When will the Democrats champion public transportation

and rational city planning?

People here bitch every day about gas prices and our dependance on foreign oil. A huge part of the solution is obvious: decrease America's reliance on single-passenger vehicles. This can be done with a significant expansion of public transportation. Accompanying this would be measures aimed at making new urban development friendly towards transit, bicycle, and pedestrians.

It's shameful that the leadership of the Democratic Party is silent on this. It's even more shameful that on this site, which is supposed to be at the vanguard of progressive thought, one rarely hears talk of expanding transit. People are willing to hang up the NASCAR pinata and whack at it, but God fucking forbid they propose changes that would have a real impact.

And I don't want to hear any whining about how we can't afford it. If we can afford to give giant tax cuts to the richest Americans and spend hundreds of billions blowing shit up on the other side of the world, we sure as hell can afford some goddamn buses.

but the big automakers killed off some of the most successful public transportation we had. There is a lot of money to be made selling autos and fuel, so I expect the fight to restore public transportation to be a tough one.

From an environmental standpoint ... hell, from any kind of practical standpoint... it makes no freakin' sense for the public to use private cars for every little trip.

He had the power to block Federal funding for Houston's Light Rail & used it. We finally got one line completed but we're still behind Dallas.

DeLay has since changed his tune. Many of his constituents face very long commutes into the city.

But the Chronicle's editorial page continues to gloat over DeLay's tribulations.

If adequate public transportation were available at where I live, I would take full advantage of it.

If more politicians would get out of bed with big oil and big automakers we'd have a chance of having a strong public transportation system. At this point, business as usual reigns supreme. :(

They're the cheapest way to transport people, so let's get some Dems with backbone to move ahead with a new generation of people movers, both trains and buses.
I've always been partial to light rail trollies, myself.

Bruce

I know that public transportation is often considered below the middle class, who just want to drive their cars everywhere, but I passed the point of doing that years ago.

I moved downtown to get away from that. You should see the long faces of the drivers I walk past on my way to work. I wouldn't trade with them for anything.

Of course, now DC's housing has priced any but the totally insanely wealthy out of the market.

Demand for the Metro system is increasing, and it can't expand fast enough to accomodate.

Right now, Cleveland's shitty train system really only benefits east siders. There's only one track going to the western areas (read: where I live) and you have to drive 20 minutes to get to the nearest station.

Why is this stupid? Downtown is only a 25 minute drive where I live. What's the POINT?

There's also no southern line, no lake-shore line (unless you want to count the shitty and little-used Waterfront line, which really isn't a line proper but something to take lazy non-walkers to the R&R HOF, Science Center and the Stadium) and no southeastern line. Also, there are very few all-night buses downtown and almost none that go out to the western suburbs after 7.

I think there should be a huge line stretching from Vermilion to Ashtabula running along the lake, hubbing at Tower City. This would make it a 1 to 5 minute drive/walk for everyone living in the cities along the lake, saving tons of gas.

Parking can be quite an issue a lot of places, so often it is a lot less of a hassle just to take transit and not have to deal with a car.
This gets back to the issue of city planning though. If zoning requires giganto parking lots to accomodate cars, then buildings are spread out so much it makes it a huge pain in the ass to walk from point A to point B. This undermines public transportation which thrives on density.

By the way, it's been a while since I've been to DC, but if memory serves correct, the Metro is a shining beacon on the hill for transit systems.

I can remember using public transportation in the late 50 in Seattle Wa.You could catch an Electric buss to anywhere in the cities for change. And a buss came by every 15 minuets.

In 1969 in National Geographic they did a spread on a mass transportation system that if adopted would have done away with the auto for the most part and Air Travail in on the land at least and would have used only a fraction of the energy we use today.
At the end of the article they seemed to think that this system was inevitable just because it made so much sense and represented a vast improvement in transportation.
How little did they know it is not about what is good for us and the country, but what is good for General Bullmouse.

This will be a very hard thing to get back to. Our American persona has developed into such a complex individual aspect that probably will prevent this.

Think of all these changes to American society that work against this - and it benefits those that sell everything to us.

Give me a minute here - take the air conditioner or American front porch and what it means to society. When I first bring this us, people at first laugh, but when thinking of it, they start to see the bigger picture.

There are a few things that have drastically changed this country. And so many of them are turning us into something like individual little units that just buy and buy and buy. The air conditioner has pushed us back into our homes and we now escape all our neighbors and become less of a community.

The loss of the American front porch or the need for a front porch is doing the same. The television has allowed us to re-create a little media center within our homes so we can further remove ourselves from each other.

Then there is the American automobile. It is another shell to protect us from our fellow Americans. It protects our private space and lets us become better docile and manageable organisms.

I mean, what American wants to sit next to someone that he or she can't choose to?

We adapt very very quickly to cultural and technological change.

We may be addicted to our cars and our autonomy and our urban isolation, but when change happens, we will have no choice but to embrace it. To do otherwise is to sit in a car with an empty gas tank crying about the lack of gas, when everyone else around you is walking to the electric trolley stop and going to work. The choice is either adapt and move forward, or don't.

When I consider the technological and sociocultural changes that have happened in the last fifty years, and how quickly we've adapted to and and saturated our lives with these changes, I am convinced that we can as easily adapt ourselves in the other direction. When change demands that we communicate with our neighbors, we will. When survival demands that we walk to work, or get on a bus, or ride a bike, then we will.

Until then, it's just a giant game of "Kill the Keg."

the Feds are threatening to cut the funding, ending the project because "it is not needed now".

So, this suggests it may be needed in the future - so they in essence are saying we'd rather pay A LOT MORE money later (and more headaches) than to do it now before it gets awful.

Goddammit these people are stupid. At least my Rep (David Price) is still fighting for it.

Being represenatives of we the people. While many things, including expanded public tranportation and light rail would be great for the people of the US, both the Democrats and Republicans are now bought and paid for whores for Corporate America. What they do is at the bidding of big business, not the people. Until we disconnect Corporate America from our government none of these initiatives that help the people is going to be enacted by either party. Corporate America will not let such measures pass for such actions will effect their bottom line.

The only way to disconnect Corporate America from our government is to make publicly financed election campaigns the law of the land. We will have to do it state by state, but the sooner we get started the sooner we get our government back.

i saw him speak about this a few weeks ago ... his main reason for pushing mass transit is that he thinks it will be good for the economy of the state ...

after his speech, i had a chance to talk to him and suggested that he should broaden his message about the benefits of mass transit ... i told him i was concerned about global warming, peak oil and all the wars (including Iraq) that will be fought over oil ...

Patrick was receptive to these ideas but still thinks high gas prices will ultimately drive (pun intended) the public's push for better mass transit systems ...

But I'm really concerned about the silence on the national level. I know we've got a lot on the plate right now, but you'd think that folks like Dean, Kerry, Clinton, and Feingold would speak up on the issue since it affects us in so many ways like you mention.

began years ago when train tracks were removed and the "right of way" was sold to private individuals..That was the beginning of the end of our transportation system.