Statism marches on.
The administration has proposed a $527-million increase for its euphemistically named “livable
communities” initiative.1 As benign as “livability” may sound, however, the program’s aim is to impose a Washington-based, central planning model on localities across the country. It does so by creating a new bureaucracy in the Department of Transportation, and by linking Federal transportation funds with local land use decisions to draw suburbanites into the cities, where they will stop driving their own personal cars and instead rely on taxpayer-subsidized public transportation
The word "draw" (above) should be "force."
Forced re-urbanization has been a (D) objective for quite some time. It is the reason that Barrett and Doyle fought the widening of I-94 from downtown to I-894/45, and caused the bridges to almost-fall-down. It is the reason that Henry Maier and his allies stopped construction of a north-side bypass comparable to I-894. (N.B. that the destruction of North Side neighborhoods was already complete AND that the bypass would have been an economic boon to those areas.) It is the reason that Barrett and his allies forced the demolition of the freeway stub to the Lower East Side.
And it has nothing whatsoever to do with "personal car" utilization.
If suburbanites can be forced into (D) congressional districts, they cannot send (R)'s to Congress. It's like putting 1 ounce of liquor into a 500-gallon jug, or one fennel seed into 200 lbs. of Italian sausage.
The objective has always been, and always will be, political control.
HT: The Warrior
From Minneapolis to Salt Lake City to Dallas to Houston to Chicago to New York to Washington DC, the list goes on, more and more Americans are choosing to use mass transit. And if you read the TTI Urban Mobility report 2009 you will see that these subsidies are public investments that actually help us save time and money in the long run. Always gotta look at the big picture.
ReplyDeleteIt's one thing to choose public transit.
ReplyDeleteIt's another thing ENTIRELY to be forced into urban areas.
Read for meaning.