit that doesn’t even begin to pay for itself?” Bates asked. “I think we’re slighting my taxpayers.”
In fact, it is the people who drive who would be getting the free ride if they don’t put in tax dollars. Mass transit is unique in that it benefits even those who don’t partake in it, because they enjoy less traffic and less pollution.
And that’s just some of the local benefits.
Ken Ulman is taking a risk to help people even though the benefits may not be felt fully for decades. And unfortunately, that makes him unique for an elected public official, as there is pressure to prefer enacting policies and programs whose benefits manifest earlier, as they translate into re-election easier. Instead, Ulman has placed the long-term needs of the constituency he serves above his own short-term ones.
And that kind of makes him a hero. And one day, I wouldn’t be surprised if some public works or building is named after him.
4 comments
Even those getting immediate access to this proposed transportation system are largely NOT going to use it unless they have no other choices. In places where there’s just no place to park a car, and where the economy within reach of that transit system can support all the workers with jobs, like say NYC, it works, somewhat.
It just doesn’t in other places. If the area is economically depressed, and/or there just aren’t enough jobs in reach of that system, they will still need cars. This of course doesn’t even touch on those who live tens of miles away nowhere near the city who have to foot the bill for the system.
These things are not unnoticed and most transit ideas also come with so-called “neighborhood revitalization” and other dreamy sounding projects which are just more top down centralized hierarchical political dog and pony shows to siphon taxpayer money to enrich the politicians by using it to bribe segments of society to vote for them. It’s more look at me, look what I’m giving you (with someone else’s money).
A truly organic system that comes from the people based on their own personal economic choices is the only viable system, the only one that embraces free will, choice, freedom, self-determination, and all the other things people like. That’s why we have cars and before that had horses or largely never traveled more than ten to twenty miles from our home in our whole lives.
A mass transit system that is artificial and political will do the same as being unable to afford a horse. It’ll corral people into urban centers where the usual economic idiots in politics who rule will destroy, they won’t have the option of driving far away to get a decent job in a better, more free suburban setting, and the decay and stink will reach all the way to heaven or at least the national nightly news.
Sort of like NYC in the 70s or some other cities in the northeast right now. And bet your behind, that rot spreads into the suburbs, the discontent moves with it, and a tense us-versus-them situation gets worse, and when those who are left behind are those so poor if it took a dime to go round the world they couldn’t get down the street, the politicians will use that situation they created to justify more taxation and income redistribution to those hellholes of poverty they made, and keep up the sorry charade.
All mass transit spending and planning is about controlling the people geographically and economically ultimately.
Even those getting immediate access to this proposed transportation system are largely NOT going to use it unless they have no other choices.
Not true. People are using mass transit systems more and more.
In places where there’s just no place to park a car,
That would be most major urban centers.
This of course doesn’t even touch on those who live tens of miles away nowhere near the city who have to foot the bill for the system.
We are a union. Programs that benefit the state and nation as a whole need to be employed even if they do not help all areas equally. Overall, the nation is benefited by viable mass transit systems.
These things are not unnoticed and most transit ideas also come with so-called “neighborhood revitalization” and other dreamy sounding projects which are just more top down centralized hierarchical political dog and pony shows to siphon taxpayer money to enrich the politicians by using it to bribe segments of society to vote for them.
You lost me. Please stay focused and do not resort to Republican hyperbole.
A mass transit system that is artificial and political will do the same as being unable to afford a horse.
No. The reverse.
All mass transit spending and planning is about controlling the people geographically and economically ultimately.
Again, please stay focused and stop with the Libertarian accusations. And read “The Power Broker” by Robert Caro.
The first commenter has clearly drank the Libertarian cool-aid. Are you a Ron Paul supporter as well?
“All mass transit spending and planning is about controlling the people geographically and economically ultimately.”
Mass transit is about liberating people from their geography, especially people who lack the means to buy a car and pay for its upkeep. Don’t get me wrong, cars are cool. I dig cars. But as more and more people return to the city the need for public transportation will only increase.
DC’s Metro system is a lot like BART in the SF Bay area, it is a regional transportation system that brings people from the suburbs to the urban core. It is not analogous to the subway in NYC, which is more similar the Paris Metro or SF’s MUNI system.
“A truly organic system that comes from the people based on their own personal economic choices is the only viable system, the only one that embraces free will, choice, freedom, self-determination, and all the other things people like. That’s why we have cars and before that had horses or largely never traveled more than ten to twenty miles from our home in our whole lives.”
Not much of a historian, are you. Actually, between the horse and the automobile was the light-rail streetcar systems that used to be common in major American cities. These were eliminated, not by self-interested free citizens, but by economic collusion between the automobile industry, the oil companies, and bus companies. Streetcar infrastructure was allowed to deteriorate rather than being upgraded and expanded. General Motors (GM) alone purchased over 100 metropolitan streetcar systems, had their tracks ripped up and overhead wire systems ripped out. GM Buses took their place. Far from an expression of consumer choice, the expansion of roads was designed by a select few economic elites. Simply stated, special interest money bought out transit systems across the country and allowed for freeway and road expansion.
It wouldnt be a bad idea for suite potato to read eats shoots and leaves too as it might help him learn to write better without all those runon sentences and paragraphs that just keep going is this how they teach english in frum high schools with misplaced commas or anything that helps the reader make sense out what youre writing.
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