Light Rail . . . Heavy Subsidy

Here's a short snippet from an article I read yesterday. Evidently, US Census data suggests that spending on mass transit programs tends to benefit a small minority of citizens that---on the whole---overwhelmingly belong to the middle and upper-middle classes. Ironically, these programs are funded by taxes that tend to be born by everyone including the working poor.

Two pertinent segments from the article appear below:

Despite the billions in federal and state taxpayer dollars poured into mass transit programs, only 6,908,323 working Americans take advantage of the subsidized service, according to US Census Bureau data released yesterday. The agency's American Community Survey, a questionnaire mailed to three million households, found that 121,248,284 workers over the age of 16 regularly commuted to work by personal automobile or carpool last year. Despite the comparatively small number served by buses, subways and rail, the Obama Administration has made expanding mass transit a top priority.

The census survey also showed that greater numbers of the working poor used cars and carpools to get to work than transit. A total of 17 percent of transit users reported incomes over $75,000 per year in income while only 10.6 percent fell below the poverty line.

What's significant about this? As I see it, mass transit programs are political darlings, the kind of things that every politician (regardless of party) would like to claim as her own. Usually, the program is promoted as a sympathetic, far-sighted, socially responsible act. These numbers seem to suggest otherwise.

All of this begs the question: if these programs don't help the people they are intended to help, why on earth does Ray LaHood seem so intent on expanding their impact? Or, perhaps in more direct terms: if we insist on mass transit, why not ask those who use it to pay for it?

Thanks to The Newspaper.com for the lead (http://www.thenewspaper.com/news/29/2944.asp).

Bike of the Day: October 30, 2009

Wow, huh??? What a beaut.

One of the advantages or consequences (depending on your perspective) of owning a truck is that you are often called upon to help with moves, wood splitting, miscellaneous hauling, and general yard work. Every year the Boy Scouts in Maple Valley ask me to help them haul bark for a fundraising project. Last year, late in the afternoon we came to the home of a man that had four (count ‘em “four”) amazing bikes hanging in the garage. One of those bikes was the very work of art you see above. While shoveling I said something like “Wow, what an amazing bike.”

The man, a former special ops soldier, narrowed his eyes, looked at me askance, and asked softly, “You like it?”

Uh . . .

“Well, yeah,” I said. “It’s steel, Reynolds 853 no less.”

He paused. “I’ll sell it to you for $800. You sound like you would take care of it.”

I was floored. I told him that as soon as I had finished with the Boy Scouts I would be back with the bills. I ended up going back only to learn that the bike was too large. Dang. Dang. Dang.

At any rate, here are the specs:

27 speed (which I still believe is better than 30)
2003 Ultegra componentry (my favorite year of Shimano's Ultegra and XT componentry)

1. Ultegra double crankset

2. Ultegra 9-speed shifters

3. Ultegra rear derailleur

Reynolds 853 steel tubing (853 is Reynolds’ highest end tubing)

On my mind late on October 29th

I have included below what I felt was one of the most memorable statements from the October 2009 Semiannual General Conference. Elder D. Todd Christofferson made the statment, and he quoted a columnist published in the Deseret News by the name of Walter Williams.

Self-discipline has eroded and societies are left to try to maintain order and civility by compulsion. The lack of internal control by individuals breeds external control by governments. One columnist observed that “gentlemanly behavior [for example, once] protected women from coarse behavior. Today, we expect sexual harassment laws to restrain coarse behavior. . . .

“Policemen and laws can never replace customs, traditions and moral values as a means for regulating human behavior. At best, the police and criminal justice system are the last desperate line of defense for a civilized society. Our increased reliance on laws to regulate behavior is a measure of how uncivilized we’ve become.”