It's not a surprise, is it, that America is not committed to the public sector unless it's for highways? Oh, well, at least you could finish the book. In the New York subway, you might have been pressed in too tightly to read, while the net cash flow of tax dollars and government spending within the state flows from the city elsewhere, just as it does federally from blue to red states.

John

http://www.haberarts.com/

"I'm just in a terrible mood because I hate METRO so much"

That's hilarious. On a visit to DC las April, every time we rode the Metro in to the city from Alexandria, my friends had to listen to me talk about how great a system it was compared to public transportation in my hometown of Chicago. Clean, quiet and on time.

Either the Metro has went way down hill in the last six months, or you are very spoiled, MJ.

=== Maybe it's time to eliminate "hire American" contracting rules, and let international contractors compete on an equal basis. ===

"Why Does the DC Metro Suck?"

Um, because Congress doesn't have to use it?

They sure don't. Nor does Tom Friedman who has been telling Indians about the glories of mass transit lately.
Actually, I'm all for mass transit. I'm all for higher taxes to pay for it. But I cannot understand why subways I've taken in Berlin, Budapest, and Prague are so great and ours is so crappy.

Tom Friedman recently said he was going to start using the Metro in 6 months.

I'm just back from a month in Barcelona, and I'd expand your question to why does EVERYTHING suck? Actually, the Barcelona metro is pretty crappy, but... the bus system is amazing--ran promptly, frequently, and with all accessible buses, I didn't see pothole all month, there are ramps and properly painted/signaled crosswalks everywhere (newly conscious of this with a stroller), the urban streets and highways alike have sophisticated use of bus lanes, there was ample pedestrian space safely marked off around every construction project, and did I mention there are no potholes anywhere? And that's Barcelona!!! It's not like I'm talking Scandinavia here. And I live in Canada, which doesn't suck nearly as badly as the US in most of these areas. Who'd have ever thought I'd be longing for Spanish efficiency?

"This was designed to spread out the congestion. However, the politicians rejected this idea. Thus it ws known before it was built that it would have problems."

In the late 50s the Schuylkill Expressway going thru Philly was finished.

At the time it was estimated that by 1970, 35,000 cars would use this road.

By 1960, 70,000 were using it.

By 1970, 80,000 were using it.

In 2001, 135,000 used it.

A couple of years after the airlines were de-regulated the head of TWA was interviewed on a news show. He was asked about the problems; cancelled flights, late arrivals, lost baggage, etc, and his reply was:

"The public has to give some things up for these low prices."

There's probably a Dylan song in here. (Well I ride on the F train. Can't buy a thrill.) But I still don't get why MJR is surprised. Sure, things work better in Europe, but they have health care, too. I don't mean, "keep this in perspective; it's only a subway." I mean rather that we should see a pattern here.

John 

http://www.haberarts.com/

I do know that class and race played a big part in Metro decisions i.e. running surface trains in black neighborhoods and going below ground in white.

I don't doubt there were major class and race factors at play -- the residents of Georgetown, for instance, succeeded in vetoing a Metro stop there even though the train runs directly under it -- but where does this above/below ground race/class split manifest itself? Generally the trains run above ground in the suburbs, below in the city, irrespective of the demographic makeup of the neighborhood.

Have Falls Church and Rockville become poor and nonwhite, and I didn't notice?

Sure, things work better in Europe

Are you @#$%$#@ serious?  Things work better in Europe?  Ever ridden the London Underground or practically any British train?  Ever tried to hire a builder in France?  Ever felt the full force of indifference to customer service in practically ANY European business?  Try actually living in Europe before you spout nonsense about how everything works better over there.

Trains in most of Western Europe, excluding Britain and a few other places, are better than American trains.  Health care is cheaper ("better" is highly subjective and depends on what data you are looking at).  Certain things like mobile phones are unquestionably better.  But saying "things work better in Europe?"  I don't think so.

Everytime I return to the home of Charlie on the MTA (now the MBTA, for Mass. Bay Transportation Authority -- gotta love those reminders of the colonial past!) I am amazed by how inferior my Boston "T" is to the New York Subway. The trains are slower (partly because so much of Boston is filled-in marshland with architectural treasures built on top, meaning you can't go too fast or you'll hit the foundation of some H.H. Richardson church), dirtier, and some neighborhoods -- especially black Roxbury, or the immigrant parts of Sommerville -- are not serviced at all. And forget about the bus system; it's got a record of being on time exactly 1% of the time.

Also, JohnW1141, you'd be interested to know that in place of tokens, we now put money on "Charlie Cards" and stick them in the slot instead -- named after the eponymous character of the song. They seem to confuse the hell out of everybody over 20.

Still, I was in Detroit recently, and I'll take the option of some public transit over the Motor City's total lack of any options whatsoever.

Ben Cronin

Keep in mind that the primary purposes of US infrastructure projects are (1) Keynesian job creation (2) generation of contracts which in turn generate campaign donations (999) provide service to the public. Quality per se hasn't been a goal since the 1940s and maybe the 1920s.

sPh

I took my kids to France a couple of years ago.  In three weeks we never rode in a car.  We went to EuroDisney, to small Villes, and even to the Atlantic Beach of Cape Ferat (all from Paris) and rode on metro, trains, busses, bicycles, or on foot -- all on time, all clean, all easy.  The problem?  In our country the message is:  PUBLIC TREANSPORTATION IS AS BAD AS SOCIALIZED MEDICINE!

(Read what Ronald Reagan had to say about Amtrak subsidies)

That said, as a Charlottesville, Virginia resident, where public transportation is not even a dream, I have to respond to this:

(I am one of those guys who reads even when I'm walking).

I actually do crossword puzzles when I'm driving!  (I can't believe it myself, but I do!

Jan

If you had written this last week, I would have extolled the virtues of Portland's mass transit system, the expansion projects going on right now, and how efficient it is.

Unfortunately, we've had a recent spate of highly publicized (at least in the Pac NW) incidents involving some pretty heinous crimes on the MAX near Gresham.

But, at least everything runs on time, is clean, and is efficient.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Come visit PROJECT: Lucidity
Where everybody knows your name...
unless you use a pseudonym

Ever ridden the London Underground or practically any British train?

That would be a yes. London to Scotland in five pleasant hours, thank you very much.

Ever felt the full force of indifference to customer service in practically ANY European business?

I do love how the vaunted cheery American attitude to customer service (usually cited in reference to sub-min-wage service employees who need tips to make up the deficit) never quite makes it into the billing office of your local medical facility, where lots of sour-faced clerks will be all too happy to thrust clipboards in your bleeding face.

As a person living in the Bay Area of California, I have experienced none of these problems.

In fact, I think most people living here would consider such problems as "severe" and would require immediate attention.

Krugman responds.

But saying "things work better in Europe?"  I don't think so.

I do. 

Try actually living in Europe before you spout nonsense about how everything works better over there. 

I have. 

  There is not one Europen parent who has ever had to deal with car-pooling to get their kids to a soccer practice.  European countries recognize and value families in a way that our extreme right wing cannot imagine.  They actually focus on living children and their families.  Europeans don't get their flu shots at the local WalMart; they get them at clinics -- what a concept!  Public Health?  Preventive Medicine?  They exist!  You get treated for high blood pressure BEFORE you have a stroke!

 Ever felt the full force of indifference to customer service in practically ANY European business? 

Do I dare ask our TPM'ers to relate stories of customer indifference here in the good ol' US of A?  We need look no further than the shafting our veterans are getting at Walter Reed, or my recent experience at my bank, or my mother's Sunrise Assisted Living residence.

The point isn't anecdotal insult lists; it comes down to what our government considers a priority.  Public transportation will never  be high on the list when all those in highest offices are in the oil business; hell -- Condy has an oiler NAMED AFTER HER! 

Nor is meaningful health-care reform a priority when every single candidate gets funded by insurance companies, big pharma, and others whose wishes must be attended to -- or else.

We are shamefully, decades behind in public transportation, but even more shamefully, we should have taken the lead in alternative transportation so that we could be the world leaders in this new technology.  It would be our saving grace; something that could not be outsourced because we would have the corner on the technology and the brains who would be developing it!  Sadly, that horse seems to be out of the barn.  Why?

Had the $$ spent in Iraq been invested in infrastructure and R & D for hydrogen cars, etc, we would be in the cat-bird's seat.  Instead we watch the dollar decline, as one economic structure after another change to Euros (which further devalues our money).  And again we hear from the republican candidates, whose only mantra is "I will cut taxes" without any accountability or vision.  As long as CEO's are doing well they are happy.

Thanks to our short-sighted (or blind) "leadership" we are in a downward spiral. 

I have one question:  Now, in 2007, what does our country excell at?  What can we say we do best?  We have lost our edge, and it is because of misanthropic "leadership" that has put selfishness and greed above the common good.

If you don't believe in the common good, you cannot believe in public transportation, nor can you believe in universal health care.  If you DO believe in the common good, you must believe in and support them both!

Jan

This isn't really true:

It is remarkable how openly and clearly the Bush Government signals its distain for equality,

Remember Animal Farm?  The Bush regime doesn't exactly DISDAIN equality, you see -- some people are just MORE EQUAL than others. 

most Americans,

 ...some say that Bushco doesn't like blacks, but that isn't true.  Bushco just doesn't like poor people, or even middle-class people -- black, white, brown, or in between -- if you are not rich, you deserve the pittance they allow you.

most of the world.

...well, only if you exclude what is left of the coalition of the coerced, (and those countries we can count on to torture in our name).

Sadly, foggylady, it is even worse than you noted.  But at least our prez claims to be an optimist!  I wonder why he is?  Something about entitlement?  Never having a day in his life when he was accountable for his disasters?  Oh, let us count the ways.

Jan

I seem to recall that GM made a very big deal about how much better and cheaper they could run Los Angeles' trolley system, and withing a very few years the trolleys disappeared and everyone had to have a car or starve.

When you put people in charge of what they do not believe should exist, they tend to run it badly. From now on anyone who says that Government should not be in the business of improving peoples' lives should not be in charge of any sort of government.

Across the world the general quality of life is measurable by how much influence the right wing has in government over time.

Jan,

among other things, here's how I see Bush;

Feudalism:

1 : the system of political organization prevailing in Europe from the 9th to about the 15th centuries having as its basis the relation of lord to vassal with all land held in fee and as chief characteristics homage, the service of tenants under arms and in court, wardship, and forfeiture

I remember riding on the DC subway when it first opened. It was right out of sci-fi what with the blinking train arrival lights, computerized fare cards, air conditioning and space age trains. Compared to the antiques on New York's E train, it was a whole new world. Of course, for my grandparents, the subway was their electric age ticket from the slums of the Lower East Side to a steam heated elevator apartment in the glowing utopia of the South Bronx.

Every generation sweats infrastructure spending. The Romans threw off the yoke of the Tarquin kings because they were being taxed to pay for the great sewer project, the Cloaca Maximus. They were that pissed at having to spend money on infrastructure. The Cloaca is still at the heart of Rome's sewer system, so after 2,500 years and a few hundred years as a thriving empire you might think that was money well spent.

The Brooklyn Bridge was 100% over budget, years behind schedule, and workers were dying mysteriously of caisson disease. The late 19th century may have been noted for its corruption and indifference to worker safety, but people then were getting concerned. As it turned out, it was another good investment. I gather that the Brooklyn Bridge is still in use, though not by horse drawn carriages and wagons as originally planned.

Infrastructure is generally expensive. You can't buy 1/10 of a suspension bridge or .5 miles of subway at a pop. That makes it hard to fund. It typically runs over budget and takes longer than planned. Then, everything else bends and twists to conform to the new piece of infrastructure. Potato farms turn into Levittowns, midtown shopping districts evolve, farms and farm towns are created to feed the railroad, factories and offices gambol across the landscape like gazelles. Eventually, the infrastructure reshapes society and is taken for granted.